Jean SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
Historical Recordings and Rarities 1928-1948
WARNER CLASSICS 2564 605317 [7 CDs: 8:34:36]
In the 1930s the Columbia Gramophone Company (later EMI)
undertook a subscription series of the major works of Jean Sibelius, initially
funded by the Finnish government. This is the first time that all the orchestral
recordings made for EMI Classics' Sibelius project between 1930 and
1940 have been gathered together (six CDs in all). Warner has added a seventh
CD devoted to chamber music and songs. The most important recordings, those
of the symphonies and tone poems from Kajanus, Schnéevoigt and Beecham, have
been available before and are mostly still available on other labels. The
seven CDs are in cardboard sleeves, each with the work listings, timings and
recording data printed on the back. There is a multi-lingual booklet with
a four-page essay by Robert Layton, but no texts or translations for Luonnotar
or the five songs. The box is inexpensive, the transfers are successful, and
the performances are still among the most important of any.
Robert Kajanus was hardly less significant than Sibelius himself in the creation
of the Finnish orchestral tradition that has led to a succession of fine conductors
coming from Finland ever since. Kajanus founded the Helsinki Philharmonic
and led them for fifty years, was a close friend of Sibelius and his personal
choice for the recording of these works. He set down these definitive versions
of symphonies 1, 2, 3 and 5, the outer movements from the Karelia Suite,
Pohjola’s Daughter, Belshazzar’s Feast and Tapiola.
He died in 1933 and other conductors took up the baton for the EMI series,
but these are still among the best of all the versions of these particular
works. From the opening clarinet solo of the First Symphony to the final chord
of Tapiola, his conducting exudes idiomatic authority. The symphonies
have an impetus which has become rare, transitions — so crucial in these
works — which sound inevitable because almost imperceptible, and a feeling
of nobility - especially in No.5 - that has formed our image of the composer
ever since.
Kajanus at some points uses more rubato than we hear now, in keeping with
the conducting style of the day. He also tends still to be among the swiftest
on disc, even after so many subsequent rivals have had the chance to learn
from him. Osmo Vänskä, when asked in an interview about his own swift tempi
for the First Symphony, said of the finale “It’s crotchet
= 104, but no one takes it that fast apart from Kajanus … Sibelius lived
long enough to have changed his mind if he felt it was wrong.” As for
the Fifth Symphony, I don’t know a modern version which gets it under
the half hour as Kajanus does, but Saraste’s and Vänskä’s four
versions get close. The point is that despite these Kajanus timings, the works
never sound rushed, despite occasional evidence that the players in the 1930s
found them a challenge. The tone poems have the same dramatic qualities, Pohjola’s
Daughter is treated with great narrative flair, and Tapiola
is a terrifying evocation of the forest god - don’t listen to it on
an iPod when walking in the woods. Following that on disc 3 we have three
more short works in the hands of the then newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra
and the young Dr. Adrian Boult, who played a lot of Sibelius together at the
time. They offer in particular an impressive account of the still rather neglected
Night Ride and Sunrise.
The Fourth Symphony is in the hands of Beecham
and the LPO, a famous recording for which Beecham and producer Walter Legge
consulted the composer on various points, including the sanction of a glockenspiel
rather than tubular bells in the finale - where the score’s “Glocken.”
is ambiguous. Sibelius was more than happy with the result, perhaps because
Beecham never saw the work as austere but rather as deeply romantic. Certainly
it is very expressive throughout and especially in the haunting slow movement.
Haunting is the word too for the enigmatic and most elusive of all the tone
poems, The Bard. The suites of incidental music from The Tempest
and Pelléas et Mélisande remind us both what a fine theatre composer
Sibelius was, and that Beecham was a notable theatre conductor. Beecham recordings
also fill disc 6, not least with a stirring En Saga. The main work
there though is the Violin Concerto with Heifetz,
a benchmark recording for its dazzling virtuosity and romantic flair. Some
have felt it lacks mystery in the more introspective moments and prefer Heifetz’s
stereo remake in Chicago
for that reason, but this is the recording that really established the popularity
of the work, and you can hear why.
Sibelius never gave permission for the live performance of Luonnotar
that opens disc 5 to be issued. Perhaps he disliked the very broad phrasing
by the soprano of the opening lines, which rather impedes progress. If her
very taxing part is not always quite securely sung, the voice is imposing
and well caught, and the feeling, once past those opening phrases, has all
the strangeness this Kalevala creation myth requires. This is with the Helsinki
Philharmonic under Georg
Schnéevoigt, Kajanus’s successor, who also conducts the Sixth
Symphony with as much dedication as his predecessor brought to the earlier
symphonies. The playing reveals the standards the Helsinki Orchestra had achieved.
Then it is back to the BBC Symphony and the legendary pioneering recording
of the Seventh Symphony under Serge
Koussevitsky, which in the view of those who know it has never been surpassed.
It is a live performance of riveting intensity, as well as a reminder that
along with the US and the UK, Sibelius’s strongest overseas performance
tradition has been among Russians – Mravinsky and Rozhdestvensky also
recorded outstanding interpretations of the Seventh.
