While perhaps not altogether up to the technical standards of the best Scandinavian orchestras, the New York Scandia Symphony has its collective heart in the right place and that counts for a lot. Sure, the strings aren't quite as tight as they should be, the woodwinds aren't quite as colorful as they might be, and the brass aren't quite as polished as they ought to be, but at least on this disc of lesser-known orchestral works by Danish composer Carl Nielsen, they clearly have the feel of the music deep in their bones. Listen to the upper winds bend and weave in the Aladdin Suite -- don't they sound idiomatic? Listen to the solo horn ring out just before the closing fugue in the Rhapsody Overture -- doesn't it sound heroic? Listen to the lightness and clarity of the strings in the opening of the Amor and the Poet Overture -- don't they sound like the north wind blowing through the reeds?
Likewise, while conductor
Dorrit Matson is perhaps not at the same level as the great Scandinavian conductors of the past, she has the pulse of it in her blood and that counts for just about everything. She may not quite climb the same heights or plumb the same depths as Erik Tuxen or Launy Grøndahl, but she still finds the same feeling for rhythm, the same sense of exaltation, the same tone of barely contained excitement that make Nielsen's music so thrilling. While longtime Nielsen listeners may already have their favorite older recordings of some of these works, even they will have to acknowledge the essential rightness of
Matson's interpretations. Centaur's sound is reasonably accurate but still a bit hard and a tad edgy.