Jean Sibelius Recordings

LOL at myself - I guess I don't know the difference between a conductor and a director! Nice that no one thought to correct me. :-)

I just finished listening to the symphonies yesterday with Rattle and Berlin. The sound on Qobuz is excellent. I enjoyed how the details were illuminated by the incandescent soloists of that great orchestra. Rattle achieves beautiful balances and pacing which logically leads to the climaxes revealing the integrity of Sibelius' structures.

I haven’t gotten around to listening to Rattle yet.  The reviews have been mixed, with the British Critics offering their predictable raves and elsewhere some dissent. The newer Sibelius that I have been comparing is Makela vs Rouvali.

  Berglund did 3 sets.  I have the first, from Bournemouth.  They are very different, especially the chamber set.

  Sibelius Third is one of my favorites.  It sounds like he is trying to absorb Bruckner and discard the Tchaikovsky.  The Forth is fascinating as he was fighting cancer and does have that looking-into-the-abyss feel to it, while the Fifth seems to breathe a soy of relief.  The Sixth is the hardest nut to crack for me.  It’s his Pastorale, where a trip into the woods of the North Woods and Lakes is filled with luminescent beauty, whereas in the Seventh and Tapiola the Norse Gods seem to be plotting to use those same forests for malevolent ends

Love your descriptions of the symphonies. My favorites are the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th. The 7th not so much. More abstract - a one off I think. #1 and # 2 are a great place to start with Sibelius but not to end up (That #2 never seams to end sometimes. I have the Makela set - have listened to it about 3 times and so far I'm not hearing anything unique or revelatory. Just OK. I don't have the Rouvali (yet). Most everything else though. No one ever mentions Jarvi, but his Sibelius on BIS ain't that bad. Try his third. FWIW I really don't care for overbroad performances, i.e. slow, even when done by a Finn. I have most of Vanska's recordings - I find them, generally, very reliable and BIS's recordings very good. I think I prefer the earlier BIS recordings. Re Berglund's COE performances, they remind me of what Harnoncourt did with Beethoven for those who tired of overbroad, over scored, stuff that had become a standard. Ditto for Schubert's 8 and 9 by Mackerras on Virgin.Guess I just like the COE. :-)

Yeah, the first two symphonies are great works, but for me they became over familiar as I played them to death and didn't move on with Sibelius for a couple of decades.  The First is an outstanding First Symphony filled with great music.  The Colin Davis BSO recording is superb with deep brooding strings.  As I've said before the debts to Tchaikovsky are obvious and Sibelius realy finds his own voice in the 3rd.  The Second was revolutionary for it's time, especially the First Movement which dispenses with an introduction and transition material between the themes.  And in the last movement that you say goes on forever, we hear Sibelius absorbing the Bruckner influence, of hammering away repetitively and then changing key signatures at the climactic moment, producing that "sunrise" (others refer to it as orgasmic) sensation.