Hello, fellow Sibelius members!

Yesterday was my birthday, and I received this sibelius recording as a gift..I was wondering if it would be a decent recording?
Thanks!
3/4player

~SIBELIUS:COMPLETE SYMPHONIES~

BERLIN PHILHARMONIKER
HERBERT VON KARAJAN~OKKO KAMU
(TRIO/ 3 CDS) 235 min.
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON
It has symphonies 1-7.

Well 3/4,
Do you like it? That is the ultimate test. We can give our opinions, but trust your own ears too.

I have never been a fan of Von Karajan's Sibelius. I must admit though that I have not listened to much of his Sibelius output either. I am not familiar with any of his symphony interpretations. My dislike stems from a version of Valse Triste I heard a long time ago. It sounded so slow and dirge-like to me that I was totally turned off VK's Sibelius, maybe unfairly, but there it is.

A belated happy birthday to you! You have received a present that ought to bring much pleasure.

First the Kamu performances (by the way Nos. 1 and 3 are with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra - in the UK, at least, Deutsche Grammophon erroneously used the name 'Helsinki Radio Symphony Orchestra'):

No. 1: straight down the middle, perhaps a touch plain but very little to argue with!

No. 2: if I remember rightly, his 'prize' for winning the Karajan competition in 1969 was a recording with the Berlin Phil, and this is it. Very youthful and impulsive (I bet he'd play it quite differently these days) but plenty of exuberance.

No. 3: very fine indeed. I only find the sound a little boomy and on my copies (LP and CD) it sounds as if something has gone slightly wrong with the pitch of the transfer - a little bit flat, and something odd happens to the timpani in the final cadence. But let's not quibble - this is a fine Third.

And then the Karajan. I think in general I'm more positively inclined than Badger (though I'd be the first to agree about the Valse triste). Whther you like him or not, Karajan was a great musician who delivered real interpretations, even if fashions have changed today. Sibelius even referred to Karajan as the only conductor who truly understood his music, which goes a bit further than conventional politeness! But back to the recordings:

No. 4: the renowned British Sibelian Robert Layton likened this performance to viewing the icy Nordic landscapes from the comfort of a well-heated limousine. Although Mr Layton has changed his mind since, I think this statement sums up the performance pretty well.

No. 5: a performance of great stature, to my mind, though the finale doesn't quite have the gravitas that one would wish (and the hurried final chords are a big mistake). In its day the beginning of the first movement was regarded as impossibly slow, though it no longer seems extreme. Sibelius's recommended tempo is much faster than one ever hears today (in 1943 he gave the metronome mark of dotted crotchet=66 at the outset).

No. 6: objectively we shouldn't like this: the opening is all beauty and no substance, and then he changes tempo precisely where Sibelius doesn't want… but what magic, what atmosphere! When first issued it was criticized for opaque recording quality but I've never found that to be a problem.

No. 7: slow, grand, but with a mastery of pulse of which Sibelius would surely have approved. Just close your ears for the wacky wind balance and intomation 8 bars before Q!

Enjoy!

they'll be good. enjoy and happy b-day.
the only ones i had were the kamu 1 & 2 on lp.

dj

"Sibelius even referred to Karajan as the only conductor who truly understood his music, ..."

I am aware of this quote by Siba. To each his own. And, as noted, I am basing my bias on the Valse Triste.

So many recordings, so little time!

In

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you can take a look at my newly updated comments on the opening of the 7th by Karajan, the only recording I have heard to date which completely satisfies me (with respect to the opening only).

That said, as you can see, I have not heard too many and I cannot find my Vanska recording for comparison.

Also, the rest of Karajan's 7th is pretty rough in terms of the sound and in my opinion the over-romantisizing of the themes / phrasings.

We know that Karajan never recorded Sibelius's Third Symphony and I have just come across an interesting comment by reviewer Gary Lemco, that Karajan was 'having constantly resided thoughts about how to avoid an anti-climax in the last movement'.
Anyone care to comment on this, and is it known whether Karajan ever conducted the third in concert.--kullervopete.

A very sober dilemma. I led the exact same inner debate with myself for three years before I finally decided to program the piece in concert.

On a recording, one has multiple attempts at pacing the energy through the iterations of the hymn. But in performance, one has only one chance to communicate the grandeur of the closing, and if one somehow misses, the entire performance is ruined, no matter how well the other movements were played. After performing it, I think the ending comes off a little more "obviously" than I had feared, and ironically, perhaps my fears were based the recordings I had heard... in which case maybe Karajan's worries were well founded.

I cannot be quite certain but as far as I know Karajan never played the Third in concert. A couple of years before his death he was rumoured to be learning both this work and Pohjola's Daughter for a recording, but that was not to be... I bet it would have been an interesting performance.

I've started listening to this cycle today, as I bought it a few months ago and never really got around to listening to it, other than the unremittingly intense 4th symphony found here, and a little bit of the 3rd. It's rather interesting to listen to. The second symphony is, I think, quite good. The exuberance can certainly not be overlooked here. I seem to get the impression that the woodwinds fill the recording space the most beautifully of the orchestra, actually, most notably at the beginning of the second movement. In places of the first movement the sound can get a bit muddled from the very live acoustic. Yikes, though, he takes some really extreme tempo changes. I wonder, if he had done a whole cycle around this time with the BPO, if it would be comparable to Bernstein's first Mahler cycle (VERY propulsive and involved with extreme tempi at both ends of the spectrum)... it's an interesting little "what if". Anyway, the little slow thing toward the end of the second movement (the beginning of the last third or so, I suppose--around 11 minutes in) is intoxicating, with the violas (if I'm not mistaken; I've never seen the score), celli and basses having their pizzicato standing out quite prominently yet still shimmering, as are the beautiful violins and woodwinds.

Anyway, I rather like this 2nd. I don't know about the rest so much. I suppose I'll find out eventually.
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Full marks to World Violist for finding this old topic and not starting a new one! Well done! Kurki.

I've just ringed 19th, 20th and 23rd of May, 2010 in my diary. Okko Kamu is in Manchester to conduct the Halle in a tremendous programme. Dvorak 'Carnival' Overture and Cello Concerto [Alisa Weilerstein] and Sibelius Symphony No. 1--music to die for! -kp