# Tapiola



## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

This afternoon I heard (on the radio) a performance of Tapiola by Sibelius. Wow! I hadn’t heard it in many years. What a fantastic piece! Your thoughts? Recommendations?
BTW, on the radio was Sir Colin Davis and the Boston SO. I love that cycle.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

It’s a masterpiece and I say this without the slightest doubt in my mind. My favorite performances are Segerstam/Helsinki (Ondine) and Berglund/Bournemouth (EMI), but there are many fine performances. I never did care much for any of Colin Davis’ Sibelius and I have tried to get into all of his cycles: Boston (Philips), LSO (RCA) and LSO Live (LSO Live label). I have found that that Finns have truly something unique to say in Sibelius, but to each their own of course.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

Neo Romanza said:


> It's a masterpiece and I say this without the slightest doubt in my mind. My favorite performances are Segerstam/Helsinki (Ondine) and Berglund/Bournemouth (EMI), but there are many fine performances. I never did care much for any of Colin Davis' Sibelius and I have tried to get into all of his cycles: Boston (Philips), LSO (RCA) and LSO Live (LSO Live label). I have found that that Finns have truly something unique to say in Sibelius, but to each their own of course.


I have Segerstam and Berglund (and others! : D). I'll give them a listen. My Sibelius shelf is sagging, but a little dusty, sad to say. I didn't care for Davis and the LSO on RCA. I haven't heard the LSO Live set. The Boston set is raw sometimes, but to me that is it's appeal.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Certainly one of my favorite pieces of music ever and probably my favorite tone poem. How someone could craft music of such textural, structural, harmonic ingenuity out of just a five-note theme is beyond me. Like the 7th, it represents a rarefied visceral world of the highest musical invention. The ending in the major gets me every time. Favorite performances include the usual suspects: Berglund/Bournemouth, Vanska/Lahti, Ashkenazy. Gibson’s take with the Royal Scottish is shockingly fast at first but isn’t at all a failure. And Karajan is...(takes deep breath) worth hearing in this, more than I can say for his takes on the symphonies, where he turns them into syrupy Tchaikovskibelius.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

My favourite piece by one of my favourite composers.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Good piece like many others , favorites are :

Lahti Symphony Orchestra/ Osmo Vänskä
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Eduard van Beinum
Berliner Philharmoniker/Herbert von Karajan


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2020)

The intensity of the storm scene in Karajan/BPO/1981 is astonishing.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

A really great work ... a tantalising hint of what Sibelius might have achieved if he hadn't lost himself. I have many favourite accounts including Maazel (Vienna), Vanska, Karajan, Lintu ... among others. Colin Davis is always interesting to me in Sibelius - he always seems to have something interesting and fresh to say in each of his three Sibelius surveys. The trouble is that it is hard to remember which is which! I think I remember liking his Boston Tapiola a lot and I do often find him somehow summing up his lifetime's experience with Sibelius in his LSO Live set. Maybe I will play all three and try to get them sorted in my mind.

EDIT (15 minutes later) - I told you I get confused between the Colin Davis recordings (both his studio sets have different strong points and weaker ones). Well, I see he didn't include Tapiola in his LSO Live series so I only have two to listen to!


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Indeed, this is an absolute masterpiece.

There are several wonderful recordings out there. However, if you can get over the (ahem!) dated recording quality, possibly the finest performance I know of is the 1939 Boston one under Serge Koussevitzky. Scary and as bleak as one can imagine!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Well, I see he didn't include Tapiola in his LSO Live series so I only have two to listen to!


I get so confused with Colin Davis, since there are three cycles. I have a couple of the live ones with the LSO. Those are the ones to go for with Davis, right? Because they sound fine to me.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Beecham. Am I missing something?


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker is an easy top pick for me. It's the deepest and most thoughtful of all recordings of this I have heard, with layers and layers, like the eponymous deity's vast forest. Between EMI and DGG with Karajan, I think I marginally prefer the EMI.

No, it is _not_ "syrupy Tchaikovsky."


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I like Karajan's _Tapiola_ programmed on the CD with the Sibelius _Finlandia_ and a very fine recording of the _Violin Concerto_ with Christian Ferras.

Here's a good alternate name for this thread: _Tapiola Pudding_.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Maazel/VPO is excellent....I also like Blomstedt/SFSO


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Heck148 said:


> Maazel/VPO is excellent....I also like Blomstedt/SFSO


I'm with you on Blomstedt. His Sibelius is excellent!

