Dip Your Ears: No. 279 (The Sibelius Lure)

Jean Sibelius The Essential Orchestral Favorites Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Leif Segerstam (Ondine, 2014)

Essentials of Sibelius

Reducing “Essential Sibelius” to the Violin Concerto, tone poems, and one Symphony will make hardened Sibelius-fans wince. But then Ondine’s “The Essential Orchestral Favorites” intends not to please the hardened Sibelius-fan, it aims at making hardened Sibelius-fans out of the uninitiated. The 2-CD set does this splendidly: The Violin Concerto is the only Sibelius-work that’s permanently in the repertoire. The Second Symphony, Sibelius’ most conventional, is the ideal first symphonic exposure. And the tone poems, Karelia Suite, and three movements from The Tempest make a perfect Sibelius-starter—especially with Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic, whose soft-lit brawn is dream-boat stuff. Add Sibelius’ own performance of his Andante festivo and a 50-page booklet with oodles of photos of Sibelius, a timeline, and condensed biography. Start here and fall in love.

P.S. If you are ready for a more serious commitment right away, look for The Essential Sibelius on BIS, which will give you absolutely everything you could reasonably want from Sibelius (all the symphonies, tone poems, the concertante pieces, Kullervo, Suites, plenty of choral works, and selected chamber and piano pieces), in reference performances, on 15 discs.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 264 (A Sibelius-Classic Revisited)

J.Sibelius, Symphony No.4-7++ H.v.Karajan / Berlin Phil DG

Karajan’s Sibelius is – rightly – uncontroversial, simply because it’s pretty darn good and often better than just that. Still, he would probably not be mentioned among the first five, or even ten names, when talking great Sibelius conductors today. Probably because he never conducted a complete cycle, having eschewed the Third entirely and the First all but once. I can’t deny that I, too, haven’t thought of Karajan as my go-to Sibelius choice in a while, having comfortably settled on a few other favorites. But on re-listening to his recording of the Fourth Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon with the Berlin Philharmonic (1965), the force of this ironfisted interpretation was borne on my mind again. The sound is absolute reference class, has depth and transparency to deliver every nuance as well as every bit of oomph. The playing is deadly precise but not wall-of-sound homogenous. The music darkly glides along in all its abstract sparseness… daubed unto the musical canvas like a monochrome Seurat at moonlight. It’s a gripping experience that sounds better than memory would have suggested. In fact, so good was the impression that a comparison was in order – more or less at random. The choice fell to Berglund and his Helsinki recording for EMI. What a difference! Almost – as the cliché would have it – as if it weren’t the same work.

With Berglund, everything is lighter, gayer in comparison. He makes the music sound like the soundtrack to a Czech animated feature film about trolls and forest animals. Berglund is nice enough in each moment… and impressive when the symphony finally reaches a more conventional climax. But nothing among the niceties inexorably leads to the next moment. Nothing is woven together with the single-minded or organic determination as it is with Karajan. The latter, as the scientific phrase goes, grabs you by the lapels – the others don’t. And man, is Karajan’s version dark. There’s always a bit of “Ring Cycle without Strings” to the Fourth, but the way Wagner and Bruckner shine through in Karajan’s pristinely controlled and thereby ultimately impassioned performance is notable. I don’t mean to suggest that Karajan is bending Sibelius away from the Finn’s essence towards composers he is more familiar with or changed the character of Sibelius’ music (as might be argued to have happened with early Colin Davis, who gave Sibelius the across-the-board accessibility of a Richard Strauss tone poem). But even if he did, it’s to such tremendous, Sibelius-enhancing effect, that I couldn’t possibly object. Another Sibelius-favorite, Kurt Sanderling (Berlin Classics), also doesn’t come close to the intensity of the Karajan reading; the music – admittedly the trickiest of Sibelius masterpieces to get one’s ears around – sounds too incidental or distracted. Just about everyone can make Sibelius’ Fifth sound as if carved out of one block… Karajan does that with the Fourth! And all to tremendous effect. Listen to it! It is a unique Sibelian experience and more than deserves to retain the classic status that it long held.

The recording is part of the DG Originals Twofer of Karajan’s Sibelius for that label, part of the spotty-yet-interesting Sibelius Edition box, and on the Kamu/Karajan Berlin Philharmonic cycle on a budget TRIO set.

10/10

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Ten Recordings to Remember Mariss Jansons By

Photo of Mariss Jansons by Astrid Ackermann

Mariss Jansons died last month, on November 30th. His passing, at 76, comes earlier than we somehow would expect from a great conductor - since we tend to perceive great conductors bathed in a gentle glow of immortality. (And because conductors, despite exceptions, tend to live long and active lives.) But it did not come entirely unexpected, either, after his past and recent health failings and his preternaturally frail appearance. Between my first Mariss Jansons concert with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2006 (ionarts review) until my last review of a Jansons-concert (with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Munich's Gasteig) almost exactly ten years later (ionarts review here), he had been one of the conductors I had followed the most closely and heard the most often. I cannot say that I was always entirely enamored by the results, but often enough impressed and on some occasions blown away. Much the same goes for his recorded output which isn't very even but which contains much quality, some of which truly stands out. These are ten recordings that I think represent Jansons rather well and include the four bands with which he worked the most (Oslo, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam & Munich) the best. Failing that, they are those recordings I am most

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On ClassicsToday: Sibelius of the Rising Sun. Watanabe's Denon Cycle

Akeo Watanabe’s Sibelius Cycle On Denon

by Jens F. Laurson

Amid the Japanese embrace of Western classical music, certain composers seem to resonate particularly well with Japanese conductors and audiences: notably Beethoven, Bruckner, and Sibelius. This might be gleaned from the fact that Takashi Asahina alone recorded six Bruckner and seven Beethoven cycles while the... Continue Reading

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See also the Sibelius Symphony Cycle Survey.

