If you love Sibelius, then you already know and love his magnificent Fifth and Sixth symphonies and his monumental symphonic poem Tapiola, and you have probably heard dozens of recordings of those works. But, if you love Sibelius, even if you have heard dozens of recordings of the Fifth and Sixth and Tapiola, you owe it to yourself to hear these recordings. For one thing, these are the first recordings of all these works. For another, they were made in the early '30s while the composer was still alive. For yet another, the performances were conducted by the composer's preferred interpreters. And, for the capper, the performances are superlative. Robert Kajanus had been a composer who gave up his career to become a conducting advocate for Sibelius, and his June 1932 recordings of the Fifth Symphony and Tapiola with the London Symphony Orchestra remain among the greatest recordings of the works ever made. The power of Kajanus' interpretations is matched by their naturalness: the accelerating tempo of the opening movement of the Fifth, for example, has the inevitability of water, and the thematic progress of Tapiola has the inexorableness of wind. Similarly, Georg Schnéevoigt had been a cellist who gave the premiere of Sibelius' Malinconia, but he, too, turned conductor to promote his symphonies. His June 1934 recording of the Sixth with the Finnish National Orchestra may not be among the greatest recordings of the work ever made -- there are too many flaws in the ensemble for that -- but it is still a fascinating account of the work: strong, light, and very fast. In either case, however, anyone who knows and loves Sibelius should at least hear these recordings to find out how Sibelius sounded to Sibelius. Divine Arts' remastered 70-year-old sound is amazingly clean and warm.
© TiVo