# SS 24.05.14 - Sibelius #4



## realdealblues

A continuation of the Saturday Symphonies Tradition:

Welcome to another weekend of symphonic listening!

For your listening pleasure this weekend:

*Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957)*

Symphony #4 in A minor, Op. 63

1. Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio
2. Allegro molto vivace
3. Il tempo largo
4. Allegro

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Post what recording you are going to listen to giving details of Orchestra / Conductor / Chorus / Soloists etc - Enjoy!


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## realdealblues

Bernstein & Berglund are my favorites when it comes to Sibelius. This weekend I think I'll be listening to:

View attachment 42538


Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic


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## ptr

My fave Janne Symphony... Being quite one way street at the moment, I'll keep the orchestra and conductor from last week!









Hallé Orchestra u. Giovanni Battista Barbirolli (Sir) recorded at Kingsway Hall in 1969 by EMI..

/ptr


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## csacks

Very nice. As the Starks use to say, "winter is coming" down here in Chile at least, so Sibelius is welcome
I will listen a very nice record for all Sibelius´symphonies and orchestral work. New orchestra and new director to me, but very well performed and recorded


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## Marschallin Blair

My pearl-beyond-praise Sibelius Fourth; especially Karajan's treatment of the first movement.


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## GioCar

I'll go for










Osmo Vanska - Minnesota Orchestra

A wonderful performance.

A new hope for this outstanding musical partnership just renewed after all recent turmoils.


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## Vaneyes

*Sibelius*: Symphony 4, w. BPO/HvK (rec.1976).


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## Sudonim

As it happens, I'm listening to this symphony right now (the same version as posted by GioCar above: Vänskä/Minnesota). It is kind of a strange one, isn't it?

I've thought before that this is Sibelius' most Mahler-like symphony. Someone with greater musical savvy than I have may tell me this is completely wrong-headed, but I hear similarities in some of the harmonies (especially in the brass), and there is a kind of - I don't know what to call it - a kind of willful inscrutability at the heart of it, as in Mahler's 7th, an enigma that some artists (ranging from Mahler to Emily Dickinson to Bob Dylan) seem to cultivate as a crucial aspect of their artistic persona.


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## Mahlerian

Sudonim said:


> As it happens, I'm listening to this symphony right now (the same version as posted by GioCar above: Vänskä/Minnesota). It is kind of a strange one, isn't it?
> 
> I've thought before that this is Sibelius' most Mahler-like symphony. Someone with greater musical savvy than I have may tell me this is completely wrong-headed, but I hear similarities in some of the harmonies (especially in the brass), and there is a kind of - I don't know what to call it - a kind of willful inscrutability at the heart of it, as in Mahler's 7th, an enigma that some artists (ranging from Mahler to Emily Dickinson to Bob Dylan) seem to cultivate as a crucial aspect of their artistic persona.


The work is certainly shot through with tension to a far greater degree than any of Sibelius's other symphonies, and the overlapping bitonal strands in the finale are something of a Mahler-like trait.

I do think that the utter concentration of the work is characteristically Sibelian, though, and the orchestration is not very Mahler-like at all.

There's a similarity between one motif in the finale and a motif in the first movement of Bruckner's Fourth that I find interesting. Sibelius was an ardent admirer of Bruckner's works.
Sibelius:







Bruckner:








Anyway, I'll be listening to Berglund/Bournemouth, as expected.


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## samurai

I'll be sampling the Berglund/BSO traversal as well.


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## AClockworkOrange

As I am off this Weekend for the first time in a-g-e-s (hurrah! :lol, I am going to listen to this pair of recordings:


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## JCarmel

Although I have the admired recordings by Vanska & Karajan...my choice will be Anthony Collins & the LSO. 
I regularly listened to my Dad's LP's of both the 1st & the 2nd Symphonies when I was growing-up...conducted by Collins & by Sir Malcolm Sargent but I've never heard the formers Fourth. So its Spotify & this, for me.


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## Marschallin Blair

AClockworkOrange said:


> As I am off this Weekend for the first time in a-g-e-s (hurrah! :lol, I am going to listen to this pair of recordings:
> 
> View attachment 42566
> View attachment 42567


Cheers to massive Sibelius collections and to rollicking weekends.


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## Haydn man

I am going with Vanska but with a different orchestra


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## Richannes Wrahms

For a change, one of the most resonant modern recordings I've found so far.


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## Marschallin Blair

Richannes Wrahms said:


> For a change, one of the most resonant modern recordings I've found so far.
> 
> View attachment 42574


I haven't heard that one in a long time. I can't remember if Levine makes that Fifth sound like Tchaikovsky; or was it the Second he did?. . . actually, now I un-blondingly remember: it was the Second that Levine gave the Tchaikovsky treatment to.


