Here is a strong performance of the Fourth Symphony from the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Ulf Schirmer. The opening has that explosive, incandescent quality this music must have if it is to draw the listener into the ensuing musical argument. I have enjoyed it more than most of the recent rivals I have heard. It has splendid fire and sweeps all before it in its vital, inexorable current. It is powerful and at the same time sensitively characterized. The orchestral playing is responsive and enthusiastic and Schirmer seems to have a natural affinity with the idiom. There are times when I felt his ritardandos were a shade too steep and in the development section of the first movement he pulls back at the molto tranquillo 11 bars before fig. 22 (track 7, 7'31''), surely a character marking not a tempo change. But though this is worth mentioning, I never found his ritardandos intrusive or disruptive. The recording is very well detailed and admirably transparent though not quite as warm as Blomstedt’s EMI version with the same forces, and there is a touch of glare right at the very top. Some may find dynamics a bit extreme (they certainly are by comparison with Rozhdestvensky’s excellently balanced recording – Chandos, 5/94) but I have few serious reservations on that count.
Unlike most rival versions which offer a symphony, this newcomer gives us the glorious Hymnus amoris, a heart-warming score from the mid-1980s. It is sung with evident relish by all concerned and I have to say I prefer Barbara Bonney to her rival on the Chandos disc though, generally speaking, there is not a great deal to choose between the two sets of soloists. Schirmer’s reading is slightly tauter without being less relaxed in spirit. The Little Suite for strings, another endearing score and Nielsen’s Op. 1, also comes off well.
Summing up, as far as the symphony is concerned, Launy Grondahl’s pioneering 1951 performance which has recently reappeared (Dutton Laboratories, 12/96) is in a class of its own. As to recording quality, the BIS recording for Neeme Jarvi – also included in the complete set of the symphonies (DG, 12/93) – is far and away the most natural recording. However, this newcomer is the better performance and I have enjoyed it hugely.'