Great performances of music often contain a seminal moment when the listener's senses are completely overwhelmed by the sheer power of the sounds being heard. For me, the arrival of the chorale theme in this recording of the fourth movement of Sibelius' Second Symphony is one of them, a split second when all technical considerations become irrelevant because of the utter emotion of the occasion.
This is the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis at the very peak of their powers, and the engineers of LSO Live - the orchestra's fabulous and pioneering in-house record label - have pulled out all the stops to capture the expressive intensity of the live performances. Indeed, I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that it ranks amongst the orchestra's three finest symphonic recordings for the label, joining their dazzling and unbeatable accounts of Elgar's First Symphony and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.
Opening the programme on this new CD is Sibelius' early 'Symphonic Fantasy', Pohjola's Daughter. Although the composer eventually connected the piece with the Finnish folk-epic, the Kalevala, it seems that it was originally written as a piece of absolute music, only later being perceived as a tone poem. So convincing is the connection between the story and the musical processes of the fifteen-minute work, however, that it is now almost impossible to separate the two in one's mind.
According to legend, Väinämöinen, the wizard-hero, sees the daughter of the moon-god Pohjola on top of a rainbow, seated at her spinning wheel. He falls in love with her and begs her to join him, but she refuses to do so, unless he can conjure a boat from her spindle. Failing to fulfil this impossible task, Väinämöinen departs in embarrassment on his sleigh.
The LSO negotiates this compact but complex work with the widest possible range of dynamic colourings. Tim Hugh's opening cello solo deserves particular praise - his tone quality is exquisite - and the bass clarinet is also excellent. A sign of the sound engineers' sensitivity and expertise is the passage a couple of minutes into the piece when the high flutes, lusty horns and warm violins are all easily audible despite playing at the same time (nobody's contribution is lost); meanwhile, the crescendo in the brass fanfare is given a full bloom by the technicians.
But the meat of the disc is Sir Colin's towering interpretation of the Second Symphony. Sibelius wrote the piece in the midst of a series of personal crises. His sixteen-month-old daughter Kirsti had died in 1900, and when he started to conceive the new symphony he was experiencing a loss of artistic confidence, too. Initially, he considered writing a programmatic work on either the Don Juan legend or Dante's Divine Comedy, but ultimately the form of the symphony crystallized and the composer himself conducted the first four performances, in Helsinki.
From gentle murmurings on low strings, oboe and horn - evoking the pastoral imagery of Scandinavia, perhaps - Sir Colin works up the violins in a rising sequence of nimbly executed semiquavers to an initial climax in the first movement. Swelling emotions are evoked by localised surges of dynamics, but what really pierces the heart is the tortured dialogue between the high violins and low cellos at the height of the movement.
The second movement also plays much on contrasts between high and low registers, with a prominent passage of deep cellos and double basses juxtaposed with high trumpets, for instance. Again, both conductor and musicians work together wonderfully to allow every detail of instrumentation to be heard; for example, they show the utmost sensitivity in a passage where the main melody is passed from muted trumpet to flute to oboe in quick succession.
Supposedly, the final two movements owe much to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and one certainly can't deny the formal progression from scherzo to finale. Yet Sibelius' compositional procedures are completely different and in particular, his use of a recurring chorale motive to pull at the heartstrings in between more muted sections of music is an un-Beethovenian course of action. Sir Colin and the LSO hold nothing in reserve, pouring every ounce of energy and feeling into their raw but beautiful interpretation.
This is easily one of the greatest Sibelius recordings of all time and, at LSO Live's budget price, is not to be missed.