Repertoire: The BEST Nielsen "Inextinguishable" (Symphony No. 4) 

I absolutely love the Martinon/CSO recording; the intensity is overwhelming. Also remarkable because many seem to treat the Martinon era as a lost period in the CSO between Reiner and Solti. But they made a number of excellent recordings under him, as the RCA box shows.

That Scottish National Orchestra version of Nielsen's 4th Symphony "The Inextinguishable" conducted by Alexander Gibson is so hot that a fire extinguisher couldn't even put out its flames.

Being a timpanist, I would say that the ultimate test for a best recording would be the best rendition of the last movement which involves the difficult battle between 2 sets of timpani. The 3/4 tempo is so fast that the articulation can sometimes be lost.Both timpanists MUST use the exact same staccato mallets to maintain similarity .Just my opinion, of course.

I just listened to the Martinon recording (without the pause). Wow! What music! What a performance! Thanks so much for the recommendations! I'll have to go listen to the Szell and Toscanini.

David, you treasure. Thank you. Gibson of all people in this fabulous symphony. I have a theory, he did not get in the way because the players ignored him. Many could not see his beat, so they did the sensible thing.

David, you're using your quarantine very productively--I'm enjoying your Repertoire series enormously. I have all of the recordings you discuss and agree wholeheartedly about all of them--and I'm equally vexed by the pause in the Martinon recording!

I just heard the 4th this evening live with the Oregon Symphony, Carlos Kalmar conducted. It was great! I hope they have recorded it for later release

Just listened Paavo Järvi’s version, from his cycle with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Big contender!

Oh I'm so glad i have this exact same Gibson CD with Nielsen and Sibelius. Bought it 25 years ago! ;=)

Thank you very much for making someone at BMG/RCA listen and correct a MAJOR mistake 👍

David thanks for your review of Nielsen Sym 4 - your recommendation of Gibson was top class - I have that CD in my collection and had it played it for years and years - really did enjoy it - and some other nice pieces on CD - RayGinn

I'll speculate--I had the lp of the Martinon, and if memory serves, that stop on the cd was where you flipped over the record to side B. Great performance, in any case.

Thank you so much for this review. I must go back and listen to the two recordings I have, Blumstedt and Jarvi. Next week Blumstedt is conducting it with the Cleveland Orchestra. I have heard it every time it has been played here in my life time which I think is four times. Being a percussionist how could I miss it. The Colorado Symphony is playing it this season as well. A friend of mine plays timpani there but don't think I can make that concert. Love your stuff.

I got the Martinon recording on its initial CD issue and was startled and irritated by that artificial pause. I have the Martinon/Chicago box and am relieved the recording was corrected. BTW that entire box is excellent. I was expecting you might mention Karajan on DG as a recording to avoid.

I just listened to some of the Oramo version. Pretty thrilling!

For me, the absolute best, is Jean Martinon. It completely captures Nielsen's concept.

David, it’s understandable that you inadvertently said “Sibelius” meaning to say Nielsen. (I chuckled when you looked up for the thunderbolt). My love of Sibelius’ music got me to explore Scandinavian music in general. And Nielsen was one I invested in. Not that he’s like Sibelius, but a great Symphonist in his own right.

Love the Martinon Chicago box but actually the first time I heard this symphony was a BBC Prom conducted by Sir Alexander Gibson back in 1979. Wasn’t aware of his recording

I love the Martinon recording and OT the 2nd conducted by Morton Gould hard to beat IMO.

I used the Blomstedt recordings of #4 and #5 as a test of the capacity of a sound system to create loud, clear sound without breaking up.

You were the one that got BMG to fix the 11 sec pause in the Martinon? Thank you. THANK YOU! It drove me nuts. The original LP had the side break in the exact same spot (pretty bad itself) so they could add the Helios Overture at end of side two. I assumed some editor just transferred the LP to CD and added a 10 sec pause between side one and side two.

Re: Gibson - not too surprising if one considers just great that set of Sibelius Tone Poems/Legends he made for Chandos is. Also, thank you for pointing the excellence of the Martinon/Chicago box. Personally, I think much of that Martinon stuff is among the most musical sounding recordings the C.S.O. have ever made. That's just me. I'm not huge on the Solti era.

Witnessed Luisi’s live recording with The Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra of the 4th on Thursday for Deutsche Grammophone. I was seated right behind the brass section, so hard to tell overall, but it was a blazingly fast performance. They played their asses of that one. Noticeable from the very beginning when he stepped on the podium, no looking back. A great experience! Now, one can say a lot about Luisi and certainly Deutsche Grammophone, but I think this one will rank well up there with Blomstedt, Oramo, Gilbert and Gibson.

I would add Colin Davis/LSO to this list. His whole Nielsen cycle is splendid, and the sound quality is top shelf.

David thought you might have given a mention to the 4th from the Kuchar cycle (I got that after your recommendation on CT).

In agreement about how spectacular that finale is, and can be in the right hands. I'm giving the Gibson a listen on Spotify. It does sound very crisp. I also love the 2nd and 3rd movements very much, the 2nd has a neo renaissance feeling and kinda reminds me of fireflies at night for some reason, and the 3rd is intense, very pre Shostakovich.

I'd be curious what you make of two of my favorite in this piece: Ole Schmidt and Colin Davis. Like Gibson they plow all the way through but take the finale at an even headier, Martinon-level clip. In Davis's case I suppose he gets even accelerates. Davis's cycle as a whole is rather dull but I do love that Nielsen 4 and the Schmidt even moreso.

