This new account of the G minor Symphony has a lot going for it. Paavo Jarvi is eminently straightforward and sensitive, the architecture of the piece is well shaped and detail attentively handled. He hardly puts a foot wrong and obviously has great feeling for the piece even if his tempo at the allegro section of the finale strikes me as a bit scrambled (track 4, 2'42''). A tiny point, and others may not be worried by it. In any event it is a distinguished performance – and what a wonderful score! The fill-ups are generous: the Reverenza movement which Stenhammar included in the original version of the Serenade for orchestra but subsequently excised, comes off well.
Anne Sofie von Otter has already recorded the two Op. 4 Songs, both Runeberg settings, with Bengt Forsberg (Musica Sveciae, 7/90). ‘The girl came from meeting her lover’ precedes Sibelius’s setting by some nine years, and some may well prefer it. It is a subtle and refined song and its companion, ‘The girl on Midsummer’s Eve’, is even lovelier. They have never been recorded before in their orchestral form. Von Otter is on home ground and in radiant voice.
The exhilarating Excelsior! overture, which comes from the mid-1890s, is the standard coupling, and is given here with great panache and spirit. My only caveat is the recording which though perfectly acceptable, is not in the top flight. There is insufficient transparency in climaxes and the sound is two-dimensional with little front-to-back depth. Turn to the Westerberg account (Caprice, 4/80 – nla) made in the same hall, the Stockholm Concert Hall (I put it alongside the LP as I do not have it on CD) and you will find far greater warmth and bloom. Reverenza fares much better and so do the songs. In any event these performances score strongly on artistic grounds and will give pleasure and delight. '