On ClassicsToday: Drums and Dances - Gothenburg Symphony’s Viennese Outing

Drums and Dances: Gothenburg Symphony’s Viennese Outing

March 2, 2019 by Jens F. Laurson

The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (or Göteborgs Symfoniker; @GbgSymfoniker on Twitter and @goteborgssymfoniker on Instagram—our social media service; you’re welcome) has been on a two-week tour of Europe with two and a half programs and its newish, young chief conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. The tour, which started in Stockholm and ends in Salzburg on March 1, is—along with their new Sibelius recording on Alpha—something of a débutante ball, a coming-out party. And where better to dance than in Vienna, their penultimate stop, where the orchestra showed up at the Konzerthaus, which is, in all manner except the fame, Europe’s Carnegie Hall....  Continue Reading

Forbes Classical CD Of The Month: Mariss Jansons And Sibelius In Shostakovich's Clothing

...If the "CD of the Week" has an informative element with an implicit recommendation, a CD of the Month post is the equivalent of my waving my arms like a semaphore-gone-wild, trying even harder to recommend a recording. Here it's a dose of dark, excellent Sibelius from a sneakily unlikely source.…

-> Classical CD Of The Month March 2018: Mariss Jansons And Sibelius In Shostakovich's Clothing

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Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Hidden Sibelius Gems

Happy New Year!!!

…Beethoven’s two beautiful Romances for Violin and Orchestra come to mind, which are also much overshadowed by the solitary violin concerto. But the differences are – one – that there is much less a dearth of beautiful middle-period Beethoven than there is of middle-to-late Sibelius and – two – that the Romances can seem a touch ‘cute’, compared to the overwhelming concerto; the Humoresques – composed in 1917*; premiered in 1919 – meanwhile are condensed musical statements that don’t blush facing direct comparison…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Hidden Sibelius Gems

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A Survey of Sibelius Symphony Cycles

An Index of ionarts Discographies

Update 25/10/2023: A few updates: Added the fourth (!) cycle of Paavo Berglund: A live recording in video format only, on ICA Classics, also with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, taped a year after they recorded their cycle for Finlandia/Warner, so presumably it is very much cut of the same light, crystalline cloth.
I’ve depicted the two latest re-issues of the Barbirolli cycle - and of course Klaus Mäkelä’s Oslo mildly controversial cycle on Decca from a few years ago. And there is a re-issue of the first of the Saraste cycles that I had hitherto overlooked.

Further, there are two cycles currently in the making, that I’ve added: Yannick Nezet-Seguin’s on Atma and Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s on Alpha. Thanks to a hot tip on Twitter, I learned that I was missing to more recent cycles from Japan, those of Messrs. Sachio Fujioka and Tadaaki Otaka with the orchestras from Kansai and Sapporo, respectively. They have been added. And, while I was at it, so has Owain Arwel Hughes', with the Royal Philharmonic and the Vanska II cycle which has been boxed by BIS. (I’m also thinking of giving each conductor his own line, rather than plotting them right next to each other. Feel free to tell me, if you have any preferences in how these #Surveys are being presented, visually.

Update 02/07/2023: Added the missing disc from the Elder/Hallé cycle which has since been completed - and the Blu-ray issue of all of Karajan's Sibelius which isn't, of course, complete (4-7), but includes all his other Sibelius recordings, which means Swan, Tapiola, Finlandia, and Valse triste both from the 60s and 80s, Pelléas & Mélisande, and the great Violin Concerto recording with Christian Ferras. A great collection with the best 4th ever!

Update 08/20/2019: Links to reviews on ClassicsToday ("@ClassicsToday") added, wherever available. Dozens of broken Amazon global-links fixed.

Update 02/14/2019: Coincidence that I update this post on Valentine's Day, I'm sure. Anyway: New cycles are in the making or have been finished (and therefore incldued below). The Gothenburg Symphony under Santtu-Matias Rouvali, their newish Finnish Chief Conductor, have begun a complete Sibelius cycle on Alpha Classics. Paavo Järvi has figured: Whatever daddy can do, I can do half as well, at least: He's finished his first Sibelius Cycle with the Paris Orchestra (admittedly not known for Sibelius - it is in fact the first French Sibelius cycle); Pape Neeme of course has two under his belt.

Update 02/14/2017: I've learned of the existence, thanks to spotting the spine in an Instagram picture, of another new cycle of Sibelius symphonies and included it here. It is with Kim Dae-jin (Daejin Kim) conducting the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, released on Sony/Korea.

