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

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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.

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