Sibelius 4: recommendations

[DaveF]

One general thing to keep in mind is, that even through much of the 19^th century, a lot of the stable sections of symphonies (i.e., other than the developmental sections in which the musical rhetoric was expected/"allowed" to be less "orderly") hew fairly faithfully to a melody-plus-background-accompaniment model.  With the turn of the century, composers wanted to shake dependence from that "stand and deliver" method, and give more musical content to the "accompaniment."

Oh, agreed completely, but I would want to argue that Sibelius is as far from "tune and accompaniment" as he is from "counterpoint".  Which is what makes him Sibelius.

Incidentally, I've always thought that the development section of the 1st movement sounds as though it's going to be a fugue, except that each voice falls silent when the succeeding one enters.  A perfect "Sibelius 4" type of fugue, in fact.

And to remain true to the thread: Rattle/CBSO for me.

[Cato]

Agreed: Karajan, Bernstein, Rattle, Beecham are never wrong choices.

Could we add...Akeo Watanabe?

https://www.youtube.com/v/vGCeQ4NpipU

[vandermolen]

Agreed: Karajan, Bernstein, Rattle, Beecham are never wrong choices.

Could we add...Akeo Watanabe?

https://www.youtube.com/v/vGCeQ4NpipU

I like the sound of this.
My favourite version of Samuel Barber's 1st Symphony is with William Strickland conducted the Japanese Symphony Orchestra.

[Omicron9]

Agreed: Karajan, Bernstein, Rattle, Beecham are never wrong choices.

Could we add...Akeo Watanabe?

https://www.youtube.com/v/vGCeQ4NpipU

This Watanabe recording is quite interesting; thank you for posting it.