Update 01/12/2016: This survey, the first I wrote for ionarts, has been completely revamped and been put into an order, namely alphabetical, by conductor. This can be cumbersome when updating, but it is the easiest to search. Initially, only readily available cycles were meant to be included in these surveys, but they have grown a little more ambitious, since. This brings about the addition of Jukka-Pekka Saraste’s first cycle on RCA (1987-88), which is very much oop. Saraste’s second cycle was recorded live in St. Petersburg. The individual releases on Warner-Teldec-Apex and Finlandia (the latter covers almost all the smaller orchestral works as well as the Violin Concerto and the Humoresques by other conductors and orchestras) are identical to the set that proclaims "live from St. Petersburg" (1993). It also means that I have included the first cycle of Akeo Watanabe, from 1962 (the first in stereo, paceLeonard Bernstein), even though it never made it from its Sony/Epic LPs onto CD. I have not (yet?) added Paavo Berglund’s Sibelius recordings with the LPO, although arguably they are as much an incomplete cycle as Bernstein’s Vienna one, with four symphonies. You can find it here; it would have been his 4th.

Update 01/11/2016: Three new cycles added: Adrian Leaper’s on Naxos (their first), which I had simply overlooked. (Did Leaper record a complete cycle with the Orquesta Filharmonica de Gran Canaria on Arte Nova?.) Hannu Lintu’s DVD-cycle on ArtHaus Musik has been added, which comes with introductions to the symphonies which I have been reliably told are very good and involving. Also the incomplete-yet-stuffed Philadelphia cycle of Ormandy’s which lacks symphonies 3 and 6 but contains 1, 2, and 7 twice and a bunch of other Sibelius. The Anthony Collins cycle has been re-issued in the Decca "Great Performances" box; Lorin Maazel I (Decca/Vienna) has been re-issued on CD and Blu-ray; Bernstein I (Sony/New York) has been remastered for CD.

Update 09/28/2015: Four new cycles added! Pietari Inkinen’s first cycle, recorded with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for Naxos, is finished (and has been for a while). It’s available on individual discs, but not yet boxed. Meanwhile he's already recorded a new cycle with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he's just been named the new Chief Conductor.

Also brand new (but not yet available on Amazon) Sir Simon Rattle’s brand new cycle performed, recorded, and filmed at the Philharmonie in Berlin with his Berliners. The set, as all the BPh’s own such sets, is lavish, includes high resolution audio and video options (though not SACD), and fits on no CD or book-shelf of man’s creation, thus offering a bit of a conundrum.

And, on SACD from BIS, a new set with the Lahti SO, this time under Okko Kamu, also known as the guy who 'finished' Karajan's Sibelius Cycle for Deutsche Grammophon.


Update 09/03/2018: I'm adding the Mark Elder/Hallé cycle on their own label (the first orchestra-founded label there is) which is two symphonies away from being finished.

Update 03/12/2015: HvK's not-quite-complete cycle on EMI (now Warner) is now in one box, remastered, shiny, and available. A completely new addition is the Arvo Volmer cycle from Adelaide on ABC Classics! It's about 10 to 5 years old, by my reckoning, and the first down-under Sibelius cycle.

Update 24/02/2015: Abranavel's has been released on Musical Concepts. Who knew. It's been added accordingly.

Update 12/01/2014: John Storgårds' new cycle, recorded live with the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos, has been added.

Update 19/01/2013: Colin Davis' second (first LSO) cycle is being re-issued and already available in Europe.

Update 12/01/2013: Abranavel's, Karajan and Bernstein's incomplete, and Ashkenazy's Stockholm cycle added. Links and images updated and Amazon-links internationalized. Ionarts's Choice cycles updated. Misdirecting links double-checked after initial posting.

Update 04/01/2013: Paavo Berglund's first cycle with the Bournemouth SO, long out of print, has been re-issued as a super-basement bargain by EMI. It's been included below, replacing the Royal Classics release.

Update 12/12/2012: Colin Davis' third cycle (on LSO Live) is out in a box and has been included below. His first cycle has been boxed by Decca, and has been added in place of the two Philips twofers. To keep the symmetry, Sixten Ehrling's Stockholm cycle (available on German Amazon and on HMV.co.jp) has been added.

Like the Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle Survey, this is a mere "inventory" of what has been recorded and whether it is still available. Favorites are denoted with the "ionarts' choice" graphic.

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Brahms 4 from the BSO

Sibelius / Khachaturian, Violin Concertos, S. Khachatryan, Sinfonia Varsovia, E. Krivine (Naïve, 2004)

After the Brahms first symphony from the National Symphony Orchestra on Friday, it was time for more Brahms from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The fourth symphony was the centerpiece of the program led by Czech guest conductor Jakub Hrůša, heard on Saturday evening in the Music Center at Strathmore. Hrůša, who last appeared with the BSO in 2014 and with the NSO the year before that, led a Brahms 4 that was more my kind of Brahms playing, with the emotions rarely on the sleeve. The orchestra was returned to its normal seating, after Marin Alsop's experiments earlier in the month, and the first movement was tight and clean, from the first beats of the first movement's melancholy first theme, crowned by a big, forceful ending.

