Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 82 - download (MP3 & FLAC)

Mark Obert-Thorn, producer and audio restoration engineer

This is the last of three volumes containing the complete Sibelius recordings conducted by Robert Kajanus in performances which carry the composer’s imprimatur. Sibelius said of Kajanus that “there are none who have gone deeper and given [my symphonies] more feeling and beauty”. The volatility and extended climaxes of Symphony No. 3 are perfectly shaped. Symphony No. 5 also takes flight majestically, not least in the ‘swan theme’ of the finale.

Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund, who passed away in January 2012, was one of the last remaining conductors with a direct personal connection to Sibelius. With the Second and Seventh Symphonies already released on the LPO Label, Berglund’s Sibelius legacy is further cemented in these live concert recordings with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, in which he vividly captures the natural flight of the Fifth Symphony and the freefall journey of the Sixth.

The affinity Berglund felt with the music of Jean Sibelius went beyond shared nationality and personal acquaintance. Berglund revealed a rare physicality in Sibelius’s scores. It was there in his three recorded symphony cycles, but in these late London performances it emerged in a different, darker light. Berglund wasn’t as meticulous about observing marked tempi as some of his younger compatriots are. Instead he was impulsive, rugged and heartfelt. But his instincts always seemed to serve the musical architecture, the curious symphonic meta-flow unique to Sibelius. His death in January 2012 was talked of as a goodbye to one of the last conductors of the ‘old school’.

At first glance, Sibelius and Lutosławski may seem odd bedfellows on disc, but not in this instance. This disc couples the two works for which these composers are probably best remembered. Sibelius’ Symphony No.5 and Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Interestingly, Lutosławski, in admiration of Sibelius, travelled to Finland in May 1955 to meet the venerable composer at his own Sibelius Festival.

‘Sibelius’s music is characterised by constant switches of tempo but Saraste, conducting from memory, negotiated the gear changes with idiomatic empathy, steering his players confidently through the turbulent shoals of the start of the finale to the culminating oceanic currents.’ Barry Millington, Evening Standard, 16 October 2008.

Since 2010 Jukka-Pekka Saraste has been Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. He has also been Music Director of the Oslo Philharmonic since 2006. His discography includes the complete symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen with the Finnish Radio Orchestra, as well as works by Bartók, Dutilleux, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. His most recent recordings are Mahler Symphony No. 6 and DVD releases of Sibelius Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5 with the Oslo Philharmonic, as well as Mahler Symphony No. 9 with the WDR Symphony Orchestra.

BIS present a new recording of Jean Sibelius’s Symphonies 2 and 5 from the Minnesota Orchestra and their Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä.

Beginning in the early 1990s, seminal recordings with Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra of tone poems and the seven symphonies stood at the forefront of a new interpretative approach to the composer’s music.

Vänskä’s recordings of Sibelius over the past 20 years form the backbone of the label’s newly completed Sibelius Edition.

This disc with the Minnesota Orchestra follows an acclaimed cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies, and most recently a recording of Bruckner’s Fourth (‘Romantic’) Symphony.

The Sibelius expert Robert Layton presents the Second Symphony as ‘the symphony by which many music lovers find their way to Sibelius’, and quotes the composer in a comment about symphonic form: ‘a river with innumerable tributaries feeding it before it broadens majestically and flows into the sea’.

This CD release features the popular Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 by Jean Sibelius as piano transcriptions, performed by Henri Sigfridsson on piano.

Ever since its triumphant premiere, the Second Symphony has been one of Sibelius’s most frequently performed works; of his symphonies, only the Fifth comes close in popularity. The works’ grandiose Romanticism is brought into sharp highlight in these transcriptions for piano solo.

Finnish pianist Henri Sigfridsson has used the Sibelius-sanctioned arrangement of the Fifth Symphony by Karl Ekman as a basis for his own adaptation of the Second Symphony. Following in the tradition of Liszt’s Beethoven transcriptions, these arrangements are faithful to the original yet exploit the potential of the piano in many ways.

Henri Sigfridsson has emerged as one of the major musical talents from Finland since he won, in 2005, the Beethoven International Piano Competition in Bonn. This is his first solo album for Ondine.

On this second volume of Sibelius Symphonies (Nos. 1 and 3 are available on Naxos 8572305), the acclaimed young Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen interprets two of his compatriot’s most contrasting symphonies.

Symphony No. 4 is a work of ominous brooding and bleak desolation, reflecting Sibelius’s psychological state at the time of its composition. Sibelius commented of his much-revised and expansively heroic Symphony No. 5 ‘It is as if God the Father had thrown down mosaic pieces from heaven’s floor and asked me to put them back as they were.’

Jascha Horenstein had a very extensive discography but he never recorded these two Scandinavian symphonies which makes them rare and important additions for all collectors.

Between 1969 and 1972 Horenstein performed, recorded and broadcast Nielsen’s 3rd, 5th and 6th Symphonies, the tone poem ‘Saga-Drom’, the Clarinet Concerto (with Gervase de Peyer), and the opera ‘Saul & David’ as well as appearing prominently in the Robert Simpson/Barrie Gavin BBC Documentary ‘Espansiva’ in 1970. This performance of Nielsen’s Symphony No.3 ‘Sinfonia Espansiva’ was a concert given in Manchester’s Town Hall as part of a midday prom.

BBC Legends already has a very well reviewed recording released of Horenstein conducting Nielsen’s Symphony No.5 (BBCL41912).

The live performance and broadcast of Sibelius’ Symphony No.5 appears to be the ONLY occasion that Horenstein conducted it, according to his long time colleague, Joel Lazar. This makes it’s inclusion on this CD exceptionally important. Horenstein conducted Sibelius Symphony No.2 quite frequently, along with the Violin Concerto.

As a bonus, Robert Simpson, the composer and friend of the conductor, gives a moving tribute following Horenstein’s death in 1973.

Recorded in 1954