Sibelius Symphonies

otto, you like strauss and sibelius, have your tried bantock? this is a composer from the british isles who should be heard, not your typical bucolic english music. he was a contempoary of both strauss and sibelius. his music was influenced by liszt and wagner. talk about a convergence of the planets! if you haven't, try hebridean symphony on hyperion label for starters. excuse the presumption.........

Newbee,

Thank you for your suggestion regarding Bantock's Hebridean Symphony. To be honest with you, I have difficulty to approach 20 century music.

Happy Listening!

Otto

Surprised that no one mentioned the Sergstam with the Danish SO...Sergstam did his best with the limitations of the Danish, would prefer if he recorded the set with the great Helsinki orchestra. The recordings are good, but i may have to recommend the Sanderling. The Berlin, not my favorite orchestra, but certainly out does the modest Danish. Sergstam is a great conductor for bringing out nuances in all his Sibelius. But the legendary Barbirolli possibly comes through as the set to own. But i love Sibelius ...so i have 3 sets. Do not buy Davis with the London SO. The worst in all catalogue. Davis with the Boston is very interesting on 2 and 5.(or 7?) BYW for SYM. #1, Rozdenvesky with the London (album) is excellent. Kamu with the Helsinki (album) is very good. DG did not release all the Kamu's Sibelius recordings on CD.??? The one to own on SYM #1 is the Stokowski and the National. Of all classical legendary recordings (i'll soon start a thread on this list) this recording is just superb. What a genius Stokowski!

Check out Paavo Berglund complete sibielius symph. with the chamber orch. of Europe on the FINLANDIA label. Very good readings by top notch players. And very well recorded by Tony Faulkners and Onno ?( whats his lastname).

Best complete set for me is Maazel/London, recorded in 1960's this is a young Maazel giving us a set for the ages with great sound that betters most new modern recordings.

I own the critics darlings like Ashkenazy, Davis, Karajan, Berglund etc but much prefer the Maazel set even though there are few other Maazel works I really like. Other sets I prefer are Bernstein/Sony and Gibson/Chandos.....three great sets there that are not normally touted heavily by critics.

For Karajan much prefer his EMI recordings to critics favorite DG versions, the Barbirolli/Chesky 2nd is magnificent and essential. The Szell/Phillips 50 2nd is very good also but Barbirolli mentioned is a touch better.

Have not heard the Vanska/BIS set yet.....the Kamu 1,2,3 performances contained on DG Trio CD are well worth getting although sound is not great. The Neemi Jarvi and Mariss Jansons performances are very good buy not quite elite status, still preferred to Ashkenazy, Davis etc.