“Ruthless but innocent – like a child playing with dynamite” – thus wrote the Danish press at the first performance of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No.1 in 1894.

This acclaimed recording cycle by the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert shows Denmark’s national composer as one of the wildest and most dynamic composers of early modernism. On this issue, Nielsen’s impressive symphonic debut work is combined with the epoch-making 4th symphony 'The Inextinguishable', written in the midst of the First World War and during a stormy period in the composer’s private life.

Reviews of the live performance in March 2014:
“If there is any composer that Alan Gilbert conducts to perfection, it is Carl Nielsen.” - The New Yorker

“A thrilling demonstration of a sensibility balanced between Romantic and Modernist… An occasion to celebrate for Nielsen lovers everywhere.” - New York Times

“The Nielsen sound brings out the best in the Philharmonic: muscular, warm, open-throated, even slightly rough playing that seems ideal.” - New York Classical Review