Sibelius: Night Ride and Sunrise; Belshazzar's Feast; Kuolema

On the heels of their lauded first release of Sibelius orchestral music, Sibelius - Scenes Historiques Pietari Inkinen and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra are back with some of Sibelius's lesser known works, as well as a couple of much better known ones. Sibelius has always been a huge favorite in New Zealand, as he has in the USA and England, and there is a tradition there of excellent performances of his music. Indeed, the early music of the country's best-known composer of the last century, Douglas Lilburn, often sounds almost indistinguishable from Sibelius's.

The disc contains a fine performance of 'Night Ride and Sunrise', Op. 55, one of the better known tone poems here. It is followed by a work I'd never heard before, 'Pan and Echo (Tanz-Intermezzo No. 3)', Op. 53a, a five-minute piece which evokes a pagan world peopled by nymphs and satyrs. The 'Suite from "Belshazzar's Feast"', Op. 51, is a four-movement work, incidental music for a long-forgotten play by Sibelius's friend Hjalmar Procopé. It opens with an 'Oriental Procession' set in Belshazzar's Babylon and is followed by delicate 'Solitude', originally titled 'The Jewish Girl's Song. The suite concludes with the evocative 'Night Music' and with 'Khadra's Dance', a genteel belly-dance.

'Two Pieces for Orchestra', Op. 45, consists of 'The Dryad', a six-minute impressionistic tone poem which has us again back in pagan Greek days. It is coupled with 'Tanz-Intermezzo No. 2', three high-spirited minutes featuring harp glissandi, and oboe and cornet solos all in almost Viennese waltz time.

The disc concludes with 'Kuolema (Death)', Opps 44 and 62, music for a 1903 play of the same name by Sibelius's brother-in-law Arvid Järnevelt. It opens with what is likely Sibelius's best-known work (perhaps excepting 'Finlandia'), 'Valse Triste'. Then come another well-known piece, often excerpted and played alone, 'Scene with Cranes'. Its shimmering string choir and evocative use of solo clarinet are inimitably Sibelian, a example of his always distinctive orchestration. The second pair of numbers, the lovely 'Canzonetta' and lilting 'Valse romantique' (together designated Op. 62) were written for a 1911 revival of the play.

With its combination of well-known and almost unknown smaller orchestral pieces by the Finnish master, this disc has much to offer. It argues convincingly that the NZSO under Inkinen, its new music director, are among the world's better ensembles.

Recommended.

Scott Morrison

Sibelius wrote incidental music for some ten or a dozen theatrical productions. There are selections from two of these here, together with four other works, one of which is definitely a tone-poem and three can be classified as tone-poems for want of any other category to put them in. There are several good reasons for recommending this issue. One is that the performances are excellent, another is that the recorded sound is excellent, and another is that the value is excellent. Naxos just seem to keep coming up trumps in terms of imagination, boldness, general quality and sheer value for money. May they continue to defy trends in the world economy that other enterprises are going to find a problem.

I have recently bought two other Sibelius issues, and to start with I have played Night Ride and Sunrise from both of them by way of a benchmark for assessing this disc. Whether first impressions will last I have no way of telling, but while they are all I have I would award first place to this account in preference to either the Lahti SO or even the classic version by the ultra-dependable Dorati with the great LSO. There would have to be a very good reason indeed for such a ranking, and the reason is the recorded quality. The sound here is fresh and clean, and that gets the disc off to a tremendous start with the terrific opening bars of Night Ride and Sunrise. I suppose I have to add a further compliment - to the editing. Those great opening bars are followed by a further 16 and ½ minutes of great music, and I can hardly imagine a more brilliant initial impression being made. Whether Night Ride and Sunrise is even yet appreciated for the great work it is, indeed whether it is even performed much, I do not know; but placed like this, and played like this, it has a real chance of its
stature being more widely recognised.

One of the sets of incidental music is to Kuolema, which being interpreted is `Death'. Sounds good, wouldn't you say? It does to me, and in my own opinion it is good. The numbers we have here are two later interpolations plus two long-time favourites, the Scene with Cranes and the great Valse Triste itself. I love it to this day, and the eerie impression is created as it should be in this performance. No doubt this is an instance of music being the secondary factor, written to illustrate a scene, but the irony is that the scene it illustrates is actually a dance - i.e. a piece of music in its turn. The music to Belshazzar's Feast is not an everyday item on concert-schedules that I get to see, and the music is not the equal of what Walton produced, let alone Handel. However the two slow pieces are very effective, and all four are very well performed as usual.

