Mats Norrman:

>What are the listmembers opinions on Sarastes set?

I only know his 6th from his earlier Finnish RSO cycle on RCA Victor.
His balletic approach works great for that symphony, and I really want
to hear his 3rd, but I can imagine he wouldn't be so hot in 2, 4, 5, and 7.
I found a very very interesting article in which seven prominent conductors
are interviewed about interpreting Sibelius.  Saraste is one of them, and
I found his description of his "new insight" into conducting rather
intriguing: if he puts his money where his mouth is then I'm interested
in hearing the results.  The article, Sibelius- the View From the Podium,
is here:

http://music.finland.com/classical/fmq/articles/conductors_and_sibelius.html

and one of the other articles on the same website is a very good piece
about the facts concerning the 8th, how far along it got, and its demise.
The author of the conductor article, Vesa Siren, apparently wrote a book
on Sibelius.  Anyone know if it came out yet?

Since this thread started I got three new Sibelius discs.  Firstly, the new
BBC Legends Beecham release.  I love the incidental music for Swanwhite and
am grateful that we now have a Beecham recording of it.  Interpretively, he
wipes up the floor with Jussi Jalas (though Jalas is a good straightforward
reading,) though the coughing from the audience during this and the equally
quiet Pelleas and Melisande music is very frequent and Very LOUD. One guy
in particular goes off nonstop. One gets used to it though, as this is the
only Beecham Swanwhite we're likely to get.  The Fourth symphony doesn't
come near Beecham's 1937 studio recording, at least in my impression thus
far.  Tapiola is a great interpretation, but Beecham's other live one
(1954, Helsinki PO) on an Ondine cd is the same interpretation in better
sound and with better playing-- that one's still one of my very favorite
Tapiolas.  So, so far twenty minutes of sublime Swanwhite is the main draw.
But then at the end of disc two comes a Seventh symphony recorded the year
before (1954) at the Proms.  Lo and behold, this is that Beecham Sibelius
Seventh I've been wanting all along!  Passionate like the 1942 NYPO one
but in about twenty times better sound (and better sound than its own
discmates too.) Poetic and springlike like the live Helsinki one (coupled
with the aforementioned Tapiola on Ondine) but without the orchestral
flubs.  Totally without the oddly subdued, dispassionate quality of the
contemporaneous EMI studio recording Beecham made.  YES YES YES!!  For me
this Seventh is well worth the price of admission, especially as I had
already spent more than the price of this disc being frustrated by every
other Beecham Seventh there is.  This one goes up with Maazel,
Koussevitzky, and Vanska.

Also got two of the budget price RPO own-label releases-- Mackerras
conducting the Second, Finlandia and the Karelia suite, and Ole Schmidt
conducting the Fifth, En Saga, Valse Triste and the Swan of Tuonela.
Mackerras' is a vigorously straightforward Second, not as pugnacious as
Jarvi and Kajanus, but certainly avoiding the lugubrious noodling-about so
often heard in modern recordings of this piece's strange, wonderful first
movement.  Very nice, doleful second movement.  Mackerras' high point is
the finale one of the best I've heard, where he achieves a powerful,
unsentimental grandeur, and utilizes a variant for the timpani part in the
famous chug-a-chugging march which Tony Duggan explained better than I am
able (was that here or on the Mahler List, Tony?) but I hear the difference
and it really works for me.  Mackerras also offers a wonderful, fleetfooted
and danceable Karelia Suite.

Then I was very impressed by Ole Schmidt's Fifth.  For some reason, when
I bought the disc I thought Ole Schmidt was a young up-and-comer like
Sakari or whomever.  Turns out he's a real veteran of 72 years with a
complete LSO Nielsen cycle under his belt!  (What label was that on?) I'd
never heard of him before this.  His Fifth is not too unusual in tempi or
shaping of phrases, and yet it is very distinctive.  Schmidt makes his
effects through the balance of the instruments, bringing certain lines to
the fore in ways that make some passages sound quite new.  For example, in
the first section of the third movement, when the strings are quietly but
frenziedly whooshing and whirling, the accompanying woodwind figures rise
up in the texture and dominate the strings for several bars in a way I
don't believe I've heard before.  Schmidt also fiddles with the interplay
of the brass during the climaxes in subtle ways that pay off well to my
ears.  Thoroughly fulfilling ending, with pauses between "hammer blows"
just long enough, not preposterously stretched like Maazel to cite one.
Time will tell, but this Fifth seems to offer an angle not had from any of
my umpteen other recordings, and will likely hop off my shelf regularly.
Schmidt's En Saga has similar virtues as regards the textural play, but
is a much more obviously individual account.  Schmidt seems to take the
opportunity of a tone-poem to indulge in some wonderful imagistic rhetoric.
He slows way way down for some sections, enabling him to articulate some of
the weird, supernatural textural moments in ways I've never heard.  Towards
the end the whole band rises to a furious blazing climax, almost running
off the rails, strikingly so as the performance up till there has been
superbly controlled.  I'd LOVE to hear this conductor turned loose on
the complete Lemminkainen Legends.  The playing of the RPO on this disc
was particularly impressive.  This and the Mackerras were recorded in a
different venue than the great Shipway Mahler 5 from the same label, and I
must say I like this sound better...  it's easier to pick out details which
is a big priority with me.  Anybody have any other recommendations from
this budget RPO series? I'm 3 for 3 so far!

Jon Lewis [log in to unmask]