Seckerson's Choice: Sibelius Symphonies
Sibelius's musical landscape is instantly identifiable by its cragginess and clarity; its myth and mystery. If ever a composer was defined by the word 'elemental' he is. The music seems to come up through the bass lines, long held pedal notes that anchor it so deeply it becomes unfathomable. Rhythms are imperative and a chill wind blows through it, sometimes gently, sometimes at what might best be described as a Tapiola howl. 'Coldness' lends cleanness and clarity. Sibelius strove towards ever greater concision and transparency. The phrase he chose to describe the pellucid Sixth Symphony was "cold spring water". The Seventh was an epic in microcosm and ended with the most equivocal C major in all music. No wonder the elusive Eighth Symphony dared not show its face to the world.
Read more…The first recording of any of the symphonies I heard was the First with Anthony Collins and the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca – a sonic thriller in its day with firecracker timpani and in-your-face brass. It's still worth calling up here. But I'm going for a controversial choice with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic. The orchestra is more unlikely than the conductor, it has to be said, though in this the most romantically Russian-influenced of the cycle, the luxuriance of the Vienna strings is just what Lenny's super-expansiveness ordered. But it has sweep and drama too in the outer movements and the expansiveness for once lets us properly hear the grace notes in the tail of the first subject. Very exciting.
The Second's popularity is reflected in the vast number of recordings – but in the absence of his rare collaboration between George Szell and the Concertgebouw Orchestra I would refer listeners to a live account with the New York Philharmonic which is possessed of a brazen, elemental, fire. Check out, too, the famous live Sir Thomas Beecham account with the BBC Symphony Orchestra if only to hear the old wizard yelling encouragement to the orchestra in the finale.
I have vivid memories of Okko Kamu's debut recording of the Second with the Berlin Philharmonic – part of his prize for winning the first Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition. It was controversially broad in the Bernstein manner but notable for being the work of a native Finn with a mind of his own in the matter of how this music should go. He's grown up to be a seasoned interpreter of it and his recording of the lean, sinewy Third with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra is a cracker. Really stark clarity with a raw, impulsive energy. This is a man who knows this landscape, actual and musical.
Kamu's mentor Karajan should get a look in, too – and the extraordinary Fourth really does in a sense belong to him. He very much championed this music in Germany. The Berlin sound (like Bernstein and Vienna) is not perhaps the most natural for it but when the famed Berlin string bass sostenuto plunges us into dark uncharted terrain at the outset of the Fourth the spectre of Mahler, looming large through the great slow movement, suddenly makes sense of the kinship.
The Fifth Symphony was a regular calling card for Leonard Bernstein and I saw him conduct it several times during my formative years. His 1961 New York Philharmonic recording is still terrifically exhilarating, punchy and plangent and full of a fellow composer's wonder at each unfolding episode. You can almost see the thought bubbles: 'Wish I'd thought of that'.
The late Colin Davis described the opening polyphony of the Sixth Symphony as one of the loveliest things we have in music. So I couldn't not include something from his Boston Symphony cycle and this must be it – honest and fresh and marvelling at how much can be said with so little on the page.
Osmo Vänskä's Sibelius needs no introduction and is much admired. Another native Finn who knows first hand the sight and sound of the landscape. I love his rhythmic articulation of these pieces and he really disappoints in none of them. But this newest Minnesota account of the enigmatic Seventh is elusive and mysterious without being vague. You might say it is plain-speaking but that would be to undermine the skill of its accomplishment. Everything is so clearly heard and feels so organic – like the entire evolution of Sibelius is compressed and chronicled into 22 minutes of music.
– Edward Seckerson