These all make a better case for the composer than his flawed and bloated Fifth Symphony (1941-58), which Naxos has also just released from the same forces. The Symphony's first version (1942) comprised just the first movement: he should have let it go at that. Excellend sound for both discs.

Resisting the abstraction and atonal trends of the mid-20th century, Alfven has created truly beautiful music, yet music with substance and intellectual worth, rather than blandly pleasing elevator music.

The symphony draws heavily on themes from the composer’s 1923 ballet, “The Mountain King,” and uses instruments such as harp and celesta for variety and musical emphasis.

The first movement is not uncommonly programmed around the world, but the whole work is rarely performed. This recording completes Naxos’ cycle of the complete Alfven symphonies.

High drama sweeps through the ranks of full orchestra right from the start of hugo Alfven’s fifth, last, symphony. It is an epic work, and no mistake, challenging the most extrovert music of Strauss and Tchaikovsky. …the beautiful little instrumental Andante religioso…represents a sustained feat of imagination on the part of Sweden’s leading romanticist, a one-time violinist who also found time to paint and write. Willén and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra turn in a marvellous performance. I suspect they thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and if your taste runs to full-bore romantic escapism, I suspect you will thoroughly enjoy it too.

"Naxos is a company which seems to take a long view and it has embarked on many worthwhile series. This one started with recordings made in 1996 and now concludes with Alfvén’s final symphony, a work which occupied him for a comparable amount time before it was first performed in 1953. He continued to revise it for several years afterwards and was never fully satisfied with the third and fourth movements. Tim Perry has already reviewed this disc (see review) and found the result “phenomenal”, making it a bargain of the month in March. This is only the second recording of the work – Neeme Järvi’s 1992 rendition with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra being the competition."

"I share Tim Perry’s view that the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Niklas Willén meet these challenges very successfully. What is more, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a more convincing reading than Järvi’s. The difference between the two versions largely lies in atmosphere and Willén’s version captures this more successfully and holds the attention more consistently – particularly in the big spans of the outer movements. In the slow movement there is a bittersweet feeling here which Järvi only hints at. This is a version that might just rehabilitate the piece and set it alongside the fourth as the pinnacle of his work rather than some fumblings of old age."