# The Sibelius Symphonies - #4 in a



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Sibelius' 4th symphony is (or seems to me) somewhat of an outlier in his symphonic output, one that fits much more with Tapiola than the 3rd or 5th. Part of this may be due to health issues and fears at that time, hence the very dark nature of the work which some conductors emphasize (e.g. Colin Davis.)

Of the 7, the 4th along with the 1st are the two that I listen to the least. Having said that, I have listened to more versions of it in the last few days than I have in 10 years, but even so I am going to say very little and leave it mostly to others. Suffice it to say that I have both Barbirolli/Halle and Rattle/BPO. I have also listened to the Boston and LSO Live Davis recordings, both of which I found too oppressively dark - Boston more so than the LSO. At this point I would probably return to the Barbirolli ... or maybe sample some others.

P.S. As much as I find the dark Davis hard to deal with, I doubt that I would care for any that underplay the mood.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

It's hard to hold my attention on this symphony but I like the effect it has... There are times when I think I hear a little flashback to the intro of the 3rd, it's very quick, in one of the few moments of light.... for me Sibelius creates wild music-scapes and this one is a blizzard, a whiteout, beautifully stark and frigid and it's not quite clear that anybody gets out of that symphony alive...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sibelius's 4th has always left me a bit cold (pun intended). But I really like Kamu's interpretation.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

This is a masterpiece of the highest order and definitely not to all tastes. It's an entrancing, hypnotic work - perfectly wrought. It's understandable why it isn't played as often as 1, 2, or 5. Ya gotta a brain to listen to it. There's one problem with it - in the finale what did Sibelius want? Tubular Bells, Glockenspiel? The score is unclear and different conductors have different solutions - some use both instruments. It's hard to understand how this confusion even happened: Sibelius was alive not that long ago when his symphonies were getting played and recorded - did anyone ever ask him what exactly did he want? Apparently not. Oh well, great music however it's played. It's really great to listen to on a dark, cold, rainy night with a good brandy in front of the fireplace.


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## Guest (Jun 2, 2019)

mbhaub said:


> This is a masterpiece of the highest order and definitely not to all tastes. It's an entrancing, hypnotic work - perfectly wrought. It's understandable why it isn't played as often as 1, 2, or 5. Ya gotta a brain to listen to it. There's one problem with it - in the finale what did Sibelius want? Tubular Bells, Glockenspiel? The score is unclear and different conductors have different solutions - some use both instruments. It's hard to understand how this confusion even happened: Sibelius was alive not that long ago when his symphonies were getting played and recorded - did anyone ever ask him what exactly did he want? Apparently not. Oh well, great music however it's played. It's really great to listen to on a dark, cold, rainy night with a good brandy in front of the fireplace.


The third movement in particular is gorgeous. The only significant variation I note between interpretations is how loudly the timpani roll in the climax. Too muffled for me in, for example, Berglund/BSO, slightly too strident in the Davis/LSO Live.

I remember posting a comment here after first hearing it on the Inkinen/NZSO (which I'd bought for the 5th) and Mahlerian took me to task, rightly. I didn't like the 4th movement, the glock sounding so absurd, undercutting the sombre mood. But I 'get' it now.


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

For me, Sibelius' "philosophical symphony" is the most fascinating among his seven, though it has taken me many years to appreciate its novelty and emotional impact. Do you believe what some critics have said about it being a statement of protest to the music of its time? Do you believe it is a autobiographical psychoanalysis of his fear for his health? While these may be valid pointers to appreciating this symphony, the struggle and the despair heard throughout the work do feel very real, so is the heartbreaking emotional outpour towards the end of the slow movement, so is the glimpse of hope in the finale juxtaposed with the haunting glockenspiel but at the end it could only end in a discontent snub.

I don't usually appreciate Karajan in Sibelius, but his Berlin 1976 (EMI) account is the most moving that I have heard. The long arc sustains the intensity throughout. And he certainly knew how to phrase an expression without exaggerating it, and where to hold and where to push to achieve maximum emotional impact at the right places. On the other hand, his other two accounts do not convince me as much. Philharmonia 53 (EMI) is good, but Berlin 65 (DG) sounds a bit loose to me.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Becca said:


> Sibelius' 4th symphony is (or seems to me) somewhat of an outlier in his symphonic output, one that fits much more with Tapiola than the 3rd or 5th. Part of this may be due to health issues and fears at that time, hence the very dark nature of the work which some conductors emphasize (e.g. Colin Davis.)
> 
> Of the 7, the 4th along with the 1st are the two that I listen to the least. Having said that, I have listened to more versions of it in the last few days than I have in 10 years, but even so I am going to say very little and leave it mostly to others. Suffice it to say that I have both Barbirolli/Halle and Rattle/BPO. I have also listened to the Boston and LSO Live Davis recordings, both of which I found too oppressively dark - Boston more so than the LSO. At this point I would probably return to the Barbirolli ... or maybe sample some others.
> 
> P.S. As much as I find the dark Davis hard to deal with, I doubt that I would care for any that underplay the mood.


Ashkenazy did a very good job with Sibelius (Philharmonia/Decca). Did you try his account on the 4th? I think you might find something it it.

