NIELSEN: SYMPHONY NO. 2; “PAN AND SYRINX:” “ALADDIN” SUITE. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony. CBS Masterworks MK 44934 (compact disc).

Conductors are lining up to record Carl Nielsen’s orchestral music now, and the attraction is not hard to understand. Nielsen offers the wide-ranging, crowd-pleasing emotional gamut and sonic glitter of the most popular late-Romantic and nationalist composers, yet seems adventurous in the bargain--Tchaikovsky without the apologies. Salonen stresses the immediacy of “The Four Temperments” Symphony and the kinetic flamboyance of “Aladdin,” exploiting the able services of the lean-sounding, hard-hitting Swedes to the maximum. The pacing is swift, the textures clear, and the musical/psychological contrasts almost brutal.