In the 3 recordings that I have heard of En Saga - Karajan/Ashkenazy/Jarvi - there is something that troubles me.

This is regarding the "winding down" after the strong brass statement of the 3rd (closing) theme. At letter O in the score, there is a poco rit for 4 bars, followed by a tempo. The general tempo of the section is Allegro. This sections dies down dynamically to the soli violin chords at letter P, which is Lento assai. But nowhere does Sibelius indicate a slower tempo, a ritardando, nothing. He writes tranquillo in the flute part at one place, but that is all.

My distress is that all the recordings I have heard take the a tempo after O much slower, like the opening Moderato, and gradually slow down even more going into the Lento assai. So what gives? Granted, I have not heard Berglund Vanska Saraste etc. but my question is why do they do this? In my mind, the a tempo after O clearly refers to the Allegro that has been going on for about 6-7 minutes, espesially given that the thematic material of the a tempo is exactly the same as the thematic material of the Allegro preceding the poco rit. So why on Earth would anybody take a completely new tempo there? I can understand that one may wish to gradually slow the section a little as it calms towards Lento assai, but to markedly go to Moderato at a tempo seems ridiculous to me.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Has anyone heard any recordings or performances that preserve what seems to be Sibelius' clear intention?

Try Vänskä - or the old Malcolm Sargent with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, a performance of spectacular energy. Most of the recordings that I possess keep the tempo reasonaly well here, but (from memory) Saraste slows down more than most.
I can see why you react against the slowing-down and I wish conductors wouldn't do it - it destroys the flow of the music.

Since my last post, I did find one recording that I like very much, I didn't bother re-posting, since my performance had already taken place and my "official" search ended.

The recording is by Mikko Frank with the Swedish Radio Symphony. The tempo is very good through the aforementioned section... The one criticism I have of this recording are actually more words of praise: the sound that the engineers achieve in this and other piano passages is so perfect that it is difficult to imagine that it could ever be that wonderfully transparent in performance.

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for the link to the recording on the Ondine label.