After a heroic horn introduction, the second movement had just the right tempo, not too fast, to put that forlorn clarinet theme in the best light, ambling along at its own pace. Only the third movement seemed not quite right, too harried, although it settled into a slightly slower place later. It is already jolly enough with all those triangle rolls, the only time that a percussion instrument other than timpani appears in a Brahms symphony, and the comic metric shifts and hammered accents. The concluding passacaglia had a pleasing solemnity, with intensity more than speed, especially in the slower middle part.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, BSO makes dynamic music with conductor Jakub Hrusa, violinist Sergey Khachatryan (Baltimore Sun, February 1)

Sergey Khachatryan was the soloist in Sibelius's violin concerto, the same piece the Armenian violinist played the last time he appeared with the BSO, a decade ago. The opening of the first movement plays right into Khachatryan's strength, weaving a soft and delicate legato line over those shimmering D minor chords in the divisi violins, playing with mutes. In passages like this he tended to minimize his vibrato, which in louder passages could become a liability, at least for the clarity of tone. The E string playing was generally fine, especially the flautando notes in the third movement, but there was an unfortunate tendency toward flatness in the second movement, where the horns also had trouble staying in tune.

We are big fans of the music of Leoš Janáček here at Ionarts, but his brief orchestral piece known as Jealousy did not convince. This was both because the piece is odd, not really a curtain-raiser as it was offered here, and because Hrůša, who is a specialist in this composer's music, was at his most frantic and hard to understand, at least from the house. It was difficult to hear what either the composer or the conductor was after. One would have preferred something like the Sinfonietta instead.

Guest conductor Mario Venzago and pianist André Watts join the BSO this week, for music by Gluck, Mozart, and Schumann (February 4 to 6).

Third Opinion: NSO Plays Sibelius 2

Sibelius, Symphonies / Tone Poems, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, N. Järvi (DG, 2007) H. Eller, Five Pieces for String Orchestra, Scottish National Orchestra, N. Järvi (Alliance, 1992)

Neeme Järvi returned to the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra last week, for the first time since 2013. Now in his late 70s, Järvi was understated in a program representing his strengths, including an ensemble debut of a work by fellow Estonian Heino Eller. To go along with reports of the first two performances, here are some additional thoughts on the third performance, heard on Saturday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Neeme Järvi has recorded the Sibelius symphonies twice with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, once for BIS and once for Deutsche Grammophon. Neither cycle ranks highly in our estimation, but he led a solid, somewhat earthy rendition of the composer's second symphony. The horns complied with his demands for brilliant, full sound, as did all the members of the brass section, with thrilling interpretations of the ff and fff sections. The pulsating main theme of the first movement, marked with tenuto accents under slurs, surged in the strings, dissonance-laden harmonies amassed over the D pedal in the basses and second cellos. For its tense qualities, the opening of the second movement, with the timpani summoning pizzicato basses and cellos to accompany the melody in the bassoon, seemed more like the opening of Die Walküre than it normally does, and the third movement was startlingly fast, in keeping with the Vivacissimo marking. All evening long, the cell phones and watch alarms of the audience intruded, worst of all at the quite moments of this movement's trio, but the seamless transition into the finale set up beautifully paced surges of sound to the returns of one of Sibelius's most famous melodies.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Jarvi’s insouciance gets results from the NSO (Washington Post, January 15) Robert R. Reilly, NSO, Neemi Järvi, and Baiba Skride (Ionarts, January 16)

To go with James Ehnes's performance of Prokofiev's second violin concerto this past fall, Järvi led a relatively rare rendition of the composer's first violin concerto, not heard from the NSO since 1999. Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, last heard with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2011, was in disappointing form for the first time in my experience, her intonation especially not quite right far too often. It is a work that should be tailored to her strengths, with its dreamy introduction paired with flute and clarinets and a melancholy, music-box pseudo-cadenza at the end of the first movement with harp and piccolo. The G string of her Stradivarius (ex-Baron Feilitzsch, 1734) growled in the second movement, which turns into a perverse march, and she had her best moments on the soaring lines of the finale, where the intonation issues were minimal. Unlike Thursday night, Skride offered no encore. The Five Pieces for String Orchestra by Heino Eller, best known as having taught Arvo Pärt, were pleasant to discover, rather simple character pieces composed for piano and arranged for soupy strings.

Next week Christoph Eschenbach returns to the podium, with Daniel Müller-Schott playing the Dvořák cello concerto. Over the next two weeks, the NSO will be playing through the repertory planned for its European tour, lasting most of the month of February.

NSO, Neeme Järvi, and Baiba Skride

Prokofiev, Violin Concertos, L. Mordkovitch, Scottish National Orchestra, N. Järvi (Chandos, 2009) Sibelius, Symphony No. 2, Royal Philharmonic, J. Barbirolli (Chesky, 1990)

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

On Friday evening, January 15, 2016, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, famed Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi and the National Symphony Orchestra offered the second of its three performances of a highly attractive program, consisting in the 5 Pieces for String Orchestra by Heino Eller, Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1, and Jean Sibelius’s Second Symphony.

As a Sibelius fanatic, I was impelled to attend to hear the third item on the program but was surprised to find that the major treat of the evening was the Prokofiev and the exquisite playing by Latvian violinist Baiba Skride in her NSO debut.

