Sibelius Symphonies Nos 3 & 5; Pohjola’s Daughter Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali Alpha Classics ALPHA 645 75:38 mins
This latest recording of Sibelius’s Third gets off to a vital start, with marvellously gutsy playing from the Gothenburg strings. Then a doubt: does conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali allow tension to sag rather in the slower link between the exposition and the development? And after picking up momentum again and delivering a gripping account of the recapitulation, does he make a bit of a meal of the slower coda? The middle movement, too, is taken a bit too deliberately to generate its slow-waltz-like swing. And why does Rouvali insert mannered little hesitations into the initial statement of the hymn-like idea that is to dominate the second half of the finale – only then to hit on a convincing tempo which he holds majestically to the end?
His reading of the Fifth Symphony is more straightforward. Indeed, the opening sounds almost casual – more pastoral than heroic – as he eases into his stride, while the scherzo second half of the opening movement accelerates more rapidly than in most rival versions. The Andante middle movement, with the Gothenburg winds in glowing form, and the finale, with its swinging horn theme and grandly grinding peroration are finely projected without eccentricities.
Yet the most exciting performance is of the Kalevala-based tone-poem Pohjola’s Daughter – a piece that can easily fall into a series of picturesque episodes but here, from its brooding opening to its visceral climax, delivered in a single sweep.
The recording captures the usual presence and depth of the Gothenburg Concert Hall acoustic, though there is an occasional suspicion of spot-miking of woodwind detail.
Bayan Northcott