This coupling is unusual for two reasons.
Firstly, the musical styles of the composers is quite different.
Secondly, Sibelius wrote his music as a commission for a
stage piece whereas Sullivan wrote his purely as a composition
for the concert hall. By 1926, Sibelius was effectively at
the end of his career while in 1861 Sullivan was finishing
his training at Leipzig Conservatoire.
For the Sullivan the benchmark recording for me
is the HMV Vivian Dunn recording of 1972 (now coupled with
Sargent’s
Ruddigore) [CDS 747 7878]. It has since
been recorded on Chandos in 2000 by Richard Hickox [CHAN
9859] and excellent though that version is, the orchestral
principals are on better form and the acoustics more lush
on the earlier HMV recording.
In the Sullivan, the pace is excellent and the
orchestra play with due attention to the score’s dynamics
but the trumpets in the opening
Introduction are
almost entirely lost. The first strings are crisp and carry
the energy of the first bars forward with determination.
The
Banquet Dance is new to me and unfortunately the notes
do not detail anything about it. There is a superb reading
of the
Act IV Overture, both in pace and commitment.
The strings here shine clearly through the other sections,
which here have an edge on the other existing recordings.
The
Dance of the Reapers offers less interpretatively speaking
but remains attractively done. Omitted from the recording
are the Sullivan songs:
Come unto these yellow sands,
Full
fathom five and
While you’re here.
The heavier Sibelius suites are characteristically
more robust. It is a matter of taste, but I cannot believe
that lovers of the more romantic style of the Sullivan
will necessarily be equally impressed by the Sibelius score,
or
vice versa. Perhaps the only criticism of the
latter is that Verdi chose a highly melodic approach to
his settings of Shakespeare, which is matched by Sullivan’s
approach: I have his
Macbeth in mind. Sullivan’s
storm music within his Introduction is much lighter than
the convincingly grim and atmospheric one Sibelius establishes
in his
Prelude. Sibelius adds a second storm, not
dissimilar in style from his first. His Dance of the
Nymphs
and Reapers is bright yet does not match the Sullivan’s
melodic gift. A rather laboured
Prospero and a repetitiously
orchestrated
Dance Episode both meander with little
purpose. Sibelius’s incidental music is on the whole of
a pleasantly lighter style than that characteristically
associated with this composer. The
Humoresque is
firmly in the character of Shakespeare and is certainly
appealing.
The orchestra is of generous size and the recording
carries a good acoustic. Michael Stern conducts with impact
and has an excellent knowledge of the scores. Anthony Hodgson’s
notes (in English only) are informative and give useful
background to both scores.
Raymond
J Walker
see also review by Rob Barnett
Kansas City
Symphony/Michael Stern 