You have me torn on whether I should see the Cleveland Orchestra perform no. 4 with Blomstedt conducting next month. Thanks for your insight 👍

Gibson made some really terrific recordings with the Scottish National Orchestra, this is definitely one of them! Agree also about the Oramo set, I think he's very underrated. His recording of Mahler 5 is superb and I saw him do a fantastic Tchaikovsky Manfred at the Proms many years ago with the CBSO. Also, and I know you're not a fan of his ongoing Mahler cycle, but what about Vanska and the BBC Scottish SO (easily one of the two best BBC orchestras - along with the BBC Philharmonic... Not the BBC SO!). His Nielsen 4 is really very good and he keeps the momentum going. Saw him conduct the orchestra at the Proms once too doing Nielsen 4 and the timps really went for it. Stephen Hough played the Paganini Rhapsody on the programme too... It was brilliant.

Hi David, do you know Ulf Schirmer's recording with the Danish RSO on Decca? It's a "sleeper" in my opinion!

I often purchase classical music from The Berkshire Record Outlet, a great place to purchase discounted classical music, and when I was searching for Nielsen symphonies the people at BRO made a laughable error. Rather than call Nielsen's 4th the 'Inextinguishable' they called it the 'Indistinguishable' - lol!!! PDQ Bach eat your heart out. I brought this to their attention and they too got a good chuckle out of it.

Speaking of the Royal Stockholm, what about the Rozhdestvensky cycle he did there in the 90’s on Chandos?

Heard performance blomstedt do bruckner 6 w ny Philharmonic. Wow.

Alas, the Gibson Nielsen 4th is pretty much unobtainable, but I'm happy with the Oramo. That said, my true favorite performance of the 4th is Launy Groendahl, from 1947, I think. It's a 78 transfer with much better sound than you would expect, and I don't think anyone has ever put such excitement into a performance as Groendahl does here, especially in the build-up to the climax in the last movement. He keeps pushing forward the entire time

A sleeper for "Inextinguishable" true believers: Igor Markevitch conducting the Royal Danish Orchestra, recorded in 1965. (Bernstein conducted his celebrated Nielsen Third in the same year with the same orchestra). The Markevitch "Inextinguishable" isn't well-recorded and is often rough-and-ready in execution, but is nonetheless a blazing, impassioned performance. I've always rated it second to Martinon's as an interpretation. The Markevitch Nielsen 4 was recorded for the Danish Radio's house label FONA (suggesting that it may have been a concert or one-take studio recording) and was subsequently licensed to DG's Heliodor and Vox Turnabout labels in the vinyl era. It was recently reissued in "Igor Markevitch, Vol. 1" on a two-CD Doremi set along with symphonies by Beethoven (No. 1) and Haydn (Nos. 103 and 104) with the Lamoureux Orchestra and "Scheherazade" with the London Symphony (Erich Gruening on solo violin). You can hear Markevitch's Nielsen 4 here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K2hGxOzRcs4.html

With the piano (if not the ritardando) at the end of the 4th movement Blomstedt follows the text of the critical edition.

Dave, Took your advise on this one. Fine recommendation. If you don't mind a download, & I don't, you can get the entire Gibson album for as little as $10.00 as mp3 files. Or, do as I did, download the entire album as flac files for $12.00. Great music, great price, instant gratification. Would that other things in life were so straightforward. Mark Lee Austin, TX

Your cat is beautiful I saw him walk in the background .or her

Ha! Ha! Ha! The Martinon pause is due to the old LP, where you had to turn over the disc between mvt 3 and 4. Greatest of the recordings still after all these years.

Pleasantly surprised to see that Gibson Chandos CD. I recall buying it really cheap 20 years ago(?) along with it's companion, compilation CD of him doing the 5th (+Nielsen+Sibelius shorter works). Thought these long gone! Loved the Helios overture coupled with the 5th, though the 5th did have a bit of a clumsy sounding side drum to my ears. I always preferred Gibson's 4th to the highly rated Karajan DG digital 4th I have on vinyl, mainly because the high strings on the Karajan finale sound unpleasantly like a buzzsaw going thru sheet metal. Chandos almost always offers great sound, in pre-digital days too. I also enjoyed Gibson on an old Sibelius' 3 + 6 Symph, Chandos LP, with rich warm sound.

You are a real pisser. Love every second.

Hi, I am your new follower

Hi David. The first performance of Nielsen no. 4 I heard was in the '90s, and it was the Berglund. Since then I've heard others you have there; I agree with the superiority in performances and engineering, and with your comments on the "big theme", especially in the finale, but still I believe it's only Berglund who had that right. Firstly, Nielsen's tempo and metronome markings are clear (tempo giusto, and including minim/half = 90), but other performances, including the "great" ones, are two thirds that tempo, and some get slower at the diminuendo. To me, it sounds like it's just resting in the water for a while before deciding a final chord with some thumping is needed to show the audience it's time to leave. I know Berglund's strings are hanging on by their fingernails, but for me it's the difference between "loud and grand for grand's sake" and "bloody exciting". At the end of this work I prefer bloody exciting.

don't know if you mentioned the LSO/Schmidt recording, but its amazing and his has this kind of raw intensity that this music really needs, not for pussies so to say. The 5th is also exciting. So frustrating that his symphonies are so seldom programmed in the Netherlands

I'd probably add Karajan's BPO version to the not-so-good list. The playing is fantastic, but Karajan somehow made it sound like Bruckner. There is an LP that most likely hasn't made it to CD; Max Rudolf and the Cincinnati Symphony. I learned it from this recording and it's not too bad. (I hadn't discovered Martinon's yet. ) Although it's been surpassed, there's no doubt Rudolf knew what he was doing. BTW: I've performed it (as a trombonist) and it's one of the most exciting and rewarding pieces to play, especially when the timpani passages work out.

Here all this time I thought it was called "The Indistinguishable"

So right about Bernstein's Neilsen 4. Its embarrassingly awful.

I thought the Karajan recording on DG incredibly shallow. He just gets it all wrong.