As luck would have
it I’ve auditioned several excellent
Telarc discs recently, two of them featuring
the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under
Robert Spano and Donald Runnicles. The
Spano includes Christopher Theofanidis’
terrific Rainbow Body, the Runnicles
a mix of Wagner and Richard Strauss.
In both cases I felt the music making
and the recordings were up to the usual
standards of the house, so I approached
this all-Sibelius disc with high hopes.
The Karelia
Suite, written for a ‘patriotic
pageant’, dates from 1899 and has one
of the most atmospheric openings around.
Immediately I was struck by the recessed
recording, the distant bass growl growing
to that glorious flag-waving climax
on the brass. It’s a breathtaking, majestic
moment and one expects the music to
blaze forth from the speakers. Regrettably,
it doesn’t. In fact Levi’s tempi seem
way too leisurely throughout, so that
essential forward thrust is quickly
lost. By comparison, Vladimir Ashkenazy
and the Philharmonia on a Decca twofer
(4525762) generate all the excitement
and splendour this music demands. And
where Telarc usually scores in terms
of sonics I have to say the brighter,
more forward Decca recording suits this
music very well indeed. The set also
includes En Saga, Pohjola’s Daughter,
Luonnotar, Tapiola, Night Ride and
Sunrise and Four Legends from
the Kalevala.
I wondered how the
longer, more brooding En Saga
would fare. It certainly has some haunting
horn playing and Stygian brass but again
that all-important drive is missing.
Even the ‘big tune’ - dramatically underpinned
by the bass drum - sounds like a run-through.
In fact this piece made me think of
Mahler, not in terms of soundscape but
of pulse. In the case of both composers
their music succumbs very quickly if
the conductor doesn’t find that life-giving
beat under the skin. Sir Colin Davis
finds it; Ashkenazy does, too. Unfortunately
Levi doesn’t.
Originally Sibelius
gave Pohjola’s Daughter the
title Väinämöinen
after the character in the Kalevala
(the Finnish national epic) but his
German publisher Robert Lienau was less
keen, insisting on the title we know
today. The trademark Sibelian sonorities
are there and the music has some impressive
moments, but for a work that taps into
Nordic legend it’s surprisingly short
on incident. That said, Sir Colin Davis
makes a more convincing job of it in
his LSO Live disc (LSO 0105) coupled
with the 2nd Symphony. It
is also available in a splendid SACD
version (LSO 0605).
The Swan of Tuonela
was originally composed in 1893 as the
prelude to a projected Wagnerian opera
called The Building of the Boat
but Sibelius recast it two years later
as the second part of the Four Legends
from the Kalevala, Op. 22. Scored
for strings and harp, plus a solo for
English horn, it depicts the mythical
swan gliding around Tuonela, the island
of the dead. There is some lovely muted
playing from the strings and a fine
(if somewhat distant) contribution from
Patrick McFarland on the English horn,
but for all that it remains a rather
detached reading.
Finlandia, probably
Sibelius’s most overtly nationalistic
piece, is something of an orchestral
showpiece. The opening brass chords
are well captured, although the timps
seem curiously muffled. There should
be a real sense of craggy grandeur here,
of soaring peaks and ever-widening vistas,
but the piece remains stubbornly earthbound.
Again Ashkenazy is in a different league;
the Philharmonia brass and percussion
play as if possessed and the recording
has splendid glitter and bite. The final
moments of this great score should be
spine-tingling in their cumulative power
and weight (as indeed they are under
Ashkenazy) but regrettably the Atlanta
band just doesn’t rise to the occasion.
On the face of it this
is a desirable disc, bringing together
some of Sibelius’s best known tone poems
and incidental music, but the truth
is that these pieces are much, much
better played elsewhere. Sir Colin Davis’s
idiomatic Sibelius is self-recommending
- as with Berlioz, this conductor really
has an affinity with Sibelius that shines
through every bar. Ashkenazy is perhaps
a little uneven in this repertoire,
but his Karelia and Finlandia
are firm favourites of mine.
So, a chance for both
orchestra and engineers to shine but
these readings are generally uninspiring
and probably won’t bear repeated listening.
Given the band’s more recent successes
under Spano and Runnicles one can only
assume the Atlantans were not at their
very best in the early 1990s. In short,
a golden opportunity sadly missed.
Dan Morgan
for details
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Yoel Levi 
