Nielsen: Symphonies Nos. 4 'The Inextinguishable' & 5

"At last! Nielsen's two best-known symphonies in modern performances with real fire in their belly...he [Davis] brings animal excitement to the task, such a thrilling sense of discovery and existential danger" Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine April 2011

"Nielsen is still not part of the regular concert-hall repertoire in Britain, but if anything could persuade you that he should be, it's these vivid and dramatic performances... The London Symphony Orchestra rises to the challenges magnificently, throwing contrasts into high relief, and punching out the rhythms on brass and percussion. Colin Davis conducts expertly."
(Daily Telegraph)

"Nielsen's last two symphonies form a response to the first world war and its aftermath...Their uncompromising nature is often fearfully enhanced in this pair of hard-hitting live performances from Colin Davis and the LSO...The playing and recording are both exemplary"
(Guardian)

"This is music in which the creative act is no longer a virtue but a necessity, and it is this unequivocal aspect Davis conveys in a performance which maintains onward drive at all costs...With forward yet sonorous SACD sound that is among the best that LSO Live has yet achieved, this disc bodes well for the rest of Davis's Nielsen cycle over the coming year." International Record Review, March 2011

"Both these interpretations, recorded live at the Barbican, surge along with the full-throated splendour that is a London Symphony Orchestra trademark. In the magnificent Fifth Symphony...Davis's control of pace unfolds a performance of wonderful, unexaggerated drama and humanity, as fine as any I've heard." Classic FM Magazine, April 2011 ****