With more than two dozen different recordings of Sibelius's Second Symphony currently available, any full-price newcomer has to have strong artistic claims to justify purchase. Leif Segerstam is arguably the most gifted of the Finnish conductors currently before the public, and previous releases in his Sibelius cycle (the Fourth Symphony coupled with a superb account of the first suite from The Tempest, and the Sixth plus En saga and Pohjola's daughter—8/91 and 4/92 respectively) have offered many insights.
I must, however, confess disappointment with this new version of the Second Symphony. Segerstam adopts a very broad and spacious approach: he takes some 47'07'' as opposed to Jarvi's (BIS) 41'55'' or Toscanini's 38'32'' (RCA (CD) RD60294). In the first movement he squeezes every expressive ounce from the theme on unison violins (track 1, 1'28''; 17 bars before letter B). And his slow movement is particularly overheated. Take the passage beginning at letter D through to the point at which the pianopianissimo strings enter (track 2, 4'28''—5'14''). Admittedly it is marked Molto largamente but that surely is not a prescription for bombast (Kajanus, who was closest to Sibelius's intentions, makes no such exaggerations in his 1930 account on Finlandia). Segerstam takes almost three minutes longer over this movement, and the overall effect—and indeed that of the whole symphony—is, I'm afraid, overblown. He sentimentalizes the oboe theme of the scherzo's trio, particularly his closing phrase.
The playing of the Danish Radio orchestra is excellent and all departments produce phrasing and sonority of some refinement. The recording is very natural and musical though the reverberation tends to muddy the texture in climaxes. Try the allegro three minutes or so into Finlandia and you will find the tuba and timpani by no means as well focused as in Jansons's Oslo recording coupled with the First Symphony (EMI), or Ashkenazy's Decca account (coupled with Tapiola, En saga and the Karelia Suite).'