It's fairly shocking that in over twenty years of doing the CCM, we've yet to have a piece by the great Danish composer, Carl Nielsen. Indeed, weirdly, there's thus far not been a clip of any composer whose last name begins with "N." Well, this month we rectify that by bringing the composer who not only wrote lush, glorious works, but also had the most distinctive haircut in arts and entertainment until, at least, Garry Moore.

Nielsen's six symphonies are all worth getting to know. The first two are fresh, daring works, still full of vitality today. His Fifth Symphony, which is his best-known one and generally considered to be his magnum opus, lives up to the hype. But for this month's clip I've chosen his last–and easily his strangest–symphony, the Symphony #6, the so-called "Simple Symphony." At turns poignant, charming, grotesque, and melodious, a good deal of the work seems almost like it is controlled by a forced irony, thankfully more in the vein of, say, Mahler's Ninth Symphony than say, anything that Shostakovich ever attempted in a similar vein. (I'm reminded of Boulez's withering comment that Shostakovich was "Like Mahler without the inner voices".) In listening to it, I find myself in a situation I rarely do: not sure what the piece is about, its meaning or motivation, and not sure even of its cohesion, and yet I simply like the piece.

This month's clip is from perhaps the oddest part of the work, the seemingly forced humor of the Humoresque movement, for winds and percussion alone. The clip is from the opening of the movement, and shows Nielsen pushing his tonal language to its limits.