All seven symphonies, Humoresques, Songs, Luonnotar (Juntunen), Tapiola, Serious Melodies… London Philharmonic Orchestra/Vänskä.

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Pity they're not on consecutive days as anyone why doesn't live in London faces unappetizing the prospect of a long stay in a cruddy and expensive London hotel. But a mouth-watering collection of goodies!

Wow, this might even be a possibility for me to go to... I'd really love to get to this one. Nobody really programs Sibelius around here (partly because nobody within about a 2-hour long diameter can; the only time I've seen Sibelius here is documented elsewhere in the forums...), so any opportunity to see his music live is practically an oasis to me. Vänskä and the LPO also... haha. It's like a dream come true for primitive folk like me.

You'd be very welcome. Maybe, if a few more people can face a British winter, Heathrow airport and London in all its odiferous decrepitude, we could have a little Forum gathering?

A forum gathering? How awesome would that be?!

This summer, the LA Phil is also doing (I just found out) Sibbe's 2nd at the Hollywood Bowl with Leonard Slatkin waving the stick in front of the orchestra.

Looks like 2009 is shaping to be good for Sibelius live performances.

Tapkaara wrote:

Looks like 2009 is shaping to be good for Sibelius live performances.

Haha, I'll be sure to check the Cincinnati SO 2009-10 schedule when it gets out on the web. I'd love to find Paavo Jarvi conducting Sibelius!

As for a forum gathering... that would be fun, wouldn't it?

What would we call such a gathering? A 'Forum Forum'. OR perhaps better: a Symposium?

The "Symposium" reference is just too good not to go with. If only Akseli was around to do a commemorative painting...

Andrew B wrote:

What would we call such a gathering? A 'Forum Forum'. OR perhaps better: a Symposium?

Very nice...

Kurkikohtaus wrote:

... or a beer-fest ... I'm buying for W.V.

and appropriate given this comment...

Tapkaara wrote:

The "Symposium" reference is just too good not to go with. If only Akseli was around to do a commemorative painting...

I would shudder at the thought of what Akseli would paint for us... haha.

I don't think I'll end up making it to London, but I'm fairly sure I'll be going to Minnesota to see Osmo conducting Kullervo (toward the end of February)!

Not sure if this is the right thread, but here goes. I was fortunate to attend the Feb 3 and 5 concerts at the RFH in London during which Osmo Vanska and the London Phil played symphonies 4-7, 'Tapiola', 'Luonnotar' and a cello+orch piece I didn't know and can't remember the title. Both concerts were thrilling. OV showed the same command and elegant control of this repertoire that he showed in Lahti a few years back when I caught one concert. 4 started with a powerfully shaped statement of the lower strings' first few bars and we knew we were in for a great performance. All the performances were great.

If I had a personal interpretative difference it would be during the 6th where I think OV sometimes under-does the expressiveness. His Sibelius seems to be conducted from a desire to not get romantically overstated, and I think this is a good thing usually. But it does mean that sometimes the music is a little rushed. I'm thinking in particular about the high strings at the coda of the 6th. A short while back I heard Neeme Jarvi's recording of this on the radio and was struck by how plaintive he made that passage. This is why on the whole my favourite Sibelius performances are the 1970s Boston ones by Colin Davis.

If one performance sticks out it will be the 7th. The sense of sheer momentum in this performance was amazing. The music pressed on and on like some natural force. The scherzo section was amazingly precise in the timing of the exchanges between the instruments. By this symphony it was as if the players had cohered into a single entity and that had become one with the music. I hardly had a sense that the music was being played; it was just happening. The final cadence was magnificent - each component locking into place one part of the orchestra after another (I'm fascinated by the way Sibelius seems to have re-thought the final cadence of his later symphonies, giving them extra force by causing them to happen as a series of events rather than one chord change).

Can't understand why anyone thinks the ending of the 7th isn't positive. Sibelius takes his leading note (B) and holds it after chord V (G) has resolved into chord I (C). Thus we get a B held against the C chord making a sustained Cmaj7 chord - which is one of the most beautiful in music - and a supremely human chord if you think of it as an overlap between a major triad (CEG) and a minor one (EGB) - the bitter-sweetness of the human condition. On the last beat Sibelius finally allows the leading note to rise to C. 'A final nail in the coffin' said Colin Davis. Not for me.

In this connection it is interesting to note that only a page or so earlier of the score Sibelius is in C minor. He could quite easily have ended his symphony in C minor if he had wanted a tragic ending (look at 4 and 6). But he chose not to. I think that is very revealing.

And now I am almost off-topic so I must stop. Hope some other members caught some of this concert series.

The Feb 3 concert is being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Feb 15.

Thanks for some fantastic comments Rikky. I only wish that I could have been there. The cello pieces that you mention are the two opus 77 [serious melodies] from 1914-15, 'Cantique' and 'Devotion'. Originally for violin or cello and piano. Interestingly in 2007 Sakari Oramo combined these two gems with 'Melinconia' opus 20 for cello and piano that Sibelius wrote after the tragic death of his daughter Kirsti in 1901. Programmed at Symphony Hall in Birmingham as 'Three Symphonic Pieces' for cello and orchestra, it makes an attractive concert item. I share your views regarding Vanska's approach to the sixth symphony, I feel that Segerstam is more successful. Yes! Colin Davies remark about closing the coffin lid does seem pessimistic. I think he's trying to say that the ending is so final, its a birth to death piece. Sibelius did hint at Valse triste during the closing page. For me it is one of the most life afirming works of music ever written. As you say, that final B-C surging from the orchestral texture on the strings with awesome chords from trumpets, trombones and timpani is surely afirmative and triumphal.--kp

Managed to hear the BBC recording the other week. I thought 'Luonnotar' was perhaps the best that I have ever heard. As regards Vanska's account of No.4, the first movement was wonderful, in fact near perfect. The opening of the Scherzo was magical with that oboe, but when that sort of a waltz comes in on flutes, Vanska was much to fast for me. This movement is truncated and compressed enough to rush it like this. In the moving Largo, Vanska delivered a rare vision of a tormented human soul, searching for salvation. The last movement was very fine, but again I thought that Vanska rushed the final moments to much. Incidentally that up and coming Sibelian Pietari Inkinen is an admirer of Vanska, but he too has remarked that Vanska tends to conduct Sibelius to fast. The Fifth Symphony brought the house down! -kp