These hybrid Super Audio CDs play on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Kamu offers an easy sense of movement; intense, quiet dynamics and clarity in perfect equilibrium with atmosphere. There's plenty of excitement too: the scherzo of the Second is truly vivacissimo. Symphonies Three, Seven, and above all Six are just perfect, with all the naturalness I want in these elusive masterpieces.
Alpha begins a complete cycle of the symphonies by Sibelius with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and it's new musical director, Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Originally a percussionist, the 33-year-old trained at the famous Sibelius Academy. His career took off after he stepped in at the last minute to conduct the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the great tradition of Finnish conductors Santtu-Matias Rouvali is known for his extremely physical and organic interpretations: "Music unmistakeably flows from him," commented The Sunday Times. When Bachtrack asked him how he shapes the orchestral sound, he replied: "I sing it, I move my hands the way I want it... The conductor should be able to show tempo somewhere in the body... I was also a drum kit player, so my feet and hands can do different things at the same time. When you read the score, you sing it in your head... I think it's the sense of inside groove that you get from playing percussion which is very important in Sibelius's music." In the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra he finds a prestigious cohort of musicians with an impressive discography, and joins a line of their illustrious musical directors, notably Neeme Jarvi, the orchestra's principal conductor from 1982 to 2004, but also Gustavo Dudamel- who made his first major recordings with the GSO- Christoph Eschenbach, Kent Nagano, and others.
This is as fine a Sibelius cycle as any available, and the performances of Symphonies Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7, as well as the Violin Concerto, are uniformly top recommendations. All of the individual discs have been previously reviewed, and my only reservations (incidentally not shared by my colleague Victor Carr Jr, who covered the original release) concern Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6, particularly the latter, which strikes me as just a touch lacking in energy and directness. That doesn't mean the playing isn't very beautiful: indeed, it may be excessively so, and that takes some of the Sibelian edge off of the performance. Still, for the most part these are wonderful interpretations, and if you want a complete Sibelius cycle from top Finnish performers, then this set represents an obvious first choice, alongside Vänskä's very different and equally fine Lahti series on BIS. You simply can't go wrong either way.
Osmo Vänskä has been described as ‘our greatest living Sibelian’ (The Sunday Times, UK), a reputation which is founded not least on his two symphony cycles on disc, both released by BIS. The first one was recorded in 1996-97 with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and firmly established Vänskä as a force to be reckoned with. 14 years later he returned to the studio for a second cycle, now with the Minnesota Orchestra, of which he has been music director since 2003.
The Minnesota recordings were released on three discs during the years 2012 – 2016 to critical acclaim: besides top marks from reviewers around the world, the series garnered distinctions such as Editor’s Choice (Gramophone), Orchestral Choice (BBC Music Magazine) and Recording of the month (MusicWeb International). The disc of Symphonies Nos 2 and 5 was included on the New York Times list of the Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012 and nominated to a Grammy for Best Orchestral Recording, an award which its sequel (Nos 1 & 4) received the following year. Recommended by the German web site Klassik.com upon its release, the final album, with Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7, was recently included on Gramophone’s list of ‘Top 10 Sibelius recordings’. The three releases have now been gathered into a box set, with the addition of the same team’s 2016 recording of Kullervo, Sibelius’s first large-scale orchestral work and sometimes called his ‘choral symphony’.
Past praise for previously released volumes included in this set:
Sibelius: Symphonies No 1 & 4 / Vanska, Minnesota:
The passion and sweep of the First is even more electric than in the Lahti First. The Fourth emerges equally well as a hugely powerful utterance. With superb sound as always from BIS, this new disc has set the bar for all to follow and past ones to be measured against.
– Gramophone
Sibelius: Symphonies No 2 & 5 / Vanska, Minnesota:
These fearless, magnificently played performances, recorded in astonishing detail by the BIS engineers, and accompanied by an authoritative note by Robert Layton, join a very exclusive and elevated class of the finest recordings of these works.
