Classical Music

The Unknown Sibelius presents a spectrum of the music that is the least wide-spread of the Finnish master’s production, either because the pieces included belong to genres not usually associated with ‘Sibelius the symphonist’, or because they appear in versions that differ from the ones that are performed frequently all over the world. A case in point is the opening Finland Awakes, a rarely heard version of what is possibly Sibelius’ best-known piece, Finlandia, in which the famous ‘hymn’ tune is restated in full, scored with unashamed flamboyance for brass, at the end of the piece. That recording and others on this disc are culled from the complete SIBELIUS EDITION brought to a close in 2011 – but completeness is a relative concept: a ‘complete’ edition is only complete until the next mislaid manuscript or forgotten work is re-discovered. The present disc thus serves a dual purpose, as it also includes première recordings of works and fragments that have been discovered or otherwise have become available after the EDITION was brought to a close. Among these, the late orchestral fragments earned a certain celebrity in October 2011, as media across the world greeted the discovery of what was soon proclaimed to be sketches for the famed 8th Symphony – that elusive Holy Grail of all Sibelius-spotters. Dr. Timo Virtanen, the respected authority on Sibelius, has prepared the sketches for the present recording and also written a text – available on the BIS web site – discussing them and the context in which they may have been written. If the orchestral fragments generally tend towards the harmonically bold sound world that Sibelius explored in some of his very late works, the three piano pieces that have also come to recent light are earlier works which all in different ways are connected to other compositions by Sibelius.

In spite of the fact that Sibelius’ chamber music is far less well-known than his orchestral works, it forms a large and important part of his production. In terms of numbers of discs it makes up a fourth of the complete recorded edition being brought out on BIS. Already released are the complete quartets and piano trios [BIS-CD-1903/05] and the works for violin and piano [BIS-CD-1915/17]; the present set focuses on his chamber music for other instrumental combinations and includes a number of world première recordings and previously unreleased material. A substantial chapter is the music for cello (solo and with piano accompaniment), much of which was written for Sibelius’ brother Christian. It is here performed by Torleif Thedéen, with the support of Folke Gräsbeck on the piano. There are also a number of duos and trios for strings, including the brief Vattendroppar (Water Drops) for violin and cello pizzicato, which is often claimed to be Sibelius’ earliest surviving composition, dated to around 1875. Another, more sizeable, rarity is the music to the play Ödlan (The Lizard), scored for string ensemble. Composed in 1909, half way between the Third and Fourth Symphonies, it was once described by Sibelius as ‘one of the most exquisite works that I have written’. This volume also includes Sibelius only work for viola and piano (‘Rondo in D minor’), as well as the world première recordings of two pieces for solo kantele, the traditional Finnish plucked-string instrument which appears in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epos that served as such an inspiration to Sibelius. Another group of works with a specifically Finnish background, are the pieces for ‘torviseitsikko’, a particular combination of seven brass instruments and percussion. These are here performed by members of the eminent German ensemble brasspartout. A varied programme then on this ninth instalment of the acclaimed Sibelius Edition, about which a reviewer in Fanfare has already predicted that it ‘will certainly be considered a landmark in the history of recording’.

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This set contains almost all of Sibelius' incidental music written to accompany spoken theater (King Kristian II, Swanwhite, Pelléas and Mélisande, Belshazzar's Feast, Kuolema, Jedermann, The Language of the Birds, and The Tempest), as well as his ballet-pantomime Scaramouche. Missing are the two movements for strings from The Lizard, which presumably will be included in a later release--but in all respects that matter BIS offers an embarrassment of riches. Indeed, you get to hear most of this music twice, since the complete edition includes both the original theatrical scores (from Vänskä) as well as the later concert suites drawn from them (featuring Järvi). Not everything is duplicated: Everyman, for example, never got turned into a suite (it's a bit too fragmentary), but it's well worth hearing.

