Search - Nielsen, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Schonwandt :: Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5

Another exciting Naxos reissue of prime quality

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 01/26/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When Michael Schonwandt and his Danish forces released their complete Nielsen cycle in 2000 on the small Dacapo label, quite a few critics raved. Needless to say, the musicians have this idiom down pat; you feel the authenticity of every note. The recording itself is clear and detailed, with plenty of impact -- that's important in both symphonies, since they contain some of Nielsen's most explosive writing. (The duel for two timpanists in the finale of the "Inextinguishable" has been an audiophile thrill for a long time, and it's splendidly carried off here.) The snare drum obligatto that depicts the horror of warfare in Sym. no. 5 is another spine-tingling event when done right, as it is in this recording.



I'm afraid that thrills and spills is where Schonwandt's readings fall a bit short. They are played on a human scale, which makes sense, but if you turn to recordings by Karajan (Sym. 4 only), Bernstein, and Salonen, there's an added virtuosity that the Danish National Sym. cannot match. What they have going for them is spirit. If you listen to the early Danacord recordings of these two works, made long before the Nielsen upsurge begun by Bernstein in the Sixties -- he was just as influential as in the Mahler revival -- those old Danish conductors went hell for leather in these scores. Schonwandt holds back a bit, but he's nowhere as tame as, say, Blomstedt or Berglund, good as they are. Also, he shows more style than the kinetic Neeme Jarvi.



For its combination of menace and sweeping emotion, Bernstein's classic recording of the Fifth with the NY Phil. isn't likely to be surpassed. Karajan's Fourth is overwhelming, even though it never feels as right as this home-grown product. Schonwandt is the Nielsen of choice for bargain hunters, and others, too."