However, first things first. The opening, brief 5 Pieces by Eller is a charming, lovely string composition that, while apparently redolent of Estonian folk tunes, could easily keep company with comparable string works by English composers like Frank Bridge, Ralph Vaughan Williams, or Benjamin Britten. Its plush string writing has the warmth of musical mahogany, and it was appropriately upholstered by the sound of the NSO strings.

Prokofiev wanted the violinist to play the beginning of his Violin Concerto No. 1 “as if in a dream.” That is exactly how Skride softly entered with the Stradivarius she was playing. It was with a feminine softness, and also a purity of line and crystalline clarity. This concerto does not have a cadenza for its soloist, properly speaking. But since the soloist plays almost nonstop throughout all three movements, it is almost more appropriate to think of the concerto as a giant cadenza with orchestral accompaniment. In any case, it was magic time. Skride played with unfailing eloquence, energy and refinement (and spot-on accuracy) through all the various complexities that Prokofiev packed in for the soloist, cadenza or not. It was a joy to hear someone playing at this level on an instrument this beautiful.

At the work’s 1923 premiere in Paris, Prokofiev reported of the critics that “some of them commented not without malice on its ‘Mendelssohnisms.’” What those disappointed critics were referring to are the parts of the work that capture the kind of crepuscular, murmuring enchantment that Mendelssohn was so expert at distilling. Unless you are looking for a catastrophe in a boiler factory, this is one of the work’s highly attractive assets. Not only did Skride play these with tremendous delicacy and charm, but so did the orchestral accompaniment. And here one must applaud Järvi, a Prokofiev expert, for keeping everything in perfect balance throughout the three movements. The chimerical fleetness with which all departments in the NSO played deserves huzzahs.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Jarvi’s insouciance gets results from the NSO (Washington Post, January 15)

Järvi began the Sibelius Second briskly enough that, were he a less expert conductor, I might’ve worried that he was going to rush the fence, to use an equestrian expression. Of course, he didn’t. However, this was an interpretation based more on the power of the piece, than its passion. It was more like a cold splash of Nordic water, which can be very bracing, than it was nature mysticism. To catch the sense of my meaning listen, if you can, to John Barbirolli’s 1962 performance with the Royal Philharmonic (Chesky label). Barbirolli catches a sense of what the music is coming out of so that when there is an orchestral pause, it is a silence pregnant with sound. In Järvi’s performance, it was just a pause, period. It was not as expressive because the underlying mysticism was not there. However, the comparison with Barbirolli is not meant as a criticism, but a contrast. There is more than one way to do the Second Symphony. Järvi was consistent in his, which produced a lot of excitement. I should add that, in the finale, he combined power with passion. Overall, I was impressed but not moved. The NSO effectively draped the great sheets of brass and string sound across the Concert Hall to thrilling effect.

The only dismaying feature of the evening was the sparse audience attendance. With this much ear candy on offer, where were they?

This concert repeats this evening.

Briefly Noted: Sibelius and the Theater, Vol. 1

Sibelius, Incidental Music, Vol. 1, P. Pajala, W. Torikka, Turku Philharmonic, L. Segerstam (released on June 9, 2015) Naxos 8.573299 | 72'50" [Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Vol. 5 | Vol. 6]

So here we are at last, at the first of the series of six discs devoted to Sibelius's music for the theater, recorded by Leif Segerstam and the Turku Philharmonic. (Presumably, a seventh disc will eventually appear with Stormen, the incidental music for The Tempest, the only score not covered so far, first recorded in its complete form by Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Philharmonic in 1992.) The first volume includes Sibelius's first work of incidental music, composed for King Christian II by Swedish playwright Adolf Paul in 1898. The eponymous 16th-century ruler of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden had a common Dutch girl, Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, as his mistress, for which he is remembered as much as for his part in the Stockholm Bloodbath, the massacre of Swedish nobles who opposed him. The popular suite Sibelius arranged has only five of the seven pieces that Sibelius composed for the play.

The Elegy movement, which served as the gloomy overture to the play, is a consummate example of lush writing for five-part strings, replete with intense, Wagnerian appoggiaturas and dissonant harmony. The bubbly wind-heavy Musette was played by street musicians outside Dyveke's window as the character danced inside, while the Menuetto, played as an introduction to the court scene in the third act, has melodic turns that remind me humorously of Jingle Bells. Baritone Waltteri Torikka, a fine singer, is perhaps too stentorian in the Song of the Cross-Spider, sung by a jester who mocks the imprisoned king in his cell, referring to Dyveke as the spider. The last three pieces (Nocturne, Serenade, and Ballade), added to the score the summer after the play's premiere, have the feel of more symphonic movements that stand quite well on their own.

Just as gorgeous is the score Sibelius composed for Kuolema (Death), a play by Arvid Järnefelt, brother of Sibelius's wife, Aino, premiered at the National Theater in Helsinki in 1903. Heard here in its original form -- played from the composer's manuscript score -- it opened with the famous Valse Triste, during which Death appears to the sick mother of the main character, Paavali, as her dead husband. They dance together, and in the morning she is dead. Paavali's song to the cold, sung as he enters a witch's house in Act II, is no more flattering to Torikka, although Sibelius's settings of translations of two Shakespeare lyrics work better for his voice. Pia Pajola, Segerstam's go-to soprano in this cycle, is quite affecting in the song sung by the mysterious woman who becomes Paavali's wife, to whom a child is brought by the cranes in the lovely movement titled The Cranes, again with luscious string writing. Segerstam opens the disc with the Overture in A minor, premiered in 1902 on the same concert with the composer's second symphony but never approved by him for publication. It opens with a brilliant brass fanfare, transitions into a sort of Galop that is less memorable but fun, and returns triumphantly to that mysterious brass material.