The performances are all splendid and extremely well-recorded. There's not a weak link in the bunch. The original scores, with the exception of The Tempest, have no competition on disc, while Järvi's versions of the suites all rank with the best. His is still the only complete recording of Scaramouche, a patchy but fascinating piece. It's true that perhaps only diehard Sibelians will want to compare the arrangements side by side, but at a special price (6 CDs for the price of 3) anyone can afford to sample. This extremely well-executed project certainly deserves your support, and will reward it amply.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Freemasonry had reached Finland via Sweden in the mid-eighteenth century, but was banned after the country became part of Russia in 1809. In early 1922, after Finland had established its independence, a new Masonic lodge was formed - Suomi Lodge No.1. Among its first members was Jean Sibelius, who initially served as the lodge's organist. At lodge meetings, Sibelius would played the harmonium, performing music by Mozart, Beethoven and Handel as well as improvising - at times so enthusiastically that he would have to be called to order by the Grand Master. It was also suggested that Sibelius should compose 'special, genuinely Finnish music for the lodge', but this did not happen until some years later, when he received a proper commission - and a fee - for the task. His Masonic Ritual Music, or Musique religieuse, received its first complete performance on 12th January 1927, but Sibelius returned to the work some twenty years later, adding two movements - Ode to Fraternity and Hymn - which are believed to be his last original compositions. The Masonic Ritual Music centres around a series of songs for tenor and organ, the number, order and texts of which vary between the original manuscripts and the various editions. The organ version on the present disc is the first recording to follow the original song text, according to Sibelius's manuscripts. This CD also includes an arrangement of the score, made by Jaakko Kuusisto at the request of the Finnish Freemasons for a special celebration concert held at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti.

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The Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä first came to my attention with the superb series of Kalevi Aho recordings he made for BIS. I came to his Lahti Sibelius a little later and, more recently, I heard his Minnesota remake of the Second and Fifth symphonies. At the time of writing the Minnesota Orchestral Association’s lock-out – which began in October 2012 – has resulted in the cancellation of all concerts and recordings until at least the end of April 2013. That’s very bad news for Vänskä, the orchestra’s music director since 2002, and for BIS; the latter are also affected by the turmoil at the Malaysian Philharmonic, with whom they’ve already made a brace of fine recordings.
 
Given that Vänskä’s Lahti Sibelius set was so well received one might wonder why BIS deemed it necessary to embark on a second one. For the most part concertgoers and music buyers have responded well to Vänskä’s latest thoughts on the Second and Fifth symphonies; indeed, my colleague William Hedley made the SACD a Recording of the Month. No question, these are supremely assured performances and, in the case of the Second, very spacious too, yet for all that they miss the fallible, all-too-human perspectives that inform the earlier cycle.
 
To a certain extent it’s about the orchestral ‘sound’; on both new discs the Minnesota band are highly polished – chromium-plated, even – but these dry, not very tactile Orchestra Hall recordings lack the warmth and breadth of the Ristinkirkko, Lahti, ones. Balances are rather different too, so that the gorgeous harp figures that start around 8:08 in the first Andante of No. 1 – Lahti version – are not so easily discerned in Minnesota. That said, Vänskä is never less than thrilling, and in both versions of this symphony it’s clear he has a rare and wonderful sense of the work’s architecture. What pulls me back to Lahti though is the conductor’s proselytizing zeal – a fire in the belly – that makes the music burn with a magnesium light and heat.
 
There are many instances in the Lahti First where one is drawn deep into the music – from the eloquent clarinet solo at the outset and those sheer cliffs of brass to that powerful accelerating passage at the end of the first Andante – a feat the Minnesotans can’t begin to emulate. Take the sense-alerting start to the second Andante of the Lahti version; such eloquence and inwardness are absent from the new recording, as is the timbral sophistication and presence of the older CD. In short – and thanks in no small part to a very well engineered, sympathetic recording – the Lahti performance breathes and palpitates in a way that the cooler, more metropolitan Minnesota version never does.
 
I didn’t intend this to be a panegyric to Vänskä’s earlier reading of No. 1, but hearing it in this comparative context underlines just what a superbly realised and deeply affecting version it is. The Minnesota sound – both the orchestral sheen and the closer recording – drains all the colour and character from the gloriously emphatic Scherzo. Not only that, but the unfolding narrative of the last movement is so much easier to grasp in the Lahti performance; also, at the close of the latter the athletic, forthright Lahti timps strike just the right note of finality.
 
If you must have Vänskä’s Sibelius in multichannel – it seems many die-hard SACD fans across the pond simply don’t listen in stereo any more – this new First will be a no-brainer. However, if performance is the most important part of the audio equation the Lahti recording wins hands down. In fact, I’ll wager that in years to come this landmark recording of the First – made in 1996 – will be regarded as a classic.
 
That said, the Minnesota Fourth has an unexpected trenchancy and power that is very persuasive, and there’s a glow to the sound that I don’t hear in their version of the First. Moreover, the weight and amplitude of this fine orchestra seems better caught than before. In the opening Tempo molto moderato I was transfixed by the quality of the Minnesotans’ yearning strings and louring bass, not to mention those Brucknerian brass chorales. As for the Allegro molto vivace it’s darkly skittish, and the In tempo largo is winningly phrased and remarkably well sustained. As fine as the more pliant Lahtians are in the Fourth they don’t always have the seamlessness and focus of their American counterparts.
 
