It is hard to think of Sibelius as a composer of fragrant salon miniatures, and this recital shows him in an unusual light. Charming and usually nocturnal, these lyrical meditations, while not without their personal twist or flavour, are close relations of similarly modest offerings by Grieg and Janacek, even when they lack the distinction of such composers. Occasionally something more Slavonic (Medtner) comes to mind, sometimes even a touch of English pastoralism (John Ireland). At all events you would be hard pressed to guess the composer of these interchangeable opuses with their no less interchangeable titles (the musical distinction between carnations, snapdragons and campanulas is not easily discernable). Yet it is difficult to resist the gentler side of the stern-faced composer photographed on the inside of Chandos’s booklet. Sibelius may have despised music that he saw as little more than potboilers, a means of paying bills and a sop to uneducated musical taste, but there are many delightful surprises in store for the less critical or personally involved listener. The Romance from Op 101 has a coaxing, bittersweet harmony and includes some characteristically cloudy central colouring. ‘The Daisy’ from Op 85 is all wide-eyed innocence, the oarsman rows across the lake in waltz time in Op 103 and the funeral tread of ‘In a Mournful Mood’ from the same opus suggests the darker regions of Sibelius’s mind. More generally, this disc provides ideal, entirely unsubversive but rarely dull late-night listening. The performances could hardly be of a more winning grace and refinement and the recordings are immaculate.'