As soon as the strings respond to the flute near the beginning of Peer Gynt’s ‘Morning’ – longingly leaning on an expressive ritardando – you sense this is a quality production. Done to death it may be, but Grieg’s vernal score still holds the potential to seduce, enthral and entertain. Here, charm and drama form a seductive alliance. Sakari Oramo has an architect’s sense of proportion and an athlete’s sense of pacing. He also knows how to shape and colour musical textures. Ase’s death ends with a full-bodied pianissimo while the bassoon counter-subject that follows Peer through ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ can rarely have sounded more mischievous. Rather than push an unworkable accellerando, Oramo moves with stealth, tightening the rhythm as he goes, letting in an element of swagger before speeding for the final chase. ‘Ingrid’s Lament’ enjoys powerfully drawn basses and an unusually dramatic climax and ‘Peer Gynt’s Journey Home’ allows ample space for the elements to rage. Note how, at around 1'14'', woodwinds goad lower strings into action and the ensuing tumult gradually gains momentum. As for ‘Anitra’ and the ‘Arabian Dance’, both benefit from the CBSO’s vivid but unforced characterisations.
In his excellent booklet notes, Robert Layton tells us that the Concert Overture In Autumn takes its point of departure from a song called Autumn Storms. And if there’s one aspect of Oramo’s performance that pips Sir Thomas Beecham’s stereo version to the post (the two performances clock up a near-identical playing time), it’s a feeling of what one might call ‘weatheredness’. True, the superb recording helps (the lower brass is especially vivid), but so do Oramo’s rock-steady control of rhythm and sense of atmosphere.
The Symphonic Dances are by turns lyrical or exuberant, the last of them – the partially pensive A minor – being faster than Jarvi’s thinner-sounding Gothenburg version by a good two minutes. The Birmingham orchestra prove themselves consistently responsive to Oramo’s very specific demands. Rather than rest on laurels left them by Sir Simon Rattle, they have taken Oramo’s cue for a rather different brand of instrumental projection, weightier than before perhaps, less concerned with textual minutiae and rather more inclined to flair at the nostrils.
Credible rivals are headed by piquant Sir Thomas in Peer Gynt and In Autumn, and by Jarvi in the Symphonic Dances. Oramo’s Grieg matches both, being less fussy than keen-eared and with a sense of play that does credit both to Ibsen’s dramatic prompt and the folk-music roots of the concert works.'