In this brilliant concert, Fabio Luisi and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra perform the haunting oriental dances from Carl Nielsen's Aladdin suite, written in 1919 to accompany playwright Adam Oehlenschläger's remarkable play. Next in line is Nielsen’s Symphony no. 6, known as the “Sinfonia semplice” (Simple Symphony). Despite the name, the composer had ambitious goals for his last symphony and treated it as if “each instrument is like a sleeping person, whom I must awaken to life”. Each awoken instrument has its own unique personality and helps the symphony remain both lively and sarcastic, reflecting Nielsen’s own character. This strange ambivalence makes it an enigmatic work, at once luminous and distressing.