The last disc is of non-orchestral repertoire, mostly a group of delightful
miniatures for violin and piano along with five of the composer’s many
songs. These all have the slight air of period pieces — in the way the
big orchestral works do not — and one can imagine hearing them in a
soirée at Ainola, the Sibelius family’s rural home, perhaps with the
composer at the piano. The most significant item here by far is a 1933 recording
of Sibelius’s only mature string quartet, Voces intimae. Providing
those ‘intimate voices’ is the Budapest Quartet (Bibbulph LAB098),
in a very persuasive performance of a work that needs real understanding to
come across well. They are very observant of the score and cited as a touchstone
in the essay on Sibelius on record in the Cambridge
Companion to Sibelius (2004).
Most of the essential orchestral recordings are also available on Naxos in
excellent transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn (8.111393;
8.111394;
8.111395), but this Warner box is very generous in scope, and also has very
good transfers that sound full and surprisingly detailed. There is one more
significant item here – the gorgeous Andante
Festivo, in the only example we have of Sibelius conducting. Allowances
have to be made for 1930s sound and there is some distortion in the loudest
moments, but the performances are often so absorbing it is easy enough to
adjust. The Sibelius anniversary year will doubtless produce more glamorous
and more lauded issues than this one, but none more revealing or more essential.
Many a music-lover in the 1930s and 1940s will have got to know Sibelius’s
music through these versions. We have here an orchestral performing tradition
in the making, at a time when the music was still new. This set allows us
to hear modern music in the very process of becoming core repertoire. It is
the classical record industry not only documenting the canon, but also creating
it.
Roy Westbrook
Content List
CD 1 [74:22]
Symphony No. 1 in E minor,
Op. 39
Symphony No. 2 in D major,
Op. 43;
Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society/Robert Kajanus
CD 2 [77:08]
Symphony No. 3 in C major,
Op. 52
Symphony No. 5 in E flat
major, Op. 82
Karelia Suite, Op. 11 (No.1 Intermezzo, No.3 Alla Marcia)
Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society/Robert Kajanus
March of the Finnish Jaeger Battalion, Op. 91a
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Kajanus
Andante festivo, JS34b
Finnish Radio Orchestra/Jean Sibelius
CD 3 [73:21]
Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49
Belshazzar's Feast Suite, Op. 51
Tapiola Op.112,
London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Kajanus;
Night Ride and Sunrise, Op.55
The Oceanides, Op.73
Romance in C Op.42,
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult
CD 4 [79:07]
Symphony No. 4 in A minor,
Op. 63
The Bard, Op. 64
The Tempest, Op. 109 (Prelude and Suites 1 and 2);
Pelléas and Mélisande Suite, Op. 46: IV; A Spring in the Park, VIII; Entr'acte,
IX; Death of Mélisande.
In memoriam, funeral march Op. 59
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
CD 5 [67:44]
Luonnotar, Op. 70 (Text: Kalevala)
Helmi Liukkonen (soprano)
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Georg Schnéevoigt
Symphony No. 6 in D minor,
Op. 104
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Georg Schnéevoigt
Symphony No. 7 in C major,
Op. 105
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Serge Koussevitzky
live recording
King Kristian II, incidental music, Op. 27
Stockholm Opera House Orchestra/Armas Järnefelt
CD 6 [75:39]
Violin Concerto in D minor,
Op. 47
En Saga, Op. 9
Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22: Lemminkäinen's Return (No. 4)
Festivo, Op. 25 No. 3
Finlandia, Op. 26
Valse Triste, Op. 44 No. 1
Jascha Heifetz (violin), London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
Karelia Suite, Op.11, No.1 Intermezzo
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Thomas Beecham
CD 7 [67:15]
String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56 'Voces Intimae'
Budapest String Quartet
Romance in F major, from Four Pieces, Op. 78, for cello and piano
Emil Telmányi (violin), Gerald Moore (piano)
Danse champêtre, Op. 106 No. 2
Emil Telmányi (violin), Gerald Moore (piano)
Danse champêtre, Op. 106 No. 1
Emil Telmányi (violin), Georg Vásárhelyi (piano)
Mazurka, Op. 81/1
Anja Ignatius (violin), Timo Makkila (piano)
Four Pieces, Op. 115 No. 1 'Auf dem Herde'
Anja Ignatius (violin), Timo Makkila (piano)
Malinconia, Op. 20
Louis Jensen (cello), Galina Werschenskaya (piano)
Romance in D flat major, Op. 24, No. 9
Eileen Joyce (piano)
Säf, säf, susa, Op. 36 No. 4 (Text: Gustav Fröding)
Marian Anderson (contralto), Kosti Vehanen (piano)
Flickan kom från sin älsklings möte, Op. 37, No. 5
Marian Anderson (contralto), Kosti Vehanen (piano)
Kom nu hit, Död, Op. 60 No. 1 (Bertel Gripenberg after Shakespeare)
Marian Anderson (contralto), Kosti Vehanen (piano)
Långsamt som qvällskyn, Op. 61 No. 1 (Tavaststjerna)
Marian Anderson (contralto), Kosti Vehanen (piano)
Support
us financially by purchasing this from |
|
 |
 |
 |
|