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The third volume in Naxos’s new series presents the dramatic and highly popular Symphony No. 2, which emerges from the northern mists, cultivating a pastoral atmosphere along the way, to reach a grandiose, heroic finale.
One of Sibelius’s best loved compositions, the Karelia Suite presents a series of musical tableaux based on stirring episodes from Finnish history.
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43
I. Allegretto
II. Tempo andante, ma rubato
III. Vivacissimo
IV. Finale: Allegro moderato
Jean Sibelius: Karelia Suite, Op. 11
I. Intermezzo: Moderato
II. Ballade: Tempo di menuetto
III. Alla marcia: Moderato
September 2011
**
“the New Zealanders' playing is expert, and the well-balanced and rounded recording gives due weight to Sibelius's double bass and tuba parts.”
July 2011
****
“You don't get any surprises in this 'big picture' Second Symphony, just clarity of structure and effective pacing - particularly in the Andante, which unfolds with great patience and astute shifts in speed. All that care, and then conductor Inkinen bears his soul just in time for the build-up to the big tune - a magnificent effect...This Karelia's intermezzo is one of the subtlest and effecting on record.”
2nd April 2011
****
“The third volume of Inkinen’s Sibelius cycle with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra boasts the same sure interpretative instincts, warm-hearted playing and excellent sound as its predecessors. Inkinen takes an unashamedly romantic view of the Second Symphony, and the Karelia Suite provides an atmospheric filler.”
May 2011
“this is a scrupulously played and artfully coloured performance (the horn quartet, for instance, is impressively rich). It's also unfailingly attentive to the musical architecture...[Inkinen] has such unerring control over large-scale development (especially long-range dynamics and tempo relationships) that the music never loses direction”
10th April 2011
****
“In Sibelius’s Second Symphony, he elicits a sound that is rich, bottom-heavy, but always transparent, the colours deep, the inner textures clear...Most impressive, however, is his generous, intelligent shaping of the work, whose climactic coalescings he relishes for their own sake, rather than to self-glorify.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
I. Allegretto