A memorable concert I attended with Blomstedt and San Francisco was as follows: Berg, _Sieben frühe Lieder _, Sibelius, Symphony 6, Tchaikovsky, Symphony 6. Terrific program, I thought!

Anyway, yes: a great Sibelius conductor.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Coach G said:


> Here's a good alternate name for this thread: _Tapiola Pudding_.


I have to admit, I hate tapioca, and the name Tapiola does give me a bad association.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> I get so confused with Colin Davis, since there are three cycles. I have a couple of the live ones with the LSO. Those are the ones to go for with Davis, right? Because they sound fine to me.
> 
> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Beecham. Am I missing something?


Indeed, an oversight that's surprising. I have Beecham's 1955 recording on EMI with his Royal PO, and it has a similar power to the Koussevitzky that I mentioned earlier. It's one of several outstanding Beecham Sibelius performances.

Shame Anthony Collins didn't record it....


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> I get so confused with Colin Davis, since there are three cycles. I have a couple of the live ones with the LSO. Those are the ones to go for with Davis, right? Because they sound fine to me.
> 
> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Beecham. Am I missing something?


I think the LSO Live ones are very good, certainly. Beecham's is certainly worth a mention or two, I agree!


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Knorf said:


> I'm with you on Blomstedt. His Sibelius is excellent!
> 
> A memorable concert I attended with Blomstedt and San Francisco was as follows: Berg, _Sieben frühe Lieder _, Sibelius, Symphony 6, Tchaikovsky, Symphony 6. Terrific program, I thought!
> 
> Anyway, yes: a great Sibelius conductor.


His #2 with SFSO is outstanding!! Really first rate...great sound quality too...


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Heck148 said:


> Maazel/VPO is excellent....I also like Blomstedt/SFSO


Agree with you on Maazel, Haven't heard Blomstedt.


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Some good ones already mentioned but nothing wrong with the following on Philips:

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis
Recorded: 1975-12-02
Recording Venue: Symphony Hall, Boston


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

I like that cycle very much. A single I've enjoyed is Hans Rosbaud and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG. A really good Tapiola.


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

I think Sibelius would be delighted that Beecham and Koussevitzky are still being played with so much affection. And he'd want us to remember Kajanus 1932 as well.

But he wouldn't be so pleased with the neglect of the work itself.



Gray Bean said:


> I hadn't heard it in many years.


That's my experience too. When I was young it was commonly programmed in concerts. In those days, in fact, some serious music critics regarded it as the very finest composition by the finest living composer. (See, e.g., Constant Lambert's highly influential book _Music Ho_.)

But now... how often is it performed now? When the Finnish National Radio Orchestra brought out their Sibelius 150th anniversary DVD set, I was amazed that it contained only the 7 numbered symphonies, and most amazed of all that it didn't even contain Tapiola. There would have been plenty of room for it!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I don't know but is there something of a modern fetish for "the symphony"? Maybe Tapiola would be more played if it was called a symphony?


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Eugene Ormandy was one of Sibelius's early champions in North America, and I consider him a very fine Sibelius conductor. My favorite recording of _Tapiola_ is Ormandy/Philadelphia, 1976, Sony (via RCA).


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Sibelius gets played a lot where I live because MN Orchestra director Osmo Vanska is one of the foremost Sibelius conductors of our day, and because his music just fits in so well with “the north.” But is he as much of a concert hall staple in the rest of the U.S. and the world (besides Finland)? Very few of his compositions are traditional “audience pleasers” besides the 2nd (the ending of the 5th leaves nearly every audience in bewilderment and amusement).


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

I wish I got to hear more Sibelius live... But you're right, besides No. 2 and sometimes No. 1, or _Finlandia_ or the _Karelia Suite_, maybe the Violin Concerto, Sibelius doesn't get a lot of performances in the USA.

Of course Blomstedt did Sibelius in San Francisco quite often.

Dausgaard in Seattle also might help change that (along with Vänska). He's doing a Nielsen cycle, with the First and Second due out on Seattle Symphony Media soon, and I heard him do a very fine _Kullervo_ a year ago.

That is, whenever it happens we get to have concerts again...


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Simplicissimus said:


> Eugene Ormandy was one of Sibelius's early champions in North America, and I consider him a very fine Sibelius conductor. My favorite recording of _Tapiola_ is Ormandy/Philadelphia, 1976, Sony (via RCA).


I quite agree. I could not resist listening to this version. Very expansive, detailed and moving account. The string section is something else. Conductor/Orchestra at their pinnacle . I second your recommendation.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

I remember reading once that in the 50’s Sibelius was incredibly popular in the concert world. I forget where I read it. Sibelius...popular.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Gray Bean said:


> I remember reading once that in the 50's Sibelius was incredibly popular in the concert world. I forget where I read it. Sibelius...popular.


