Classical Editor: Rob Barnett
 

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Len Mullenger: Len@musicweb-international.com


SIBELIUS:
Finlandia, The Swan of Tuonela, Spring Song, Alla Marcia from 'Karelia Suite', The Countess's Portrait, Suite for Violin and String Orchestra, Valse Triste, Tapiola, Excerpts from: 'Pelleas and Melisande' and 'The Tempest'.

Lahti Symphony Orchestra Osmo Vanska
BIS CD 1125 79m DDD.

Crotchet  Amazon UK  Amazon USA

This new BIS compilation is like a 'greatest hits' collection of Vanska's generally splendid Sibelius recordings from 1992 to the present day. The party items are winningly done with 'Finlandia' and the 'Alla marcia' particularly arresting and sounding quite superb especially the strings. "Spring Song' is a characterful piece, with some splendid work for woodwind as is the charismatic Suite for Violin and Orchestra with Dong Suk Kang an effortlessly vivid soloist. Short excerpts from the major incidental music to 'The Tempest' and 'Pelleas' are astutely chosen whilst the burgeoning symphonic canvas that is 'Tapiola' receives a splendid interpretation well recorded. Charming items like the well-known 'Valse triste' and 'The Countess's Portrait' make welcome additions to the standard fare. You won't be buying this disc if you've already collected the complete versions of Vanska's brilliant Sibelius cycle but newcomers to his music or other collectors should snap up this disc for some highly charged music-making.

Reviewer

Gerald Fenech

Performance:

Sound:

But John Phillips adds

This is a strange disc, and it causes me a problem in reviewing it.

We have here a superb series of recordings, all lifted from Vanska's very successful Sibelius series. The playing is alive, highly accurate and more than that, really inside the composer's idiom. Indeed nothing on the disc could be faulted, with BIS's very high quality digital recordings placing the orchestra in a highly believable acoustic with superb range and depth. So far, so good.

My quandary is this: Who is going to buy this record? Those collectors who have been responding to and buying this conductor's series will already own most or all of these works and so they will be unlikely to purchase.

The other sector of the market place, the browser, is more likely to choose "safer" or more famous conductors or orchestras playing these works, and therefore would possibly avoid it.

I can only hope that there are enough collectors about who have bought only one or two of the series, and find this compilation suits them in terms of the items which they do not have.

I sincerely hope that I am wrong in my analysis - BIS has provided the disc with a highly attractive sleeve so maybe this will entice the non specialist to this issue. I certainly hope so as I have not heard a Sibelius compilation as interesting and as well played as this for a long time, and it deserves every success.

Reviewer

John Phillips

Reviewer

Gerald Fenech

Performance:

Sound:

and

John Phillips


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