Content: Jean Sibelius Artists: Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Hannu Lintu, conductor Genres: Features: Sleeve notes in English and Finnish |
Format: CD / SACD Released: April 2015 Catalogue No.: ODE 1262-5 EAN/UPC Code: 0761195126257 |
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The bleak, themeless landscape of 'Lemminkäinen in Tuonela' is conveyed with impressive power (...). He also offers a vividly characterised Pohjola's Daughter, another spellbinding Sibelian masterpiece. Performance: ****, Recording: ****
Malcolm Hayes, BBC Music Magazine, July 2015
It's thrilling to hear Sibelius's most remarkable structures from an orchestra under impassioned leadership that's probably never sounded better.
Andrew Mellor, Gramophone, December 2015, Critics' Choice 2015
Textures are sifted with skill, chosen tempi are unfailingly judicious and Lintu shows a canny awareness of the bigger scheme. I appreciate the and thrust he brings to 'Lemminkäinen and the Maidens on the Island' (the crisp accenting in the winds and strings throughout will make you sit up), and in 'The Swan of Tuonela' he draws some agreeably luminous and breathtakingly hushed sounds from his string choir. 'Lemminkäinen in Tuonela', too, boasts impressive control.
Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, July 2015
Lemminkäinen Legends is a large and fascinating orchestral work in four movements based on the Finnish Kalevala epic. Originally completed in 1895 the work has a unique position in Sibelius' oeuvre: Sibelius never came closer to the very core of Symbolism than in the misty moods, swan motifs and macabre features of Lemminkäinen. It also includes one of Sibelius' most well-known orchestral pieces, The Swan of Tuonela. Written before the 1st Symphony, it is also noteworthy that Lemminkäinen lacks nothing of a symphony.
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