Sibelius - Tone Poems [Jarvi-Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra]Again the booklet cover is a treasure, a desolate black and white shot of a flooded woodland [Sally Mayman], all very symmetrical, bleak from human intervention, and yet... the trees must have been planted by humans to have that horizontal mathematical symmetry about them, but also nature in it's mirror image creates a vertical symmetry too, i wish others would take note at creating a visual art to go along with the aural art on the disc inside, and for once the big yellow monster is a nice colour that adds to the booklet!.
This is a lovely disc, two big Tone Poems bookend smaller pieces, in fact it has that same mirror symmetry as the booklet cover!, and yet all the pieces are places in composition order, i believe this disc was culled from individual pieces that were originally from other discs, the recording dates are from 1992 to 1995, but this compilation is from 2000.
Most of all i enjoyed tracks 1 & 7, 'En Saga' and 'The Bard', En Saga i know fairly well, and it's a piece i've grown to appreciate, but The Bard is really quite unknown to me, but what a wonderful piece it is, what a wonderfully atmospheric opening!, with what sound like bass clarinets [0:00+], gorgeous in the bass, never to return later, and then the harp enters [0:03], and is a constant feature of the work, and must represent the Bard himself, strumming away his tales/poems, it's set in the dark and mysterious key of E Flat Minor, and goes with the music so well, [Prokofiev's Symphony 6 is in the same key], it's such a delightful piece, full of murkiness, and yet very lightly scored for orchestra, a very nice discovery for me.
Here's 'The Bard' being played on YouTube, conducted by Paavo Berglund.
And here's a very nice review of this disc.
