In Birmingham's month-long celebration of Danish culture, the City of Birmingham Symphony has naturally assumed a leading role. Under music director Sakari Oramo, the orchestra brought Discover Denmark to an end with a programme devoted to the country's greatest composer. All Carl Nielsen's symphonies have been heard during the festival, and Oramo saved the Fourth and best, The Inextinguishable, until last.

Two of the other Nielsen works that Oramo included are heard less often. The Helios Overture could have been called a symphonic poem: it was intended as a depiction of the dawn-to-dusk transit of the sun across an Aegean sky. Effectively, though, the musical argument is abstract, and takes only its arch-like structure and blazing central climax from the initial inspiration. If the opening in the depths of the orchestra recalls the beginning of Das Rheingold, what follows is decidedly un-Wagnerian: a series of increasingly energetic episodes reach maximum velocity, then subside into darkness again. Oramo plotted that symmetrical course clearly and tautly, and the slightly edgy, bright sound he gets from the CBSO suits Nielsen perfectly.

For the Clarinet Concerto, Nielsen's final orchestral work, the soloist was principal clarinettist Colin Parr. A suave and fluent player, he was in command of the concerto's considerable technical challenges, but was not irascible enough to bring to life the confrontation with the orchestra that is the work's real dramatic heart.

In The Inextinguishable, though, the drama was unmistakable. Oramo's reading lived on its nerves. Every detail was projected fiercely, every change of dynamic or tempo carefully underlined. Raw-boned and intensely energised, it all culminated in the battle between orchestra and two sets of timpani that propels the finale. The dramatic dialogue of the third movement flagged momentarily, but everything else in the reading demanded attention. Like the symphony itself, its message was unchallengeable.