Sibelius - Symphony 2 [Jarvi-The Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra]This is by far my favourite Symphony of Sibelius, powerful and strong, recently i listened to this at night with the lights off, lying on my bed with a portable player, in complete darkness the power of the Symphony takes hold, without any distractions to disturb you, you begin to notice things you haven't heard before, a wonderful experience, i would recommend anyone trying it.
The Estonian Conductor Neeme Jarvi seems to have recorded everything [mainly for Chandos], and this is one of his finest recordings, special mention must be made of the wonderful dynamics from the engineers, this is one of the greatest recordings i have ever heard soundwise, clear and precise, in beautiful perfect sound, every rasp and zing, thump and scrape is gorgeous, i love this recording.
The second movement has tremendous power, a few things i notice about it on this listen, it's really quite sparse, how geniously Sibelius builds this movement up in its building blocks, it also seems to be a constant dialogue, one part of the orchestra speaking to another part, Sibelius seems to love the sharp snap of brass, or the low growl of woodwind, the movement starts off slow and sparse, with pizzicato low strings, and slowly builds up and up, like adding more complex ingredients to a basic stew, bowed strings don't come in until nearly 3 minutes [2:56], about a third of the way in, the bassoons, then the flutes take turns in this upward chugging figure, while the woodwind play the melody in the background [5:27-5:45] ingenious, later a bleak trumpet gives a solo 'last stand', with the flute giving an echo inbetween [6:22-7:07], the high biting brass have an argument with the low growling brass, with timpani joining in [8:36-9:33], towards the end the violins play the melody, which soars high and passionate [11:03-11:59], the very middle bit of this is so wonderful [11:29-11:44], the strings become so pleading, probably the most magical moment, immediately after this the tune comes in forte with the whole orchestra [11:59-12:13], especially the brass, the rest of the Symphony goes on to glory, it's such a phenomenal work.
Here's the second movement being played on YouTube.
