KOUSSEVITZKY conducts Sibelius (1945-48) - PASC617

Koussevitzky was an undoubted champion of 20^th Century music. American composers have already featured in several Pristine releases (PASC 458, 463, 484, 573), but the contemporary European composer particularly associated with Koussevitzky was Jean Sibelius. Koussevitzky programmed Sibelius’s music regularly, including entire concerts solely devoted to his music, and the weekly broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, together with regular tours around the north-eastern United States (including Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and New York) completely justified critic Olin Downes’ remark that ‘No conductor in America as done as much for the music of Sibelius as Mr Koussevitzky’.

The obvious empathy between the conductor and the composer (the two corresponded regularly) shines through these broadcasts. The orchestra is superbly well-versed in the music, indeed Sibelius wrote to Koussevitzky to congratulate him on the ‘supreme mastery’ displayed by his commercial recording of the 2^nd symphony. Each composition merges from Sibelius’s deep affinity with his native Finland. The tone poem Finlandia is an evocation of the spirit of the Finnish people, written in 1899 as Finland chaffed under Russian control, while the Swan of Tuonela is part of the Lemminkäinen Suite of four legends from the Kalevala. The four symphonies each depict an aspect of the composer’s closeness to nature. Symphony No.1 evokes the forests and lakes of his homeland; Symphony No.2 goes further, placing man at the heart of this untamed land, and projecting a bright and optimistic future. Written shortly after World War I, Symphonies No. 5 and No. 6 are more pastoral, joyous even, telling of a time when man and his environment work in harmony. It is perhaps significant that Koussevitzky often placed the Sibelius works at the end of his concerts, so that the audience would leave the auditorium with a lasting impression of this glorious music.

Koussevitzky recorded a significant amount of Sibelius’ music commercially with the BSO in the 1930s, including the 2^nd and 5^th symphonies, and there is a splendid recording of the 7^th symphony made in 1933 when Koussevitzky was in London guest-conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This release provides us with broadcast recordings of the 2^nd and 5^th symphonies so we can hear Koussevitzky in the thrill of live performance, but it also importantly adds the 1^st and 6^th symphonies plus a number of shorter works none of which Koussevitzky recorded commercially.