Here is the first recording ever of the so-called Press Celebrations Music of 1899. For its genesis I refer you to Harold Johnson’s study (Faber: 1959), Tawaststjerna’s Sibelius, Vol. 1 (Faber: 1976) or the most recent edition of my own volume in the Master Musicians series (OUP: 1993). Sibelius subsequently reworked and rescored the music later that same year in what became the first set of the Scenes historiques, Op. 25 and Finlandia, Op. 26, but here we have the first opportunity of hearing Sibelius’s original thoughts, as well as the Prelude, and the two movements that remained in manuscript. They are the second tableau, ‘The Finns are baptised’, and the fifth, ‘The Great Unrest’ or ‘Hostility’, referring to the so-called Great Northern War that followed the Russian capture of Viipuri in 1710 and the subsequent decline of Swedish power. After his experience with the music for the Karelia pageant six years earlier, Sibelius decided on a prelude for wind to quieten and prepare the audience. Neither this nor ‘The Finns are baptised’ is top-drawer Sibelius but, like the Karelia music, is more than just ‘well worth hearing’. The fifth tableau is powerful and atmospheric, and it is surprising that Sibelius made no effort to reshape it and include it with the other Scenes historiques. The third tableau offers the original version of the Bolero, which Sibelius revised the following year and then again in 1911 as Festivo.
Only a few months ago BIS issued an impressive version of the complete Karelia music along with the stage music for Kuolema (‘Death’) from which Valse triste comes. When Sibelius first composed it, his score ran to eight tableaux which portrayed various episodes in Karelian history from the thirteenth century onwards. In the 1940s Sibelius destroyed the score, sparing only the Overture, the movements familiar from the Op. 1 Suite and the first number, ‘A Karelian Home – News of War’. But unfortunately, as with the case of the first version of the Fifth Symphony, a set of orchestral parts came to light, albeit incomplete, and were put into shape by Kalevi Kuosa. In the BIS version these were fleshed out by Kalevi Aho and the present set uses a realization by another Finnish composer, Juoni Kapilainen. (In his excellent notes Kapilainen sets out exactly what he has done with the score.) Both are imaginative and are of quality. Both are well played and conducted, though Vanska gets far more poetic playing from his Lahti players, particularly in the beautiful seventh tableau. I also prefer the more natural recording favoured by the BIS team to the, at times, slightly (at others very) synthetic balance of the newcomer with its forward, upfront sound and unnatural almost pop-style treatment of the soprano soloists in the second tableau. The baritone is better served. In the Ondine version we are given the choral version of the Finnish anthem, Vart Land while in the BIS account no choir is used. According to Tawaststjerna Sibelius was already having second thoughts about the piece at its first concert performance but, as I said in April, it is fascinating to hear what it is like, and what Sibelius was prepared to lose. A self-recommending issue for Sibelians.'