The concentration of the Minnesotans really pays dividends in those long, gyre-like unwindings of the Largo; and for once I can’t fault the recording when it comes to nuance and detail. Perhaps the pared-down textures of this symphony – it’s central tranquillity and poise always a joy to hear – are much better suited to BIS’s recording set-up in Orchestra Hall. It’s only in the big moments that the lack of depth and ‘air’ had me longing for the fullness and three-dimensionality of the Lahti Fourth. I daresay the multichannel layer offers more spatial information, and that the sound is more immersive, but given that the vast majority of listeners are still wedded to two channels I’d welcome a more natural, involving stereo mix.
 
Anyone hoping for a neat either/or choice here will be disappointed, for the honours are quite evenly divided; the Lahti First is a clear winner, but despite the felicities of the earlier Fourth the formidable focus of the newer one makes it a front-runner too. That means serious Sibelians will have to own both. Now we can only hope that the hiatus in Minneapolis comes to an end soon, so that this impressive – if not always supplanting – cycle can be completed.
 
Vänskä’s latest thoughts on Sibelius are certainly worth hearing, but the splendid Lahti cycle remains his greatest achievement yet.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

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SIBELIUS Songs (complete) • Helena Juntunen (sop); Anne Sofie von Otter (mez); Monica Groop (mez); Dan Karlström (ten); Gabriel Suovanen (bar); Jorma Hynninen (bar); Bengt Forsberg (pn); Love Derwinger (pn); Folke Gräsbeck (pn) • BIS 1918 (5 CDs: 356:21 Text and Translation)


The foldout box housing this set bears the block letter “I” on its spine, signifying the exact midpoint of BIS’s Sibelius Edition; this is Volume 7, and the arrayed volumes, which also continue to unfold the gorgeous nature photo shown as a wrap-around on each box, now spell out “JEAN SI” on the shelf. As we have come to expect from the Edition, this volume of songs with piano can almost be described as “more than complete.” Sibelius published about 100 songs altogether: 84 in 16 opus-numbered groups, and another 16 or so without opus number. In addition, BIS also includes Sibelius’s own arrangements for voice and piano of a number of works originally written for voice and orchestra, as well as fragments of early songs not completed, unpublished songs recently discovered, and, as an Appendix to the volume (disc 5), alternative or preliminary versions of over a dozen others. The core of the collection consists of the contents of three previously issued BIS CDs: BIS 457 and 757, with von Otter and Forsberg, recorded in 1989 and 1994–95; and, BIS 657, with Groop and Derwinger, recorded in 1994. Almost all of the remaining items were recorded in 2008, and are making their first appearance here.


The great majority of Sibelius’s songs are set to Swedish poems; not only did Sweden have a much greater literary tradition than Finland did, but Swedish was also the composer’s first language. Sibelius’s favorite poet, judging by his choice of texts, was Johan Ludvig Runeberg, a nature poet whom Barnett calls “Finland’s national poet”; about a quarter of the songs are Runeberg settings. Sibelius did not begin writing songs until 1887 or 1888, toward the end of his student years, so this volume does not include the large number of student works and exercises found in the Chamber Music, Piano Music, and Violin and Piano volumes (Vols. 2, 4, and 6, respectively). He tended to write songs sporadically in groups through much of his career: after the initial burst of 1888–92, periods of activity in song composition included the years around the turn of the century, when Sibelius produced the last few of the Seven Songs, op. 17, and all of opp. 36–38, about 20 songs in all, including most of his best-known; and, the years 1908–11, the time of the Fourth Symphony, and a period in which Sibelius endured repeated surgeries resulting from an incorrect diagnosis of throat cancer. The last major group of songs comes from the World War I years, when he and his family faced great financial difficulties and of necessity he wrote mostly miniatures. Among these are the four groups of six songs each, opp. 72 (the first two of which are lost), 86, 88, and 90, his last bearing an opus number.


In all, von Otter sings about half the songs, including the two sets of Runeberg songs, opp. 13 and 90, that form bookends of Sibelius’s “official” song canon. Her warm, rich mezzo suits well many of the “Romantic” songs of opp. 17, 36, and 37, but she is also appropriately animated in the lighter, salonish German songs of op. 50, and in complete control in the op. 3 Arioso , a work of 1911 that Sibelius had to pass off as an early composition when he offered it to a local publisher instead of Breitkopf und Härtel, his usual publisher. BIS gives no word on why von Otter was not entrusted with the remaining items.


Groop, also a mezzo, has a less seductive sound than von Otter; then again, she is given relatively less rewarding repertoire: the Five Christmas Songs , op. 1 (again a misleading opus number), the bleak op. 57 songs of 1909, the extant four from op. 72—a polyglot mixture of the usual Swedish with one Finnish and one German setting—and, probably the finest of the batch, the six songs of op. 86. Most of these are rarely performed, and while I prefer von Otter’s singing, Groop’s performances are certainly more than adequate.


