Jean Sibelius: Symphonies No. 4-7, Tapiola etc.

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Music reviews of Jean Sibelius: Symphonies No. 4-7, Tapiola etc.

Music Review: "He understands what I meant..." Sibelius and von Karajan
Rating: 5 Stars

The 2-disc set involved here, Sibelius' Symphonies 4 through 7, plus "The Swan of Tuonela" and "Tapiola", recaps the best of the von Karajan/Berlin era, analogue recordings made during the mid- and late-60s by DG in the Jesus Christus Kirche facility in Berlin. When the orchestra moved into the new Philharmonie in the mid-70s, the sense of "air" around the orchestra was lost, not to mention the liveness of the vaulted plaster interior. For this DG "Originals" reissue, the engineers have thinned some of the old lower midrange muddiness that often plagued some of the best recordings of the period. Bass response is a bit lighter, and consequently brass-heavy passages may seem more dominant that they did in the LP format. The net gain, though, I believe is all to the good. The greater transparency has more of the quality that EMI's engineers brought to the same locale. Analogue tape hiss is minimal, and the soundstage is both wide and deep.

So much for sound; what about the performances? Karajan is tightly controlling when it comes to nuance, color, and timbre. These are not "spontaneous", spur-of-the-moment summonings from the musical ether. Frankly, a little of that goes a long way with Sibelius. It's too easy to cruise along and stop to point out this or that isolated bit of harmonic interest, or inflate a forgotten "inner voice." What von Karajan does is rather elemental to art of bringing Sibelius to life: he finds the pulse or core rhythm to the movements, and draws them together to build the musical architecture, or "span" of the piece. This doesn't imply a horse race from beginning to end, but rather a reluctance to dawdle in pools of rubato. Real orchestral power is built up and sustained, not thrown at you like a succession of one-two punches. What results is a sense of rightness and inevitability that eludes less effective conductors.

In sum, then, is all that is contained an unqualified rave? No. Other conductors have made stronger cases for Symphony 7, for example (to be fair, it's also the most difficult to bring off). A bit more impetuousness in some of the massed string entries might have increased the drama in Symphony 4. The strength of Sibelius as a symphonist, and as a unique voice, offers more than one avenue for conductors and orchestras to follow in bringing his music to life. The closest parallel to von Karajan in conducting Sibelius might be Ormandy. Snatch up the Sony reissue of his recordings of Symphonies 2 and 7, outstandingly performed and recorded in Philadelphia during the late 50s. Talk about control! For a more "Finnish"-sounding reading, listen to Vanska's cycle with the Lahti orchestra (here's hoping he'll try a cycle with the Minnesota Orchestra once he's settled there!). A "bigger" sound can be had through the efforts of Ashkenazy and Davis, with the Philarmonia and LSO, respectively. But, I wouldn't want to be without von Karajan and his single-minded, powerfully executed evocation of the Sibelian landscape. His thoughts on these scores, and the magisterial playing of the Berlin Philharmonic at its peak, are not to be dismissed lightly.

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