Funny detail, the very first symphonic concert I ever visited at the Concertgebouw, with my parents in the seventies, was Sibelius 4 with Davis. Maybe, I therefore like the third (!) Davis cycle (LSO Live) a lot, but Ashkenazy is a worthy contender.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It's a fine work, albeit more dark and sparse than the others. My favourite is probably that from Maazel with the Vienna Philharmonic - he uses the glorious sound of the orchestra to build a slightly richer intensity than is the norm - but the famous Karajan is also excellent and the two by Vanska are fine. Barbirolli's Halle recording is good but - perhaps conditioned by my love of Maazel's version - I am left wishing he had had a better orchestra for this one.


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## Guest (Jun 2, 2019)

Kiki said:


> I don't usually appreciate Karajan in Sibelius, but his Berlin 1976 (EMI) account is the most moving that I have heard. The long arc sustains the intensity throughout. And he certainly knew how to phrase an expression without exaggerating it, and where to hold and where to push to achieve maximum emotional impact at the right places. On the other hand, his other two accounts do not convince me as much. Philharmonia 53 (EMI) is good, but Berlin 65 (DG) sounds a bit loose to me.


Thanks - trying to find these versions on Spotify - but why is the date of reissue or remaster so much more prominent than the date of recording. It's the same on Amazon.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> ...It's a fine work, albeit more dark and sparse than the others. My favourite is probably that from Maazel with the Vienna Philharmonic - he uses the glorious sound of the orchestra to build a slightly richer intensity than is the norm ...


Ditto + the London/Decca recording presents great clarity of detail.


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

MacLeod said:


> Thanks - trying to find these versions on Spotify - but why is the date of reissue or remaster so much more prominent than the date of recording. It's the same on Amazon.


Oh I know, it's very annoying, isn't it?

It's been one of my biggest pet peeves against the practice of record labels, on-line shops and nowadays we have to include the streaming services as well!

While a recording's recording date will never change, every subsequent package re-issue will get a new (C) year, and a re-mastered sound recording should get a new (P) year.

But I want the recording date, because that's the best way for me to uniquely identify a recording of a particular work done by a specific team of performers.

If, like me, all one is concerned with is the recording date, then even the (C) & (P) years of the *original* release are not meaningful. Recordings often take a year to release, and in some unusual cases, tens of years. Abbado's Vienna Schubert 5 & 8 radio recording was made in 1971, but it was released commercially for the first time by DG in 2018, hence both (C) & (P) are 2018.

To make things worse, on-line shops and streaming services don't really care (or even know) what they are selling, and they almost always do not state the recording date, nor any other details about a recroding. Maybe I'm in the minority. Maybe the majority of their customers don't care about such things.

I'm sure there are people who don't care about the recording date. They probably don't care which one of the ten (ten at least!) Karajan Beethoven 9 recordings they have been listening to. Someone might say they don't listen to the K-man, fine, substitute his name by Furtwängler and you'll still end up with a similar nightmare. But well, if they don't care, it doesn't matter to them.

The Japanese are usually pedantic about these things. They have been stating the recording date at the back of their CDs for years. Even the big labels often do that for their Japanese releases, but unfortunately for their rest-of-the-world releases, they often don't, although to be fair they have started to state the recording date in the booklet since around ten, fifteen years ago, but the thing is, they don't always do that, even for recent releases.

Naxos has been one of those labels who would always state the recording date clearly at the back of their CDs. Kudos! But no, I sampled their new Ádám Fischer Beethoven set and wanted to buy it, but neither the digital booklet nor the back cover that I could find on the internet state any recording date! &%*%($*$(&#! Well, I'm not buying it until I can find out the recording dates.

*sigh* Sorry for my long incomprehensible rant. 

BTW, for the Karajan Sibelius 4, if it's Berlin and Warner, it's the 1976 recording, Philharmonia can only be 53, and DG must be 65, but you probably have figured that out already.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

This is one of my favorite cold weather, winter storm pieces...it really reminds me of icy, craggy, rocky shores, vast expanses of wintry, snowfields and huge, towering icebergs....very dark piece all told....It's one of my favorite Sibwelius symphonie.s and he really displays his unique approach to form, and sonority....

I love Bernstein/NYPO in this work, 
Toscanin/NBC is really good, and Maazel/VPO is strong also....
For me, Bernstein/NYPO really get the hard-edged, rough, icy quality of this music - the wonderful, crystal clear, icy purity of Harold Gomberg's oboe solo to begin mvt II is quite magical..nobody else comes close - remarkable playing, tone quality...
The long searing, grinding crescendi esp in mvt IV come off most convincingly - like the relentless pressure, presence and persistence of the great ice fields, the ice grinding and gnashing against the hard rocky shores....


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I listened to and/or purchased about 25 of these recently. The one among all I settled on was Ormandy-Philadelphia Orchestra, the mono recording from about 1954, remade by High Definition Tape Transfers. I also liked Karajan's mono version with Philharmonia Orchestra from the 1950s, especially the largo.

I also listened to and bought Ormandy's later stereo recording from the 1970s. The difference in timing between the newer and older one was only a second or two but I found a noticeable slack in the 1976 version and preferred the more straight ahead approach from the earlier version. Karajan's stereo version, much loved in many quarters, concentrated more on color than his earlier version, I thought.

I thought Maazel's 1968 recording linked to the 7th on CD was also a good buy. I don't think his integral set of the symphonies stands up to others, however.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Anyone got a view on Berglund’s recordings? I think there are quite a few of them. I’ve managed to find these 

Leipzig Radio Symphony (Eterna)
Hesinki PO (Warner)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Finish Radio Symphony
Bournemouth SO

When I last explored this symphony seriously, the one that I thought was really outstanding was Vanska (Lathi)

The sound of the orchestra needs to be lean, wiry, for me!


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