Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 - The Wood Nymph - Valse Triste

Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Released on 19/01/2024 by Alpha Classics
Main artists: Santtu-Matias Rouvali Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Genre: Classical

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The Sibelius Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63, is a classically gloomy work, received coolly by its original audiences even though the composer was enormously popular. Sibelius wrote it while suffering from throat cancer that could easily have killed him; as it happened, surgery was successful, and he lived for another 46 years. It is generally taken to exemplify a peculiarly deep kind of Nordic gloom. Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali has gained quite a reputation for shaking up conventional interpretations, and interested listeners put this album on classical best-seller lists in early 2024. Here, he delivers more of the same, with a reading of the Fourth that is nervous and even a bit action-packed rather than gloomy. His performance is actually slightly slower than average, but it doesn't seem like it with all the little climaxes Rouvali inserts into the work. It is almost as if he is coming down on the side of the Sibelius contemporaries who argued for a hidden program in the symphony, something Sibelius himself denied. It is not a typical Sibelius Fourth, but it is intriguing, and the Gothenburg Symphony follows Rouvali effectively through unknown territory. In a work that does indeed have a program, The Wood Nymph, Op. 15, Rouvali offers a highly persuasive performance. He closes with a familiar work, the Valse triste, Op. 44, No. 1, but here again, he pushes the tempo; it is not an encore-type Valse triste. It is hard to know what to think of Rouvali's readings; perhaps he will set new standards, or perhaps they will be interpretational blips. Sample and decide.

© James Manheim /TiVo

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Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 - The Wood Nymph - Valse Triste

Santtu-Matias Rouvali

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Symphony No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 63 (Jean Sibelius)

I. Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra