The theme here, apart
from gap-filling British recordings
not previously or at least rarely issued
on CD, is 1960s Sibelius.
The works are from
throughout Sibelius's career. The early
years (En Saga, Karelia,
Finlandia) to mid-life maturity
and later (Pohjola's Daughter,
Nightride and Oceanides,
The Bard, Luonnotar).
Sibelius's reputation
dipped for ten years after his death.
These recordings helped its rehabilitation
on LP. For years these tracks were in
many cases the only or only easily accessible
representation of particular works.
The two Doráti LPs from which
much of CD1 was drawn were uniquely
valuable in their coverage of Luonnotar,
Nightride and Oceanides.
If you look at the
recording dates most were made during
the second decade after the death of
Sibelius. Only the Sargent recordings
were made earlier with Pohjola's
Daughter recorded with the BBCSO
the year after Sibelius's death and
the Sargent Vienna sessions three years
after that.
There is another strand
too and that is the non-symphonic Sibelius.
He is represented here by tone poems,
incidental music and songs. I would
hesitate to call any of them miniatures
in any diminutive sense for their essence
is epic. If their time-frame is brief
their manner and material is often symphonic
and momentous.
The versions of the
tone poems by Antal Doráti (1906-88)
are well worth having even if they are
on the measured side (look at the sampled
timing comparisons at the end of this
review) ... perhaps especially
because they are on the measured side.
Both Luonnotar
and The Bard are among
Sibelius’s most gnomic and beautiful
creations. Both are included. Luonnotar
is one of the four Doráti-conducted
tone poems and in 1969 was an extraordinarily
rare item. It is an enigmatic work for
soprano and orchestra - spare yet potently
allusive. The words are from ‘The Kalevala’
and deal with the Finnish Creation epic.
The work is sung with operatic splendour
by Dame Gwyneth Jones (b. 1936), CBE
1976, DBE 1986. Jones takes this
technically punishing work well within
her stride. She is aided by the recording
made at Abbey Road by Ronald Kinloch
Anderson who unflinchingly caught the
voice in full flight. The operatic technique
is well in evidence in the stratospherically
high note hit at a breathtaking ppp
at 4.40 then at fff at 2.30
and at 5.28. This contrasts with the
barely audible ‘troika’ ostinato that
launches the piece and recurs throughout.
That conspiratorial ‘gallop’ is distantly
related to the ostinato in Nightride
and Sunrise. The orchestral contribution
is also superb. Listen to the ‘landslide’
arpeggio delivered by the harps (two
surely?). Doráti permits the
brass a fearsome ‘rip’ at 5.24. At the
very end there is a lovely fade into
the silent mystery out of which the
‘troika’ came.
I am not sure what
the Finns would say about Jones’ Finnish
but she sounds utterly convincing. I
wonder who coached her in the Finnish
language. The same can be said of Bernstein’s
Phyllis Bryn-Julsonon Sony. Hearing Jones
in this makes me wonder and wish that
Jones could have sung The Cradle
Song from Holbrooke's opera Bronwen
part of The Cauldron of Annwn
trilogy. The ‘cauldron’ is the Welsh
equivalent of the Kalevala's ‘sampo’.
The ‘Mabinogion’ is the Welsh equivalent
of the Kalevala.
A few words about Dame
Gwyneth. She was born to a musical family
in Pontnewynydd, Torfaen, Monmouthshire,
S.E. Wales in 1937. She sang regularly
throughout her teens both at school
and while working as a secretary at
the Pontypool foundry, winning a formidable
number of prizes at Eisteddfodau. She
won a scholarship to the Royal College
of Music, and went on to study first
in Siena and later in Zurich, which
ultimately she was to make her home.
Her first professional work was in Zurich
as a mezzo-soprano in 1962. She made
her debut as a soprano at Welsh National
Opera, performing Lady Macbeth in Verdi's
Macbeth in the following year. So far
as record collectors are concerned some
may well recall her Strauss Die Ägyptische
Helena in which she sang the role
of Helena alongside the young Barbara
Hendricks together with Matti Kastu
and Willard White. Again the conductor
was Doráti.
The words for Luonnotar
are not included in this super-bargain
price set. You can find them at:-
http://209.16.199.17/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=16842
and with English translation
at
http://www.symphonypromusica.org/notes/9211.html#Luonnotar
or
http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/season/event_detail.cfm?id_event=84976556#
and click programme
notes on left-hand side - look carefully.
There is a healthily
long pause before En Saga shivers
into life. This performance is not as
tense as the wartime Berlin Furtwängler
but it is very good; certainly as good
as Horst Stein's significantly quicker
classic version on Decca. Doráti
has a good feeling for the romantic
sway and irresistible macabre propulsion
of the piece. He builds the tension
into a huge motorically rotating whirlwind.
One passing demerit by comparison with
the now thirty year old Stein is that
Doráti’s horns are distanced
in way that they are not for Stein’s
Suisse Romande. Decca and Stein, at
work three or four years later in Geneva's
Victoria Hall, manage a more dramatic
although probably less realistic effect
overall. However, recording is all about
the creation of illusion.
Nightride and
Sunrise is in outstanding analogue
sound. Doráti gives the piece
a monumental spring and tread. There
are times when the effect is like a
slow-motion dream of horses’ hooves
galloping (try 7.26). This really is
a fine piece with its mezza voce
brass protests and strange Nordic
chorale reaching back to Lemminkainen's
adventures on Saari. Details float out
to caress the listener’s attention.
There is a welling up of great power
in the final three minutes.
The Oceanides
is the chilliest of these four
very different tone poems. This is an
affectionate Mediterranean portrait
from Greek mythology. Listen to those
gorgeous harp ‘swashes’ (3.28) and to
the warm swimmer encountering the shiver
of cold currents (7.16). Who has done
this as well as at 6.13 onwards. There
is an epic blast to the brass. The gale
rips spindrift from the wave-crests
in music echoing with what could have
been allusions to the finale of Moeran's
symphony, to the peak of Bax’s Tintagel
and to Debussy’s La Mer at
8.23 onwards.
By the way who were
the principals of the LSO for these
recordings? Can anyone assist by naming
them?
The King Christian
II music shows the SNO in vivid
form. Listen to the gripping and glistening
glow on the strings in Nocturne and
the impudence of the woodwind in the
Musette. Gibson is a superb Sibelian
and no mistake. He was later to record
Sibelius extensively with RCA and then
with Chandos. Earlier he had recorded
symphonies 3 and 6 for Saga. His pacing
here is unerring and always instinct
with life as the tightly rapped out
rhythmic exuberance of the Ballade
shows. This carries over into the
Karelia Overture with
its passim references to Kullervo
at 1.17. Recording quality is unapologetically
direct and honest. Listen out for the
creak of the leader's chair.
Then comes a change
of locale, orchestra and conductor.
Sargent conducts not only the BBC Symphony
Orchestra but also the VPO, an orchestra
five years later to record the symphonies
for Decca with Lorin Maazel. Sargent's
Karelia Suite with the
Vienna Phil is quick; in the case of
the Intermezzo - very quick.
This is about as fast as it could go
- prove me wrong. The music would not
have been unfamiliar to the orchestra:
Sibelius was, after all, the most played
non-German composer in Germany and Austria
in the 1930 and 1940s. While, strangely
enough, the strings lack the glamour
of the SNO the woodwind register as
never before in the jollity of the alla
marcia even if the final pay-off
sounds more like Walton than Sibelius.
Sargent's Swan
is rather somnolent, the tension having
sprung loose somehow. His Finlandia,
while strongly aggressive, is nowhere
near as dramatically 'black' as Barbirolli's
version with the Hallé (EMI box)
or Stein's with the Suisse Romande.
His Pohjola's Daughter with
the BBC Symphony Orchestra is the oldest
recording here, made only a year after
Sibelius's death. There is lovely 'flighted'
playing from cor anglais, flute and
oboe. Peter Andry and Robert Gooch made
this an all-round superb sounding event
which still has a place alongside the
exemplary Pohjolas of the 1960s,
1970s, 1980s and 1990s. When Sargent
was on-song he was a force to be reckoned
with even if his relationship with orchestras
was tempestuous. The melody has been
projected with better weight (9.20)
in other versions but this still remains
extremely impressive.
Back to Gibson. His
The Bard is thoughtful
- cousin to Luonnotar in its
sparely furnished yet gorgeous sound
throughout. Where Luonnotar has
a soprano solo; The Bard has
a harp. At 1.55 Gibson projects the
ictus, timely release and recapture
of tension. The harp sounds quite closely
balanced. Festivo has
taut Karelian jollity as well as a Hispanic
twist - castanets and all. There is
hiss a\s there is in all of these recordings
but it is not a major issue.
The four Sibelius songs
are miniature music dramas. There
are three songs to poems by Johan Ludvig
Runeberg and one by Ernst Josephson.
The triumphant operatic tone of the
Siv Wennberg is largely free of vibrato.
Wennberg was born on 18 September
1944 at Timrå, Medelpad. Her Decca
recording of Wagner’s Rienzi,
made with René Kollo promised
and delivered great things but I do
not recall any other recordings by her;
a pity. The EMI recording of these songs
expands confidently to accommodate Wennberg’s
great voice and does so without a tremor.
The Tryst has an undeniably Tchaikovskian
flavour (think of Onegin's Tatiana)
and with its infusion of fearful macabre
it also touches on Erlkönig.
The texts of the songs
are not given but you can find these
on the internet (courtesy of Emily Ezust)
with translations into English:-
Svarta
rosor in Swedish with English
and French translations
Den
första kyssen
The
Tryst also known as Flickan
kom från sin älsklings möte
The affectionate yet
tightly informative notes for this set
are by Malcolm Macdonald. They are compact
and get the message across. The sections
on En Saga, Karelia and
King Christian II are freshly
interesting, the latter taking the trouble
to give us a succinct summary of the
tragic plot - not something I have seen
before.
Budding Sibelians must
have this outstanding set not only for
its nostalgic backward glances but as
a reminder of some all-time great Sibelius
interpretations from Doráti,
Gibson and Wennberg. Even more than
the Groves Gemini set this is a must-buy.
Rob Barnett
TABLE OF COMPARATIVE TIMINGS
En Saga
Ashkenazy 19:42
Boult 17:36
Doráti 18:48
Sinaisky 17:45
Stein 16:15
Luonnotar
Bryn-Julson/Bernstein 8:08
Jogeva/Sinaisky 8:17
Jones/Doráti 9:26
Kringelborn/Järvi 9:18
Söderström/Ashkenazy 9:12
Valjakka/Berglund 9:53
Nightride and Sunrise
Boult 14:02
Doráti 15:15
Jarvi 14:41
Sinaisky 14:15
Stein 14:24
Oceanides
Boult 9:06
Doráti 10:11
Sinaisky 9:04
Pohjola’s Daughter
Berglund 13:50
Bernstein 12:40
Boult 13:33
Sargent 12:33
Sinaisky 13:02
Stein 13:07
Dame Gwyneth Jones (sop) (Op. 70) 