#morninglistening: The Sibelius Fraterinity

#morninglistening to #Sibelius (Sy.#4 w/@BerlinPhil & HvK) #classical #classicalmusic #sy… https://t.co/nd2gkBpmWx pic.twitter.com/ihMdXl7l1o

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) December 16, 2015

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Briefly Noted: Writing on the Wall

Sibelius, Music for the Theater, Vol. 2, Turku Philharmonic, L. Segerstam (released on July 10, 2015) Naxos 8.573300 | 63'01" [Vol. 3 | Vol. 4 | Vol. 5 | Vol. 6]

Sibelius actually composed the incidental music for Belshazzar's Feast after that for Pelléas et Mélisande, under review yesterday. The formula for Leif Segerstam's definitive collection of discs devoted to Sibelius's theatrical music has generally focused each volume on a major work of incidental music, rounded out with little pieces that may or not have had their genesis in the theater.

The centerpiece here is the incidental music for Belshazzar's Feast, a play by Sibelius's friend Hjalmar Procopé for the Swedish Theater in Helsinki, produced in 1906. The story follows Leschanah, a Jewish woman sent to assassinate Belshazzar, king of Babylon. The best numbers are early in the score, especially a lovely flute solo with delectable harmony in the prelude ("Nocturno") for Act II, as Leschanah listens to the royal palace at night, seduced by the king's power. Soprano Pia Pajala sings the mournful Song of the Jewish Girl, a paraphrase of Psalm 137 in a way similar to Verdi's chorus of the Hebrew slaves from Nabucco. Less memorable is the dance music to accompany Leschanah's attempt to displace the king's favorite slave girl, Khadra.

The disc opens with a barn-storming overture that is a fun listen, paired here with a Scène de ballet, both of which Sibelius drafted in 1891 as movements for an aborted attempt at a first symphony. (This makes for a fascinating comparison with his actual first symphony, finished in 1899 and revised in 1900.) The dance especially has a sort of eastern flavor in its melodic nuances and percussion choices, which make suitable companions for Belshazzar's Feast. Sounding more like the Sibelius we all think we know is a short "Wedding March" (not really what it sounds like), composed for Adolf Paul's play Die Sprache der Vögel in 1911. Segerstam rounds out this volume with a couple of other short processional pieces. The most curious of them is a "Processional," first composed in the 1920s for Finland's new Masonic Lodge, where Sibelius was a member.

Briefly Noted: 'Pélleas' and More

Sibelius, Music for the Theater, Vol. 3, Turku Philharmonic, L. Segerstam (released on August 14, 2015) Naxos 8.573301 | 57'49" [Vol. 4 | Vol. 5 | Vol. 6]

Sibelius's score for Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande is likely his most famous work of incidental music. It is heard most often, though, in the suite version, as when Leonidas Kavakos conducted it with the National Symphony Orchestra earlier this year. The suite has almost all of the music Sibelius wrote for the play, shortly after his move to Järvenpää in 1904, in a Swedish translation by Bertel Gripenberg premiered at Helsinki's Swedish Theater in 1905. Segerstam instead performs the original score, including the sixth number missing from the suite, Mélisande’s song in Scene 2 ("De trenne blinda systrar" [The Three Blind Sisters]), sung here by soprano Pia Pajala.

As noted before, this is a mesmerizing score, with poignant English horn solos (the instrument representing Mélisande in the score) and unsettled orchestral effects that capture the disturbing quality of life in Allemonde, which appears normal but is anything but -- a score that all film composers should study closely. The third number, for the fourth scene in Act I, is set at the sea's edge, with a tidal motif in the muted strings, alternating between two dominant seventh chords with roots a tritone apart (B-flat and E) over a pedal point on D (the section is nominally in D minor, although a cadence in that key never materializes). Periodically, Sibelius creates a shivering effect for the cold winds that come from the sea, combining a roll on the bass drum (played with timpani mallets), a low-set run in the first violins, and a tremolo played near the bridge by the double basses. Segerstam and his musicians capture this effect with spine-tingling subtlety, and there are many others one could mention.



Of the other five pieces that round out this volume, only one, Musik zu einer Szene, was intended to accompany a theatrical scene, a piece quite redolent of Tchaikovsky and that Sibelius later made into a version for piano. Two waltzes and a little Romantic piece are later orchestrations of piano works or otherwise not of great interest. Pajala is joined by mezzo-soprano Sari Nordqvist for Autrefois, a setting for two voices and orchestra of a poem by Hjalmar Procopé in the same Symbolist fairy-tale vein as Maeterlinck.

