Two eminently serviceable readings of the Second Symphony to join the 30 or more already in the catalogue. Both are most competitively priced. Sir Colin Davis and the Boston Symphony enjoy the benefit of very good recording, and I see no occasion to modify my original review: ''he views the work as a whole and does not invest detail with undue expressive vehemence at its expense. Indeed he strikes just the right balance between the nationalist-romantic inheritance on the one side and the classical power of Sibelius's thinking on the other.'' As Londoners who attended his recent cycle will know, Sir Colin has something quite special to say about Sibelius; Andrew Porter even went so far as to claim that it was as memorable as Furtwangler's post-war Beethoven. The Swan of Tuonela and its companions are also first-class.
Ormandy was rather taken for granted in his Philadelphia days and his reputation was not exactly enhanced by the strident sound-quality the CBS discs often produced in the 1960s. In any event he got a very special sound out of any orchestra he conducted, and the Philadelphia have never sounded the same since his departure. He was also an excellent Sibelian as his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies which Philips released in the late 1950s showed. His Second Symphony comes from this period and was made in 1957, six months before the composer's death. It is a vibrant, full-blooded affair, well held together and with recorded sound that needs few apologies given the period. LS thought Ormandy's Seventh ''by any reckoning one of the most masterly pieces of compressed organic thinking in the symphonic repertoire … an extremely intense performance, more akin to Karajan's reading [he was, of course, refering to the 1954 Philharmonia/HMV version] (in its slower tempos, too) than to Beecham's''. I think I prefer it to either of them. It is powerful and has impressive concentration, and at bargain price should not be passed over. '