Benjamin Barber

This album features two compositions by Jean Sibelius from different moments in the Finnish musician’s life. The Impromptu Op.5 for string ensemble is an early work from 1894, in which Sibelius uses some thematic materials from his solo piano impromptus Nos. 5 and 6 from the Op.5 set. The Romance in C Op.42 (1903) was composed during a difficult phase in the composer’s life caused by excessive alcohol consumption, which prompted him to leave Helsinki and move with his wife near to Lake Tuusula, where he could dedicate himself to composition far from the temptations of the Finnish capital. The piece is divided into short sections in which the melodic ideas arise from fragments of the octatonic, or diminished, scale of alternating whole and half steps supported by dissonant harmonies that add further tonal instability.

Langridge is an inspired interpreter of the role of Aschenbach; his performance here is matched by Alan Opie’s sinister portrayal of the six characters who convey him to his doom. Michael Chance contributes an ethereally unsettling Voice of Apollo, and Richard Hickox coaxes out every bit of the score's morbid beauty.