Here the two Swedish Nielsen cycles come into direct competition, for Myung-Whun Chung's Gothenburg performance of the Second Symphony on BlS/Conifer is also coupled with the Aladdin Suite, the only difference being that the Stockholm version uses the excellent Swedish Radio Chorus in ''The Market Place in Isphahan'' and the ''Dance of the Negroes''. Esa-Pekka Salonen's version offers an additional work, Pan and Syrinx. In all three pieces he gets very responsive playing from the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and having been less than ecstatic about his accounts of the First, Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, it is a pleasure to welcome the present well-characterized performance.
The First Symphony had put Nielsen firmly on the map in his native Denmark. The Four Temperaments, written ten years later at the beginning of the present century and dedicated to Busoni consolidated his position. Both symphonies show roots that are at once European and Danish: Brahms, Dvorak and, of course, Svendsen, under whom he served in the Royal Danish Orchestra, are there but the directness of his language stems from Danish song. The programmatic startingpoint of the symphony comes from a set of pictures Nielsen had seen in a village inn portraying the Four Temperaments. Yet the symphony can be heard as pure music without any knowledge of its inspiration. The first is a fine, concentrated sonata-form movement, tautly held together and keenly dramatic in feeling: Nielsen remembered the picture as showing a man on horseback, waving his sword wildly, his eyes rolling out of his head, consumed by fury. I rather like Salonen's youthful, impulsive opening, which plunges us straight into the action, breathless with anger. It is brisker than the rival versions from Chung and Ole Schmidt (in his three-disc set on Unicorn-Kanchana (CD) CD2000/02, 7/87) or, for that matter, earlier and now deleted readings such as Jensen (EMI), Garaguly (Vox), and the mid-1970s Blomstedt (EMI). Even if he could afford to give himself more space (and he does steady himself a little later), he captures the choleric character perfectly. He also gives an idiomatic account of the second movement, a lazy waltz-movement portraying a phlegmatic youngster without any apparent care in the world. The tempo could perhaps afford to be a little lazier. The most impressive of the four, however, is the melancholic where Salonen shows both nobility and dignity, and secures eloquent and expressive playing from the orchestra. The finale is a bit headlong, perhaps, but taken by and large, this is without doubt the best thought-out reading of the cycle and the Stockholm orchestra responds with real enthusiasm.
Pan and Syrinx is atmospheric though it does not have quite the same breadth and mystery as Rattle's (EMI). The Aladdin Suite is imaginatively done and the orchestral playing is excellent. Salonen gets a silky, sensuous quality from the strings and the wind playing is sensitive too. It strikes me as every bit as good as and often superior (''Aladdin's Dream'' and ''The Market Place in Isphahan'') to Myung-Whun Chung and the Gothenburg orchestra. However, the recording, made in the Berwald Hall, Stockholm, lacks the presence or transparency of the BIS, which has the inestimable advantage of the celebrated Gothenburg Concert Hall acoustic. The CBS recording is well lit, though not overbright and taken on its own would not occasion much adverse comment but the superior focus, detail and perspective of the BIS tells. But this issue deserves a warm welcome and can be recommended alongside but not in preference to its BIS rival.'