SIBELIUS Symphonies Nos 3, 6 & 7
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Jean Sibelius
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: BIS
Magazine Review Date: 09/2016
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 82
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: BIS2006
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 3 |
Jean Sibelius, Composer
Jean Sibelius, Composer Minnesota Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, Conductor |
Symphony No. 6 |
Jean Sibelius, Composer
Jean Sibelius, Composer Minnesota Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, Conductor |
Symphony No. 7 |
Jean Sibelius, Composer
Jean Sibelius, Composer Minnesota Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, Conductor |
Author: Edward Seckerson
Vänskä’s Sibelius is all about clarity – of rhythm, of texture, of intention. It is zealously unfussy and entirely without exaggeration. But it can stop you in your tracks. The ‘no-man’s-land’ we enter a few pages into the Third – a moment or two of reflection in a barren landscape – can rarely have sounded more like Sibelius’s ‘pure spring water’. But in the suddenness of the hush Vänskä manages to change the way the air moves in Minnesota Hall. I love the simplicity and limpidity of the second movement, and the gathering of energy at the heart of the third movement is tremendous – that’s where the resplendent final procession is generated.
The Third and Sixth Symphonies feel even more closely related than usual. The quietism of the Sixth speaks volumes. If ever a piece existed between the notes, this is it. In the seemingly negligible the considerable is to be found – like the tremulous darkening before the close of the first movement; a major event writ small. And that is especially startling on account of the luminosity surrounding it. There really isn’t much to say about a performance that just feels perfectly balanced – in music as in nature. I will add, though, that the evaporating final chord is startling.
And so to the almost but not quite conclusive Seventh – epic in all but duration, as grand and elemental as it is concise. Small ideas grow great with inevitability – a testament to Sibelius’s genius and Vänskä’s integrity. And it sounds splendid. This of all the symphonies seems to come up through the bass-lines, and as we approach the second major upheaval, the chromatic undulation of strings – the movement of tectonic plates – is perfectly in balance with what is happening above.
One just knows that the ear-pricking clarity throughout these performances is of Vänskä’s and not the balance engineer’s making. And as for that eleventh-hour resolution into C major, it is as emphatic as it is precipitous. The full stop that’s more of a question mark.
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
SubscribeGramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.