Summing up my reactions to the first in Jukka-Pekka Saraste's projected Sibelius cycle ( RD87765, 11/88), I wondered whether given his relative youth (32), his interpretations were yet ready to be 'immortalized' on disc. But the appearance of the Fifth Symphony serves as a reminder that his compatriot, Esa-Pekka Salonen (CBS) is even younger and that Simon Rattle only two years older, has already recorded it twice for EMI. Saraste's record can hold its head high in their company. I like the leisurely, majestic approach he adopts in the opening movement, for it conveys much of its breadth. In Sibelius everything hinges on a feeling of momentum and continuity, on the building up and gradation of climaxes, and the placing of detail in the right perspective against the architecture as a whole, rather than in minutiae of phrasing or tempos. This is one of the secrets of Karajan's mastery (DG, 6/85 and EMI, 4/88): he always holds back saving that little bit extra in reserve for the main climax of the piece. Saraste is not Karajan, nor is his orchestra the equal of the Philharmonia or Berlin Philharmonic but his is an excellently shaped and well-thought-out reading, which never dwells on beauty of incident (as Salonen is inclined to do) at the expense of the architecture of the whole. His handling of the climax at the transition to the scherzo (the section that in the 1915 version of the score led an independent existence) is masterly. He manages the transition extremely well, as does Rattle in his Philharmonia recording. His pace seems measured, like Ashkenazy (Decca) and Erik Tuxen in the early days of LP, but I found I was completely drawn into the atmosphere. There is no attempt on Saraste's part to interpose his own personality and no self-regarding gestures. There is a sense of truth about this reading and the RCA recording is vivid and present with plenty of body, particularly at the bottom end of the range, but perhaps wanting in front-to-back perspective.
Apart from the symphony, this CD offers tone-poems from opposite ends of Sibelius's career. Ash enazy (Decca) also offers En saga but not Tapiola. Saraste's account of En saga is no less successful in drawing the listener into its atmosphere, and he conveys both the sense of narrative and its detail most expertly. His Tapiola on the other hand, does not seem to me quite so impressive: this is awe-inspiring music which must really chill the blood in performance. Listen to Kajanus or Koussevitzky (both nla), who were recorded within a decade or so of its composition, and its icy intensity strikes home. But, of course, performance traditions change over the years and the final storm, so slow and terrifying in Kajanus's hands, has become more frenzied, losing some of its grandeur and sense of terror. That is certainly the case here. Saraste's Tapiola is lacking the ultimate intensity and hypnotic, mesmerizing power of the great performances of the past and present.
Karajan's 1984 DG version is undoubtedly one of the most powerful, unleashing as it does all the terror of the black Nordic forests. There are few—apart from Beecham and Koussevitzky both nla, and in more recent times Sir Colin Davis on his four-disc Philips set 416 600-2PH4, 11/86—who can match let alone surpass this. In the meantime Saraste's latest record deserves a welcome and his Fifth Symphony can be recommended alongside those of Ashkenazy and Berglund (EMI) though not in preference to the Rattle (Philharmonia) or two Karajan versions.'