Yeah, some of these old fogies never go away, do they....


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Gray Bean said:


> I remember reading once that in the 50's Sibelius was incredibly popular in the concert world. I forget where I read it. Sibelius...popular.


I wonder if it was something by Alex Ross. In The Rest is Noise, he says (my paraphrasing) in the 20s and 30s Sibelius was something like a pop-culture phenomenon. No composer of the time caused such mass excitement, especially in America, even being name-dropped in the movie Laura ("They played nothing but Sibelius"), mostly because of boosting from New York Times critic Olin Downes, who was there until 1955. His enthusiasm caused a reaction against the music of Sibelius from Virgil Thomson and Adorno. But the last decades of the century changed in his favor, influencing composers from Ferneyhough to Grisey. Ross cites Morton Feldman's famous quote, "The people you think are conservative might really be radical," then humming the opening of Sibelius' fifth symphony.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

Manxfeeder said:


> I wonder if it was something by Alex Ross. In The Rest is Noise, he says (my paraphrasing) in the 20s and 30s Sibelius was something like a pop-culture phenomenon. No composer of the time caused such mass excitement, especially in America, even being name-dropped in the movie Laura ("They played nothing but Sibelius"), mostly because of boosting from New York Times critic Olin Downes, who was there until 1955. His enthusiasm caused a reaction against the music of Sibelius from Virgil Thomson and Adorno. But the last decades of the century changed in his favor, influencing composers from Ferneyhough to Grisey. Ross cites Morton Feldman's famous quote, "The people you think are conservative might really be radical," then humming the opening of Sibelius' fifth symphony.


Glad you mentioned Alex Ross...it caused me to remember! It was an article from "The New Yorker" about Sibelius. A friend sent me a copy (knowing how much I liked Sibelius). Yes...in those years evidently Sibelius was a rock star in the U.S.!


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

_Tapiola_ in the right hands is an extraordinary work of darkness, mystery and the huge, implacable disinterest of the natural world in our puny tinkerings.

Whose hands? Vanska/Lahti has already been mentioned, and Segerstam is brilliant. Kajanus' 1932 recording is worth hunting down, too. The sound quality is iffy, even on the 'restored' version, but K's reading of the dynamics and tempi is fascinating when compared with much more recent recordings.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Sibelius gets played a lot where I live because MN Orchestra director Osmo Vanska is one of the foremost Sibelius conductors of our day, and because his music just fits in so well with "the north." But is he as much of a concert hall staple in the rest of the U.S. and the world (besides Finland)? Very few of his compositions are traditional "audience pleasers" besides the 2nd (the ending of the 5th leaves nearly every audience in bewilderment and amusement).


Can confirm that even here in the Deep South, the Atlanta Symphony programs (and records) tons of Sibelius. Then again, music director Robert Spano seems to see Sibelius as somewhat of a specialty for himself, alongside Vaughan Williams-but his music is always a crowd pleaser. I doubt they'll stop programming his music as frequently as they do even after he steps down.

I don't seem to enjoy Tapiola as much as it seems many of us do. It's a nice tone poem, like so many Sibelius wrote, nothing more. I don't think I see it as any kind of pinnacle of his art, but it could easily be that I'm wrong. Berglund/Bournemouth and Karajan/Berlin/DG for me.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Sibelius' masterpiece, in my opinion.


Robert Kajanus / London Symphony Orchestra / 1932

Herbert von Karajan / Philharmonia Orchestra / 1953

Sir Thomas Beecham / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / 1955

Lorin Maazel / Wiener Philharmoniker / 1968

Paavo Berglund / Philharmonia Orchestra / 1982

Neemi Jarvi / Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / 1994


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

It's his 8th symphony!

Stunning piece of music. Along with Valse Triste and Swan of Tuonela. En Saga is another favoute. But Tapiola rules the roost of the tone poems. I listened to the piece as I was filming scenes from my childhood home before leaving it for the last time. Very moving experience.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

RogerWaters said:


> It's his 8th symphony!
> 
> Stunning piece of music. Along with Valse Triste and Swan of Tuonela. En Saga is another favoute. But Tapiola rules the roost of the tone poems. I listened to the piece as I was filming scenes from my childhood home before leaving it for the last time. Very moving experience.


Agreed! Stunning is an apt description. I had not listened to it in years. That day I happened across it on the radio, my fire was rekindled!


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