Finlandia have already reissued all Kajanus's London recordings on a three-disc set (2/92). Their edition contains transfers made by Anthony Griffith for World Records, issued in the 1970s, and they still sound very good indeed. Meanwhile, Koch have been releasing the same performances on separate discs, and their new CD is the third and last volume (the others are on (CD) 37127-2 and 37131-2). Griffith had the advantage of working from original masters: Koch's Mark Obert-Thorn has been obliged to use commercial pressings and while he has obtained good sound, there is inevitably more background noise and an unevenness in the quality which is not present in Finlandia's transfers.
If the Finnish set is therefore the better proposition, Koch have scored an important point by including Kajanus's only Sibelius recording with his own Helsinki orchestra. The piece itself is perhaps the composer's weakest, but the performance has great historical importance, for it is played by an orchestra with which Sibelius had close links, and under a conductor who was his chosen interpreter.
We can hear clearly just why Sibelius admired Kajanus so much in the two symphonies here. At the age of 76 he was still able to generate a good deal of tension and energy in the LSO's playing, yet there is a particular sense of balanced, logical music-making, a seemingly natural authority in the phrasing and an apparent inevitability in the way he unfolds the composer's symphonic argument. Everything seems perfectly in place, and the music speaks to us in a very direct and compelling fashion.R1 '9402137'