Three other great recordings

Jean Martinon (conductor)

Issued originally on the RCA budget ‘Victrola’ label, Jean Martinon’s 1971 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra remains arguably the most viscerally exciting. Here is symphonic coherence, but also an urgency that is sometimes riveting. Things almost come to grief in the last movement, when low strings lag behind their higher cousins in a quiet, canonic passage – but this is a small price to pay and the Chicago performance remains iconic. (RCA 82876762372)

Neeme Järvi (conductor)

Järvi’s conducting has sometimes appeared terse to the point of impatience, but in this 1993 Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra recording this pays dividends, even if the second movement’s tempo sits at the upper limit. The outer movements are powerful and the finale’s opening especially arresting. The woodwind incantations in the slow movement are initially more enigmatic than confrontational, and answered by the strings in an expertly paced build-up. Overall, it is a performance driven by utter conviction. (BIS BISCD600)

Esa-pekka Salonen (conductor)

In his 1986 recording with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Salonen’s view is selflessly at the service of the music but, in many places, individual, bringing forward (aided by some cunning engineering) surprising elements from within the texture and sometimes emphasising a chamberlike intimacy. The finale doesn’t push too hard too soon, discovering an unexpected, almost dance-like lightness of footing at its outset – but these timpanists are possibly the rawest and most menacing of all, especially in the sinister passage following the more relaxed middle section. (Sony Classical 88875167972)

And one to avoid…

Sir Simon Rattle’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra reading promises well but emerges heavy and oddly disengaged, with surprisingly ragged moments and a disabling lack of organic propulsion. Despite a smooth early transition into the second subject, there’s a general lack of momentum in climactic passages. A ponderous second movement misses Nielsen’s occasional tone of mockcourtly, rustic burlesque, and the slow movement is uninvolving after its powerful string opening.