Briefly Noted: More of Sibelius's Theater Music

Sibelius, Incidental Music, Vol. 4, Turku Philharmonic, L. Segerstam (released on September 11, 2015) Naxos 8.573340 | 72'50" [Vol. 5 | Vol. 6]

Last Tuesday a massed choir of Finns marked the 150th birthday of Jean Sibelius by singing his choral version of the Finlandia hymn in Helsinki's Senate Square (video embedded below). My delectation of Leif Segerstam's ongoing cycle of Sibelius's music for the theater, with the Turku Philharmonic, continues with the fourth volume, released in September.

In the midst of World War I, the Finnish National Theater commissioned incidental music from Sibelius to accompany Jedermann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's adaptation of The Somonyng of Everyman, the 15th-century morality play. Sibelius held this score, premiered in 1916, in high esteem, but because he never made a suite arrangement of it (other than three sections arranged for piano), it is less often heard in performance. Sibelius maintained, in subsequent performances of the score with the play, that the music had to be matched exactly with the lines spoken by the actors, phrase for phrase. (Von Hoffmannsthal's play is still performed every summer at the Salzburg Festival, on the steps of the city's cathedral, but not with Sibelius's score, as far as I know.)

After an expansive opening, Sibelius creates some rather forgettable song and dance music that symbolizes the empty-headed pursuits of Everyman's life. When Death takes the scene, the score becomes much more interesting (tracks 12 to 17), with intertwined chromatic string lines seeming to separate Everyman from the dippy music that came before. The music underscores the lessons Everyman is forced to learn when he dies: nothing and no one he held dear in his life can help him now. Only Good Works and Faith agree to go with him on this final journey.

While not technically created for a theatrical production, two shorter instrumental scores are in keeping with the religious tone of the Jokamies (Everyman) score: Two Serious Melodies for violin and orchestra, op. 77, and In memoriam for orchestra, created after the composer underwent an operation on his throat and played again at Sibelius's funeral -- an apt tie-in to the story of Jedermann.

Briefly Noted: More of Segerstam's Sibelius

Sibelius, Incidental Music, Vol. 5, Turku Philharmonic, L. Segerstam (released on October 9, 2015) Naxos 8.573341 | 63'34"

The disc under review yesterday is the latest in a series devoted to Sibelius's music for the theater from Leif Segerstam and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra. I have been working my way backwards through it -- currently it numbers six discs -- and it is all quite wonderful. Some of these pieces are better known than others, but many are tiny fragments one never hears.

Sibelius's best-known incidental music is likely that for Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande. The actress who played Mélisande in the performances when that music was premiered, Harriet Bosse, eventually married the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. When Strindberg wrote a play called Svanevit (Swanwhite) for her, she convinced him to commission the incidental music from Sibelius. Sibelius himself conducted the score, a horn call and thirteen short pieces, at the premiere production in 1908, at Helsinki's Swedish Theater, where there was a small ensemble of thirteen musicians. Since the play is in the same Symbolist vein as Maeterlinck's Pelléas, a fairy tale about a princess named Swanwhite, Sibelius's score has much the same feeling of gloom. Magical scenes receive delightful coloristic episodes in the music, like Swanwhite's enchanted harp that plays by itself. Segerstam uses the slightly expanded version of the score, revised by Sibelius after the play's premiere, included the organ part added to the last movement -- but not the suite version, with its other added instruments.

The other longer incidental score on this disc is for Mikael Lybeck's play Ödlan (The Lizard). Premiered in 1910, this play is also a Symbolist-tinged fairy tale, with a nobleman torn between the influence of his pure betrothed, Elisiv, and an evil woman named Adla, who is costumed in a lizard dress. The score is intensely beautiful, especially the second piece, which lasts over twenty minutes, although it is scored for small string orchestra (Sibelius specified that it could be played by only nine musicians). These longer scores are complemented by two short pieces intended to be played as musical narration to the recitation of poems: Ett ensamt skidspår (The Lonely Ski Trail), in the version for harp, narrator, and strings; and Grevinnans konterfej (The Countess's Portrait), for strings orchestra. Finnish actor Riko Eklundh reads the texts of Bertel Gripenberg and Zachris Topelius, both Finnish poets who wrote in Swedish.

Briefly Noted: Sibelius's 'Scaramouche'

Sibelius, Scaramouche (complete ballet), B. Goldstein, R. Ruottinen, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, L.Segerstam (released on November 13, 2015) Naxos 8.573511 | 71'

One of my interests is lesser-known ballet scores of the 20th century, like those of Paul Hindemith and Debussy's Jeux. Sibelius composed the score of Scaramouche, his op. 71, as accompaniment to a tragic pantomime by Poul Knudsen. Begun in 1912, the work was not premiered until 1922, at Det Kongelige Teater in Copenhagen. The roles were performed by dancer-actors, although it was not a ballet in the classical sense (see some filmed excerpts): Knudsen even provided lines for the characters to speak, a change to the original plan of which Sibelius did not approve. The title character is a dwarf with a hunched back, and he plays a magical viola that hypnotizes a beautiful woman named Blondelaine, causing her to abandon her husband, Leilon, during an all-night party at Leilon's house in the country. When Blondelaine is freed from Scaramouche's power, she kills him with her husband's dagger. The dwarf's spirit, incarnated by the sound of his viola, accuses her from beyond the grave, and Blondelaine falls dead, causing Leilon to go mad.

