Sibelius Chamber Music

Violinist Augustin Hadelich, one of the fastest-rising stars of his generation, releases his first major concerto recording, pairing the Violin Concertos of Jean Sibelius and Thomas Adès, only the second recording of British composer’s work. He is superbly supported by Hannu Lintu conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

This Finlandia disc, which sadly never got a US release and is hard to find there, surveys Per Nørgård's works for strings across a broad span of the Danish composer's output, from the 1950s to the 1990s. All of these express the perennial concerns of Nørgård's work: ambiguity, "infererence" and the development of the tonal tradition. Juha Kangas leads the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.

Sibelius - Four Legends From The Kalevala, Op. 22
The Philadelphia Orchestra - Eugene Ormandy
FLAC | Artwork | 24Bit 96kHz: 871 MB | 16Bit 44.1kHz: 237 MB
Cat#: MFSL 1-523 | Country/Year: US 19__, 1979
Genre: Classical, Romantic | Hoster: Uploaded/Filesonic

Half-speed re-mastering of 1979 EMI/Angel title with Ortofon cutting head. Specially plated and pressed on High Definition Super vinyl by Victor Company of Japan. - Dynamic range up to 17.

In 1930 EMI started a subscription series of the works of Jean Sibelius. Most of the Sibelius Society orchestral recordings are available on Naxos in excellent transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn, but the Warner box includes a few rarities that slipped by them. This is the first time that all the composer-approved orchestral recordings made for the Sibelius project between 1930 and 1940 have been gathered together (six CDs worth). Plus one CD of chamber music and songs.

This double CD from EMI features the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by their Finnish principal conductor at the time (1970s), Paavo Berglund. It doesn't have to be that a conductor originates from the same country as the composer whose works he or she is conducting, but it often happens that this combination seems to produce performances of greatest sensitivity. So it is here, as Berglund conducts 10 works by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The discs include quite familiar works like En Saga, one of Sibelius' first compositions when he was in his late 20s. We also have Pohjola's Daughter, The Bard and two of the four Lemminkäinen Legends, and a beautiful version of Luonnotar sung by the Finnish soprano Taru Valjakka. The rest of the discs is made up of less frequently heard pieces. We have the five-movement suite from the incidental music Sibelius wrote for Adolf Paul's play King Christian II (1898); the Spring Song (Vårsång) of 1894; the suite of incidental music from Maeterlinck's Pelleas and Melisande.