The two singers recently recorded in the remaining sets are a treat. Soprano Juntunen expresses a wide range of moods in the demanding Five Songs , op. 38, the darkest and most ambitious of the turn-of-the-century songs; she also impressively reprises her Volume 1 performance of Luonnotar in Sibelius’s own voice-and-piano arrangement. She shares with baritone Suovanen the Two Songs , op. 35, of 1908, perhaps the most musically radical of Sibelius’s works in this format. Suovanen sings both versions of the two songs from 12th Night , op. 60, the original with guitar and Sibelius’s arrangement with piano, and is most impressive in the Eight Songs , op. 61, of 1910. These are small tone-pictures with elaborate piano parts that do much to set the mostly dark moods; Suovanen easily manages the songs’ difficult tessitura, sometimes bringing to mind the young Fischer-Dieskau. He is also brilliant in Sibelius’s voice-piano version of The Rapids-Rider’s Brides . BIS has introduced other terrific new baritones, notably Tommi Hakala, but Suovanen is definitely one to watch! Tenor Karlström makes only three brief appearances, but acquits himself well; Hynninen, a veteran of the Edition, makes a cameo appearance in the preliminary versions of three of the op. 13 songs.


There should have been an elephant in the room, in the person of Tom Krause, whose complete set of the “canonical” Sibelius songs was issued on a five-LP set by Argo in the early 1980s, and appeared again on Decca CDs in 2004. To my shock, I found that this set is no longer available. Krause, whose musicianship had grown immeasurably since his 1963 single disc of Sibelius songs, would be a formidable rival in a number of these songs, several of which are really better suited to male voice because of the texts; and, the clearly “female” songs in the set were done by the imposing team of Elisabeth Söderström and Vladimir Ashkenazy. If you have, or can find, the Decca, odds are that, like me, you will prefer Krause in some items and von Otter in others.


As in previous volumes, BIS gives an insightful essay by Barnett (in five languages); texts in the original language and English translation; and, the five discs for the price of three. Owners of the Decca set may still want this if they’re really serious about Sibelius’s songs; both sets offer many beauties and many insightful performances. Hard-core Sibelians will want this for the material that is not included in the earlier set—mostly because the manuscripts had not yet come to light. Collectors who have been acquiring volumes of The Sibelius Edition all along need no further urging at this stage.


FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan

Classical Music

Classical Music

There are no bad recordings of Sibelius' epic Kullervo Symphony, only good and a bit less so. In this latter category fall the comparatively unimaginative Panula (Naxos) and the stodgy Colin Davis (RCA). All of the others, especially both Berglunds (EMI), either Järvi (father and son on BIS and Virgin respectively), Salonen (Sony), and Segerstam (Chandos) are very good indeed. This new recording upholds Vänskä's fine reputation as a Sibelian, and offers further testimony to the exceptional playing standards of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.


Osmo Vänskä's interpretation differs from those listed above in two respects. First, because his orchestra has a comparatively small string section (still substantially larger than that of the work's premiere, as the finely detailed booklet notes point out), he has little trouble balancing prominent wind passages against the often-dense string accompaniments. The very opening of the work, gentler and softer than usual, makes this clear immediately, and the whole performance has an unusual degree of transparency. Second, he adds about four minutes to the average timing of the second movement (Kullervo's Youth), which works very well when the playing is so impressively sustained and the results so tellingly atmospheric. Still, 19-plus minutes is a long time to have to wait until the narrative sections of the work begin with Kullervo and his Sister (marvelously sung by the Helsinki University Chorus and the two soloists), and despite Vänskä's confident musical shaping, some may find this just too much of a good thing. It's a highly subjective matter, even if there's no doubting the legitimacy of the overall concept.


The remainder of the work proceeds without a hitch, and if you get the impression from any of the foregoing that Vänskä leads what is in any way a timid or small-scale performance, the brilliantly exciting fourth movement (Kullervo Goes to War) will shatter that assumption. In fact, as with all of Vänskä's Sibelius, he plays the music with tremendous sweep and passion, taking delight in employing a vast dynamic range, and the Lahti brass section delivers plenty of brilliance and fullness of tone when called for. The recording, the first made in the orchestra's gorgeous new hall, captures the work magnificently, with excellent balances between voices and instruments. And so, while not clearly superior to the best versions mentioned above, Vänskä and his forces do offer insights that certainly justify purchase of this disc if you find yourself drawn to Sibelius' enthralling early masterpiece.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com