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## Jeff W

Paavo Berglund with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.









Decided I might throw in Osmo Vanska with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Lately I've been listening to these in pairs for some contrast between performances where I can.


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## brotagonist

Marschallin Blair said:


> View attachment 42547


No You Tube this time. I have this CD set, too, and I will give it a spin.


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## CyrilWashbrook

I enjoy Sibelius but have never got around to listening to the fourth. Vänskä and Minnesota for me.


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## techniquest

I don't know this symphony at all, so the only recording I have comes from this box set. I shall enjoy exploring it.


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## CyrilWashbrook

Given that (1) I really like Sibelius' music, (2) I'm a cellist and (3) the first movement kicks off with a beautiful cello solo, it wasn't exactly very difficult to enjoy this one.  An impressive recording of a mesmerising work.


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## DrKilroy

I'll listen to Lorin Maazel/VPO recording, a very powerful and heavy rendition. But I have yet to listen to some other versions, I might also try Berglund/Helsinki.


Best regards, Dr


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## TurnaboutVox

I've listened to the only version I possess this afternoon:

City of Birmingham SO, Simon Rattle, EMI, rec. 1987










And very good the CBSO and the young Rattle are too.


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## Mika

Minnesota Osmo for me also.


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## danielsshao

Going for Vanska with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. I've listened to this symphony before, but not really in significant depth. I've always found it Sibelius's most strangely moody work, perhaps even his most "un-Sibelian" one. I've heard that it was his response to being exposed to the more "modern" music some of his contemporaries like Stravinsky were writing at the same time. Not to say that's a bad thing, though. As a cellist I love how we get to dominate much of the musical material.


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## Richannes Wrahms

It's the sober Sibelius, his true personality.

I think Aino was a little dissappointed that Jean never wrote pieces of such introspection again. When he was composing the seventh, for which apparently he had to drink a lot to steady his ever worsening hand tremors, she supposedly said to him "Do you really value the work you do with artificial inspiration?; Even if you complete a work or two, they are nothing compared with *what you could achieve*."


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## AClockworkOrange

I completely forgot that this recording included Symphony 4. I thought it wads Symphony 5 

Time to remedy that, I am presently listening to *Sir Thomas Beecham & His Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.*








This may be my favourite collection of Sibelius recordings at present. It has been a while since I last listened to this set but I was hooked back in almost immediately.


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## techniquest

Hmm. I can't say that I enjoyed this symphony. It sounds reminiscent of a concerto for orchestra such are the number of solo parts within the piece. Lots of crescendi and diminuendi, long held notes with meandering solos or sections above, but the whole feels lost; it's like Sibelius had something to say but didn't know what language to say it in. Maybe that's what he meant. Sorry guys, I'm out of my depth with this one.


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## Richannes Wrahms

^ 
That might well be the case, he does manage say a lot though. Sibelius and Bartók are closer than most people think, you can find multiple 'games of pairs' (being the most reminiscent the one at the final movement of the 5th symphony), wondering woodwind and cello solos, and similar modal inflections in Sibelius' music. It has been suggested that this is due to their folk music influences as well as the influence of Debussy. Sibelius himself thought that Shostakovich and Bartók were the most promising composers of the next generation. 

;When Prokofiev was studying orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov the latter asked him why had he used a solo cello, and Prokofiev answered that he didn't wanted the sound of the whole section in there, that he had heard a cello solo in the premiere of Sibelius's 3rd Symphony.


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## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> There's a similarity between one motif in the finale and a motif in the first movement of Bruckner's Fourth that I find interesting. Sibelius was an ardent admirer of Bruckner's works.
> Sibelius:
> View attachment 42561
> 
> Bruckner:
> View attachment 42562


From an amateur, I can't help thinking that Sibelius set out sounding like Tchaikovsky. It was only when he tried to sound like Bruckner that he began to sound more like Sibelius!

As for this symphony, I have Davis/LSO; Berglund/BSO; Inkari NZSO and each has its own strengths. This morning I watched Esa Pekka Salonen and the Swedish Radio Symphony - also very good. I'm looking for something where the lower strings are strong especially in 3rd and 4th movements. Any recommendations?

Oh, and why is Lenny and the NY Phil in such a hurry? He breaks into a run in the third - more presto than largo!


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## Classical Music Fan

I will be listening to Bernstein as well. First time listening but I've enjoyed listening to Sibelius' works in the past.


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## Badinerie

Collins all the way for me....Someday I'll have to get off my High Vinyl Horse and get them on CD.


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