It is more skilfully orchestrated than the first symphony. Nevertheless, Sibelius’ countryman, outgoing LA Philharmonic conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, achieves a recommendable if unusual version of the work in this DG Concerts. The second symphony is the most popular and most frequently recorded of Sibeliuss symphonies. Symphony were given at the Auditorium Theatre on January 1. The list of recordings of Sibelius’ most popular symphony is formidably long. It may bring one of the greatest of all symphonic journeys full circle, but the performances themselves leave many questions unanswered en route. The Chicago Symphony Orchestras first subscription concert performances of Sibeliuss Second. The Seventh is followed by the last of Sibelius’s tone poems, Tapiola, revisiting the chilly landscapes explored in that symphony, and also by three fragments, less than four minutes of music altogether, which are thought to be all that survives of the score of an eighth symphony that Sibelius seems to have destroyed sometime during the second world war. In the Fifth, the great turning points – the transition from the opening movement into scherzo, and the emergence of the glorious “swan theme” in the finale, two of the most thrilling moments in 20th-century music – are made to seem almost matter-of-fact, while the performances of Sixth and Seventh are thoroughly accomplished in a rather detached way, but nothing more. This and Mäkelä’s account of the dark, brooding Fourth, which is suitably austere and never over-interpreted, are the highlights of his cycle, while the Third is probably its low point, with no sense of coherence at all. Underlining the set’s unevenness, though, the First is followed by a superb account of the Second Symphony, which perfectly encapsulates its mix of organic rigour and rugged defiance. 2 (1901-02)- Allegretto (0:26)- Tempo andante, ma rubato (10:26)- Vivacissimo Lento e suave (24:40)- Finale: Allegro moderato. Mäkelä’s approach to the First Symphony sets the tone for much of what follows he seems to treat the work more like a symphonic poem than as a rigorous piece of symphonic architecture, with a succession of brightly coloured episodes that don’t necessarily connect, and while the First is by far the most diffuse and derivative of Sibelius’s symphonies, it’s a more cogent work than he suggests. It’s frustratingly uneven, with performances veering between the outstanding and the prosaic, though the orchestral playing is consistently fine. Of course, there’s no shortage of outstanding cycles of these symphonies already available, and in the final analysis Mäkelä’s set does not challenge the second of Colin Davis’s three versions, say, or either of those conducted by Osmo Vänskä.
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