This bargain price disc uses analogue tapes licensed
from EMI Classics. It is issued without any notes at all which
always seems fair enough to me if the price is right and the performances
are good. There is too much grumpy hoo-ha about inadequate sleeve notes
when the music is the thing. This is especially the case in the bargain
reaches of the catalogue and this is right down there with Regis, Naxos
and Eloquence.
So to the music. The Fifth Symphony is given a solid,
honest and tellingly grave interpretation. Berglund was always good
at conveying the epic even in a half hour symphony. I would not have
this as a first choice but it is satisfying and representative of an
unadorned and sincere approach to Sibelius exegesis. The soberly majestic
Fifth is also to be found in the super-bargain Royal Classics box of
the complete Bournemouth SO Sibelius symphonies.
The Concerto is the reason why you would seek out this
disc. Sculpted, pointful, spontaneous seeming, fresh and eventful. There
is no trace of the ordinary about it and it catches Haendel at her mercurial
and feline zenith. Listen to her lilting melt and legato at 4.13 in
the first movement. Odd how I was reminded more often than not of the
sound of Kogan - as in his 1950s recording of the Tchaikovsky concerto
with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. Berglund is likewise in the
mood to convince you that this is no time-serving session to fill gaps
in EMI's frontline Sibelius series of the mid-1970s.
If you are primarily focused on the Concerto then the
Haendel version is also to be had on the HMV Classics label (only
HMV shops in the UK) for about the same price as the Disky item. It
shares the same shelves as the partial Rattle symphony cycle in the
same series. The HMV Classics disc also includes, amongst other
Sibelius items, Gibson's Karelia Suite. Haendel and Berglund
do not displace my reference version (Oistrakh/Rozhdestvensky - Melodiya-BMG)
but theirs is counted amongst the 'Top Ten' recordings of this ideally
romantic work of the last century.
High-tide analogue recordings with an almost tacit
bed of hiss completely forgotten almost immediately the music gets under
weigh.
Rob Barnett
Bournemouth SO/Paavo Berglund