Jean Sibelius

The history of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's and my encounters with recordings of his works goes back to records from the 1960's and 1970's by the Austrian conductor Herbert von Kajaran for EMI and DG and in the early days of cd collecting,  I bought a four cd set by Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra but felt much of that didn't get that deep into the compositions.

It also sounded very lean and flat.

For Christmas I got a new five disc set but on super audio cd that also plays on regular players of the six symphonies by the pioneering  orchestra owned  label Lso Live from MDT Classics in Derby.

 This replaced the six symphonies and added a part choral work Kullervo which usually occupies a whole disc plus The Oceanides and Pohojola's Daughter that had been issued over a few years on individual discs.

Coming in this form, it was also discounted meaning for little over £20 I could get a complete set in the very finest quality.

 Taking a look at it, what we have is a box with the discs in individual sleeves and a booklet but also included for those who have home theatre blu ray systems is audio only blu ray so if they don't have super audio cd equipment they can play them back in high resolution surround sound.

 While looking at how to take the core of my Sibelius collection to super audio cd for it's greatly superior sound, I spotted a recent record that was an ideal add on to that five disc set by Chandos.

It's a superb recording by the acclaimed violinist Jennifer Pike of his Violin Concerto that comes with six short works, "Tone Poems" that includes favourites like Finlandia, Valse Triste and the Karelia Suite on one very well filled disc.

The Bergen Philharmonic are noted for their recordings by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg but conducted by Andrew Davis are well in their element.

Finally to replace an older disc I had, I got this newer recording by Finland's Lahti Symphony Orchestra of the Lemminkainen Suite from which the "Swan of Tuonela" comes from coupled with the Wood-Nymph on BIS.

This resetting and upgrading in terms of sound and performances of Sibelius's work coupled with addition of a number of new compositions to my library has added to my appreciation of this composers work.

Sibelius and Finzi

As most know I've always like the Finnish composer Sibelius and indeed as early as 1993 bought a complete box set of his symphonies but while that box was pretty good it was a bit uneven so I'm prepared to try another complete cycle.

Originating in the 1980's and being mainly digitally recorded Ashkenazy's set for London (UK: Decca) was always highly regarded not just for sound but for the evenness of performances bettering in that regard Simon Rattle's set for EMI which I first bought, bringing more a feel of romance rather than icy cold Scandinavian winters to the score.

It also scores by having the four main Tone Poems and the Violin Concerto included with what is a set you get four around £14 included in this 5 cd set making a excellent introduction to this man I got from All Your Music.

That was less than half the price I paid for my original 4 cd set!

While exploring more classical music music when it comes to English music there's more than Elgar and Walton.

Finzi is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata Dies natalis for solo voice and string orchestra, and his concertos for cello and clarinet.

I recently bought these two discs from him a  near contemporary of Delius of his woodwind works  to explore at leisure. He was born on July 14 1901 and died September 27 1956.