CD: Sibelius: The Symphonies

Neeme Jarvi first recorded all the Sibelius symphonies with the Gothenburg orchestra for Bis in the 1980s. It was a cycle much admired when it first appeared, though later it was eclipsed by the versions on the same label made by Osmo Vanska and the Lahti Symphony.

Vanska's accounts still remain the benchmark; compared with them, Jarvi's new recordings, made over a four-year period with the First and Second Symphonies recorded in concert, seem unremarkable, suggesting that while approaches to Sibelius interpretation have moved on, his readings have not. There is something a bit stolid about the way Jarvi treats this music, lacking the tensile strength and pungent orchestral textures that give the works their muscularity. The early works, the First and Second Symphonies, go best; the last three, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh, least well. Jarvi embalms musical structures that should be dynamic and evolving.