Search - Jean Sibelius, Thomas Beecham, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra :: Sir Thomas Beecham Conducts Sibelius

Beecham's Wonderful Sibelius 1st

Jeffrey Lipscomb | Sacramento, CA United States | 05/10/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This terrific mono account of the Sibelius 1st Symphony was my introduction to the Finnish composer's music back in LP days (by itself on Columbia ML 4653). I am in complete agreement with reviewer Michael Richman that none of the better-sounding stereo recordings made since then has the "fire and intensity" of this Beecham reading. To my taste, the best of the stereo alternatives is the Barbirolli/Halle (EMI), but it is a much slower, weightier reading. Beecham here strikes an ideal balance between the romantic, old-fashioned 1930's version of Robert Kajanus (Koch) and the more dynamic virtuosity of Anthony Collins (Beulah mono). For me, these 4 performances are the work's outstanding recorded accounts.



As Mr. Richman points out, the rest of this disc duplicates what was once available on an EMI "Beecham Edition" CD. These readings are all excellent, save for a Karelia March that still strikes me as excessively hasty. My only other cavil here is with Sony's decision to make these classic readings available only on expensive British import CDs. Hopefully Sony will some day choose to offer these on domestic CDs at a more reasonable price.



Highly recommended."