Royal Stockholm Po/Oramo - Nielsen:Symphonies Nos 2 6

The last instalment of the Nielsen Symphonies cycle with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Sakari Oramo opens with the composer's Symphony No. 2, 'The Four Temperaments', dating from 1901-02. Its origins were in an allegorical picture Nielsen came across in a country inn, illustrating the four temperaments of man as defined in Greco-Roman medicine: anger, apathy, melancholy and carefree abandon. But Nielsen was incapable of drawing anything other than a rounded character-portrait, and consequently the fiery first movement also allows for lyrical episodes, there are moments of stoic nobility in the melancholy, and the march that conclude the sanguine finale is imbued with a certain dignity. 23 years later the composer completed his sixth and final symphony, the Sinfonia semplice ('Simple Symphony'). In the meantime, the Fourth and Fifth symphonies had brought Nielsen the greatest measure of professional recognition he ever enjoyed in his lifetime. In spite of its subtitle, Symphony No. 6 baffled its audiences, however. When beginning to work on it Nielsen had envisaged a work that would be 'quite idyllic in character' - something that is borne out by the opening bars. But by the time he arrived at the last movement, Theme and variations, the work had taken a different course, and as Nielsen later told a friend, the ninth and last variation, scored for tuba and percussion, represents 'death knocking at the door'.