{"id":50947,"date":"2018-02-11T09:49:20","date_gmt":"2018-02-11T14:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=50947"},"modified":"2018-02-11T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T16:33:11","slug":"record-keeping-two-new-albums-that-remind-us-theres-more-to-sibelius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2018\/02\/11\/record-keeping-two-new-albums-that-remind-us-theres-more-to-sibelius\/","title":{"rendered":"RECORD KEEPING | Two New Albums That Remind Us There’s More To Sibelius"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(L) Sibelius: In the Stream of Life. Einojuhani Rautavaara. Other Songs. Pohjola\u2019s Daughter. Romance in C major. Oceanides. Gerald Finley, bass-baritone. Bergen Philharmonic\/Edward Gardner. Chandos CHSA 5178. Total Time: 78:40. (R) Sibelius: Eight Songs orch. Aulis Sallinen. Tapiola. En Saga. Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano. Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra\/Hannu Lintu. Ondine ODE 1289-5. Total Time: 54:58<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the course of his life, Sibelius wrote over 100 songs, most of which are little-known and infrequently performed.<\/p>\n

Years ago, I had the pleasure of collaborating with the great Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen in a concert of Sibelius\u2019 music at Toronto\u2019s Massey Hall \u2014 an unforgettable experience, in which Hynninen brought several of the composer\u2019s songs to life with palpable intensity. Although Hynninen recorded an album of Sibelius songs (Ondine ODE 823-2), the field has remained wide open for other artists to take an interest. These new CDs featuring Gerald Finley and Anne Sofie von Otter respectively could be enormously helpful in bringing this neglected repertoire to a wider audience.<\/p>\n

Sibelius wrote most of his songs for voice with piano accompaniment. While he later orchestrated several of these scores, dozens more cry out for the colours attainable through symphonic orchestration.<\/p>\n

Happily, Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley developed a friendship with the celebrated Finnish composer Eino Rautavaara (2013-2016), which led to Rautavaara orchestrating a Sibelius song as a gift to Finley. Finley then persuaded Rautavaara to orchestrate more songs, which led him to complete \u2014 just before his death in 2016 \u2014 a set of seven Sibelius songs, grouped under the title In the Stream of Life<\/em><\/a>. The last song in the set is \u201cSvarta rosor\u201d (Black Roses), perhaps the most famous of all the Sibelius songs.<\/p>\n

Rautavaara\u2019s orchestral accompaniments, all very much in Sibelius\u2019 own style, rarely draw attention to themselves. Finley, who performs the songs with beautiful tone, stylish phrasing and with an authority and passion similar to that of the now retired Hynninen, should be considered his worthy successor in this repertoire.<\/p>\n

The new Ondine disc<\/a>, featuring Swedish artist Anne Sofie von Otter, includes eight Sibelius songs orchestrated by another prominent Finnish composer, Aulis Sallinen. Commissioned by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu, these orchestrations were premiered with Anne Sofie von Otter in 2015. Only one of the songs on this disc \u2014 \u201cJ\u00e4gargossen\u201d (The Young Huntsman) \u2014 is also to be found on the Chandos Finley CD. On listening to both performances in succession, I was struck by the orchestral similarities; apparently, Rautavaara and Sallinen hear Sibelius in much the same way. In both versions, the timpani is used prominently in the opening and closing bars but nowhere in between, and in both, the clarinet is used very effectively; that said, \u201cJ\u00e4gargossen\u201d is very much a man\u2019s song and Finley\u2019s performance sounds much more idiomatic.<\/p>\n

In some of the quieter songs orchestrated by Sallinen, Anne Sofie von Otter sings beautifully, with the rich tone we have come to admire over the years, while Lintu and his orchestra provide sympathetic accompaniments. On the whole, however, it is Finley on the Chandos CD who provides more eloquent and powerful performances, especially in \u201cThe Rapids-rider\u2019s Brides\u201d and \u201cThe Diamond on the March Snow.\u201d Finley also includes \u201cHymn to Tha\u00efs, the Unforgettable,\u201d the only song by Sibelius based on an English text.<\/p>\n

Each of these new recordings is filled out with several orchestral pieces. On the Chandos CD, Edward Gardner conducts strong performances of Pohjola\u2019s Daughter<\/em>, the Romance<\/em> in C major for strings and the impressionistic tone poem The Oceanides<\/em>. On the Ondine CD, Hannu Lintu conducts Tapiola<\/em> and En Saga<\/em>, an early tone poem from 1892, which has a strikingly original cymbal part \u2014 the player uses timpani sticks \u2014 a sound Sibelius blends with soft strings near the opening of the piece and again at the end, for a magical, unearthly effect which Lintu and the Ondine engineers capture perfectly.<\/p>\n

LUDWIG VAN TORONTO<\/i>
\n<\/b><\/h3>\n

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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two new albums from Gerald Finley and Anne Sofie von Otter offer are a stark reminder of how much repertoire from Sibelius is still waiting to be re-discovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":50948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14761,77,5739,51,52],"tags":[299,1401,1715],"yst_prominent_words":[16641,16638,16636,16649,16647,16652,16642,16644,16650,16655,16645,7264,16643,16653,16640,16637,10620,16651,16646,16639],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/02\/RK-Feb11.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-dfJ","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50947"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50958,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50947\/revisions\/50958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50947"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=50947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}