Jean SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
Symphony No. 1 [35.48]
Symphony No. 4 [31.59]
Lemminkainen’s Return [5.27]
Berceuse from The Tempest [2.37]
Philadelphia Orchestra
cond: Eugene Ormandy (1; Return); Leopold Stokowski (4; Berceuse)
rec 25 Oct 1941 (Sym 1); 20 Oct 1940 (Return); 15 Jan 1936 (Berceuse); 23 Apr 1932 (Sym 4) ADD mono – transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn
BIDDULPH WHL062 [76.58]
Stokowski and Ormandy in Sibelius: Historic Philadelphia Traversals
Mark Obert-Thorn’s transfers—and they need saying this upfront—have done extraordinary work with these ancient Philadelphia sessions. The sound jumps from the speakers with a vividness that makes you forget you’re listening to recordings spanning 1932 to 1941.
Both conductors were genuine Sibelians, though in characteristically different ways. Stokowski championed the composer when American audiences still thought him an exotic Nordic curiosity—he gave the U.S. premieres of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Symphonies, after all. Ormandy inherited the Sibelius mantle along with the Philadelphia podium, though his devotion was perhaps less pioneering, more consolidating. The disdain for the Third and Sixth by so many conductors of that generation remains inexplicable to me, but that’s a separate grievance.
The First Symphony here dates from October 1941, Ormandy’s second release of the work. Edward Johnson’s notes (which I’ve consulted liberally) indicate this replaced an earlier Minneapolis version requiring ten 78 sides; the Philadelphia traversal manages with eight. That economy tells you something about the tautness of Ormandy’s conception, though “taut” doesn’t quite capture what’s happening. There’s a relaxed quality to the phrasing—the andante’s close has an unglamorous modesty, the strings utterly guileless—but never any sense of slackness. The Philadelphia’s unanimity of attack in the first movement is simply invincible.
I won’t claim this displaces Barbirolli’s stereo version, which remains definitive for me. But the Philadelphians play circles around the 1960s Hallé, and Ormandy finds things in the score that escaped many subsequent interpreters. Listen to how the brass don’t overstate their case in the finale’s peroration. They could have—this orchestra could do anything—but Ormandy keeps them in check.
“Lemminkäinen‘s Return” is another matter entirely. The tempo Ormandy adopts is breathless, almost reckless, and the orchestra holds onto articulation by their gritted teeth. That opening note goes off with the whump of a petrol aerosol ignition—pure Philadelphia brass from this period, a sound they’ve never quite recaptured. The string work throughout is phenomenal, better than Beecham managed in his famous recordings. This is white-knuckle Sibelius, exciting in ways the music doesn’t always reveal.
The Stokowski items present a different aesthetic universe. The “Berceuse” from The Tempest (January 1936) has that swan-ripe, lip-luscious velour to the strings that characterized his best work. I thought immediately of Mravinsky’s 1965 “Swan of Tuonela“—both performances breathe such significance into their material that they spoil you for most other versions. Stokowski ladles on personality here in ways he carefully avoids in the Fourth Symphony.
Which brings us to that Fourth—the world premiere recording, made in April 1932 when Philadelphia subscription audiences were still hissing the work. (Stokowski, characteristically defiant, had repeated it at the same concert where it was booed.) Pearl’s transfers of Stokowski’s Scriabin from this period reveal how decimated the string section was; Stokowski compensated by placing microphones closer, and it works. The sound has presence.
But what’s most striking is Stokowski’s humility. Portamento and ripe-bursting woodwind tone make the allegro molto vivace distinctive—those woodwind timbres connect directly to the “Berceuse“—but the overall conception is remarkably understated. Stokowski takes the tempo largo very broadly indeed, the brooding trance-like quality carrying into the final allegro. There’s momentary damage to the woodwind at 3:58 and 4:10 in the third movement, probably in the master, but it barely registers.
This is Stokowski defying his own image-makers. No spotlight, no apologies. Just the music, unglamorized, panoramic in its bleak northern vistas. The finale’s close is so understated you might miss how radical a conception this is—Sibelius without Nordic mists or programmatic impositions, just the architecture laid bare.
The set makes me eager to hear Ormandy’s 1950s Columbia versions of the Fourth and Fifth, and curious about his much later RCA recordings. But these historic documents stand on their own considerable merits. Essential for Sibelians, revelatory for anyone who thinks they know what Philadelphia virtuosity sounded like.
