The Snowshoed Sibelius

[Kalevala]

After re-reading this thread, I was most interested in a series of comments about how rare (in fact, non-existent) are recordings of Sibelius by conductors from Latin/Romance countries. (French, Italian, etc.) This seems still to be true. There have of course been many recordings of the symphonies by Scandinavian, English, and American conductors, a small number by Germanic ones (Karajan, Stein, Sanderling, Rosbaud), and a famous legacy from one Hungarian (Ormandy).

But I just sorted Presto's listings for the complete cycle and Symphony No. 6 specifically. No Italian, French, Spanish, or otherwise Mediterranean conductors turned up. I then checked En Saga and found two: Victor de Sabata and Arturo Toscanini, both recordings dating from the composer's lifetime.

Interesting.  To play the Devil's advocate for a moment:  is it perchance that they have recorded them, but that they just haven't been good sellers (the reason not listed)?

K

[Jo498]

There's even a gradient between German/Austrian and Anglo/Northern/Eastern European conductors. As I said before, Sibelius (except the violin concerto) was considered somewhat niche in Germany/Austria as late as the 1980s. So were Bruckner and Mahler despite being also championed locally. I am not aware of a famous French Bruckner conductor either (Boulez did #8 only) and the Italian Brucknerians like Giulini, Abbado, Chailly seem to have been so "austrogermanized" that they barely count as Italian anymore (it was all Holy Roman Empire anyway ).