The delightful score is for chamber orchestra, mostly woodwinds and strings, joined by four horns and piano, but Sibelius creates a wonderful tapestry of sound with these limited forces. In addition to the orchestra in the pit, groups of instruments perform on stage and behind the stage as well, including the piano supposedly played by Leilon in the final scene; a trumpet is heard off-stage in Act II, the post horn signaling that a coach is about to leave the house as the party winds down. The Finnish conductor and runaway symphonist Leif Segerstam leads members of his new band, the Turku Philharmonic, in what may be the most complete recorded version of the score to date, and a fine one besides. (Neeme Järvi's premiere recording of the work, for BIS with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, is several minutes shorter; Jussi Jalas made his own twenty-minute condensed version, which he recorded with the Hungarian State Symphony.) Here we get the music without the spoken lines indicated by Knudsen, and the results suggest that a savvy choreographer should make a ballet version of the piece. The score has turns both neoclassical and chillingly dissonant, with lots of scordatura-like chromaticism to evoke the devilish nature of Scaramouche, the evil musician.

#morninglistening: Rattle-Sibelius, Symphonies

#morninglistening to #Sibelius w/@BerlinPhil, their latest recording. Continental Sibelius… http://t.co/qxFgy8ugIZ pic.twitter.com/O2vpYr6IBR

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) September 28, 2015

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C Major Is C Major Is C Major?

H. Vieuxtemps, Cello Concertos, A. Gerhardt, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, J. Caballé-Domenech (Hyperion, 2015) U. Chin, Cello Concerto, A. Gerhardt, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, M.-W. Chung (DG, 2014)

It was a June evening, which justified dressing down for an orchestra concert. Happily, there was no musical equivalent of casual attire on the fine program from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by Christoph König on Saturday night in the Music Center at Strathmore. The imposing but young German conductor, who debuted with the BSO in 2013, paired two symphonies that end, as he pointed out in brief comments at the concert's opening, in C major: Sibelius's seventh and Beethoven's fifth. The effect of the same tonal area could not be more different: Sibelius has the orchestra arrive reluctantly at the key, with the violins straining to resolve the leading tone to the tonic, while Beethoven hammers the resolution of dominant to tonic chords triumphantly.

Sibelius's final symphony, last heard from the National Symphony Orchestra in 2013 (although they played it better under Vladimir Ashkenazy in 2008), is in some ways more like a tone poem than a symphony, with themes that are transformed slowly over time, a sort of exercise in nostalgia and remembering. König spoke with enthusiasm about the piece, as if he had to defend it, and he elicited a strong performance from the musicians, especially in the undulating opening slow section, churning with molten but hidden heat. The faster parts did not perhaps quite hold together across the ensemble as they should, but that calming trombone theme, which Sibelius at one point marked with the name of his wife ("Aino"), was given room to soar, especially effective at the ecstatic build-up to its last appearances. If you have ever used the Sibelius music notation software, that program used to open with a little swirling bit of music, which comes from the first minutes of this symphony, always bringing a smile to my face when I hear the piece performed live.

Beethoven's fifth symphony requires a special interpretation to stand out, something unexpected like that heard from Mario Venzago in 2011. König's ideas were forceful, seemingly influenced by historically informed performance practice, so that the whole symphony was taken at no-nonsense tempi with crisp articulations and little distortion of the pace, even in the slow movement. As in the Sibelius, this created some ensemble tensions and lack of cohesion in the faster spots, in particular in the third and fourth movements, which König elided together with almost no modification of the tempo, taking his lead from Beethoven's ingenious blending of the scherzo and finale. When the scherzo returns later, there was almost the impression of the orchestra remarking, "Oh, yeah, we forgot to finish the scherzo!" As compelling as it was in some ways, the tempo demands in the finale had breathless results, and more than one musician could be seen shaking his or head about the unrelenting speed König imposed.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, A well-structured program from BSO, Konig, Gerhardt (Baltimore Sun, June 6)

In between the two symphonies came the welcome return of Alban Gerhardt to the area, as soloist in Shostakovich's first cello concerto, last heard from Sol Gabetta with the NSO in 2013. The German cellist played with the NSO in 2008 and 2006, and he was last with the BSO even longer ago. He has grown into this obsessive, disturbing work, an impressive performance that turned aside my initial wishes that Gerhardt would have brought one of the lesser-heard works, by Henri Vieuxtemps or Unsuk Chin, that he has recorded recently. Gerhardt's consistent and manic sound high on the A string was savagely single-minded in the opening movement but also soft and ardent in the slow movement. At the end of the second movement, one could have used a bit more heart-searing tone, à la Slava, and the double-stop section of the cadenza was a little off, but the ghostly harmonics, in duet with the celesta, were haunting. Gerhardt did have a tendency to rush and elide some of the more complicated passages, but König's perceptive ear and clean stick technique quickly put the train back on the rails.

Ionarts extends thanks to the professionals who are stepping down from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, recognized at this concert: librarian Mary Plaine, principal clarinetist Steven Barta and assistant principal clarinetist Christopher Wolfe, and cellist Paula Skolnik-Childress. Critics are paid to gripe, but the devotion of these talented people to the folly that is classical music receives only our admiration.