Carl Nielsen wrote this symphony in 1916, very aware of the horrible things that were happening – not in his country, Denmark, but just a few miles away. He felt lucky to be in a neutral place while all around him there was a sense of destruction, and he wanted to make a powerful, emotional stand against this.
He described his ‘Inextinguishable’ as expressing ‘…in case all the world were to be devastated by fire, flood or volcanoes and all things were destroyed and dead, nature would still begin to breed new life again, begin to push forward again with all the fine and strong forces …which are inextinguishable, and are what I have tried to present.’
Nielsen said that the title of the work wasn’t a programme, but only a suggestion about the right approach to the music.
Recorded by RNZ Concert in Auckland Town Hall, 15 April 2021
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay
