Search - Nielsen, Royal Scottish Orch, Thomson :: Nielsen: Complete Symphonies

A Very Solid Nielsen Symphony Cycle, But...

Paul Rossi | Walla Walla, WA | 01/12/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Bryden Thomson and the Royal Scottish Orchestra give very solid, committed performances of all six of Carl Nielsen's symphonies. I had the pleasure of listening to this set at my university's music library while an undergraduate music student. The sound quality, as one can expect from the Chandos label, is excellent.However, Bryden Thomson seems to have some strange tempi, sometimes too fast at crucial climaxes in the symphonies. An example of this is the first movement of Nielsen's First Symphony. At one of the big orchestral G Minor sections he starts out very slowly, then picks up too much, sounding rushed and awkward. The symphony still comes off very nicely, but there are other times when the orchestra plays too loudly, distorting the sound.Furthermore, the Nielsen symphonies remain a very competitive realm, both quality-wise and price-wise. While this is a nice set, there is absolutely no reason for you to purchase it when you can buy Herbert Blomstedt's outstanding Nielsen symphony cycle with the San Francisco Symphony (two London "Double Decca" CD's). It even includes several of Nielsen's important orchestral works ("Aladdin" Suite, "Maskarade" Overture, Hymnus Amoris), whereas Thomson's set is restricted to symphonies only. Myung-Whun Chung also offers a wonderful set on the Finnish BIS label. It is more expensive, but it includes better performances of the symphonies, along with all three Nielsen concertos. I would go to Blomstedt (especially) or Chung, rather than to Thomson, for these works!"