COMPOSERS: Sibelius
LABELS: Chandos Enchant
WORKS: Finlandia; Tapiola; En saga; Pohjola’s Daughter
PERFORMER: Danish National RSO/Leif Segerstam
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 7075
A chilling collection of dark runes, Hitchcock-like in their shadows and shapes, tracing (as Peter Franklin says of Tapiola) ‘a rite of passage through music... eroded by harsh winds’. Hewn out of grim, primary sounds, massively weighted, icy in flight, more about canvas than detail, here are performances that uncompromisingly get to the raw spirit of Sibelius’s genius. Vividly recorded, Segerstam and his Danish players inspiringly unfurl a narrative of ancient line and punctuation – heroic, tragic, ghostly, magical, yearning, snarling, cleansed of bombast (Finlandia), freed of sentimentality (Valse triste). Ates Orga
Sibelius: Finlandia; Tapiola; En saga; Pohjola's Daughter
A chilling collection of dark runes, Hitchcock-like in their shadows and shapes, tracing (as Peter Franklin says of Tapiola) ‘a rite of passage through music... eroded by harsh winds’. Hewn out of grim, primary sounds, massively weighted, icy in flight, more about canvas than detail, here are performances that uncompromisingly get to the raw spirit of Sibelius’s genius.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:29 pm