Why Sibelius produced so many 5-minute (sometimes even shorter) tone-poems I have never understood, nor does the liner note say why a couple of them are called `Dance-Intermezzo'. I had a look in Robert Layton's book on the master, but no joy there either I'm afraid. Neither Pan and Echo nor The Dryad is illustrative to any great extent, and with the rarest exceptions, notably the Valse Triste, Sibelius's `programme' music usually seems to me more a matter of music first and picturesque images afterwards than the other way about. This is what I sense strongly in Night Ride and Sunrise. If the title had never been given by the composer, who would have thought of it? The second part is not remotely suggestive of a sunrise, and although it is easy and natural to think of a long solitary ride on horseback in the first section, nothing demands such an image. It is perfectly easy to depict such a scene, witness Schubert's Erlkoenig or the way Berlioz represents the ride to the abyss. The thing can even be done with just a few notes, as in a spooky song by Mendelssohn about a ghostly castle. Sibelius's rhythm is nowhere near so literal, and where does the strange snarling knot of discords right at the start fit in?

When we find so good a performance of Night Ride and Sunrise as this is, it's worth doing some fresh thinking. Sibelius's `hints' are as confused and as confusing as those of Shostakovich are concerning the `Leningrad' symphony. On Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays it was connected with a sleigh ride, on Tuesdays and Thursdays it was suggested by or at least at the Colosseum in Rome, and at weekends it was something to do with a train journey. May I suggest - just forget the lot, title and all. And there is something else. Nothing else in this recital displays a completely unique and unmistakable musical tone and idiom which at its most awesome makes Sibelius, for me, quite the greatest composer of the 20th century. On this disc it is hurled in our faces from the first notes. From there on I carry on hearing that strange opening sequence, with its lonely and almost unaccompanied violin figuration, just as music, the music of probably the only composer who could make music in such a way. Be careful of the liner note here, incidentally. In general it is fine, but the author has swallowed too much of what he has been told in other conventional commentaries, to the extent of committing outright misrepresentation when he talks of his supposed `horse's hooves' `growing in intensity'. Just listen to it - they do nothing of the kind, and that is what makes this passage so unique and extraordinary.

Even by the high Naxos standards that I am used to, this disc is something special.

Don't muck about. Go and buy this CD - now. It is one of the best bargains you will come across in a long, long while - in fact at this price it's a steal.

It snagged my attention recently when it was deservedly named as "CD Of The Week" on Radio 3's CD Review. I would suggest that neither Pietari Inkinen nor The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra are names which would ordinarily grab one's attention as potential premier-leaguers but in this collection of lesser-known Sibelius pieces they turn in stunning performances which, in my humble opinion at least, stand shoulder to shoulder with those from the Davises and Segerstams of this world.

Inkinen, clearly, has a sound grasp of the music's soul and comes across as a deeply-considered Sibelian, drawing rich, deep Nordic sonorities from the New Zealanders whose confidence and sheer skill are a revelation. OK, so these are not "great" pieces which comprehensively plumb the depths of the human experience or will overwhelm in the way of the Symphonies or major tone poems but they are Sibelius to the core and brimming with delightful dramatic touches and atmospheric nature music as well as more sombre interludes. Inkinen's deft and sympathetic touch is bang on target and his judgement of tempi feels dead right. His control of the players is sure and unfussy, managing to point up detail without drowning in it or losing overall shape. I get the definite impression he doesn't get under the players' feet.

The orchestra just plays out of its skin, producing a deep burnished tone that suits the music to a tee and maintains a clean, disciplined ensemble throughout. There are some mean players in this band which, on the evidence of this disc at least, punches well above its reputational weight. The recording is an absolute joy and puts some recent offerings from the bigger/more established stables to shame (I still can't work out why my LSO Live recording of Harold en Italie sounds like Harold is wandering around a tiled Victorian lavatory in a biological isolation garment...) The sound has both weight and clarity, a rich bloom (but no boom) and the brass emerges with a real punch. String tone is fulsome across the range and the woodwind dance like nymphs. As you can tell, I was a bit impressed...

I hope and pray Naxos give this team a crack at the Symphonies.

And just as a postscript...

Quite unexpectedly, I caught Inkinen and the NZSO playing Sibelius' Second Symphony on BBC Radio 3 two days ago (27/04/2010) and they were just stunning. Come the end of the Finale I felt like I had been overwhelmed by an unstoppable orchestral avalanche. Absolutely wonderful stuff. Surely, Naxos, surely...