# Jean Sibelius: Songs, Volume 2
Monica Groop, mezzo-soprano; Love Derwinger, piano
BIS-CD-657 [65:35]
Recorded January 1994, Stockholm (DDD)
There are recordings that arrive quietly, without fanfare, and — well — then proceed to occupy a permanent corner of one’s listening life. This disc is one of them. Monica Groop possesses that rarest of vocal qualities—a mezzo-soprano voice with genuine contralto weight in the lower register, yet complete freedom and bloom at the top.
She’s Finnish, trained at the Sibelius Academy, and brings to these songs something beyond technical accomplishment: an; understanding of the language’s particular darkness, its vowel colors, the way Finnish poetry sits in the throat. When she sings “Sången om korsspindeln” (The Fool’s Song of the Spider), the only vocal number from the King Christian II Suite, you hear immediately that this isn’t merely competent Sibelius singing. The nobility in the vocal line emerges without exaggeration, the piano’s filigree passages—well handled by Love Derwinger—providing exactly the right tonal contrast.
She doesn’t push. The Five Christmas Songs, Op. 1, written over a fourteen-year span ending in 1909, risk sentimentality.
Some are simple to the point of banality. But Groop navigates them with such clarity of diction, such warmth without mawkishness, that even “Nu står jul vid snöig port” (Now Christmas stands at the snowy gate) achieves a kind of luminous simplicity. Her breath control in “Give Me No Splendour, Gold or Pomp”—a popular Finnish carol despite its glacial tempo—is extraordinary.
The warm acoustics of the concert hall seem to breathe through the recording.
Lesser singers falter when asked to sustain long phrases slowly. She doesn’t. The eight Josephson Songs, Op.
57, reveal Sibelius’s fascination with nature—that same elemental force that would later produce Tapiola. “Floden murmlade” (The River and the Snail) shows off Groop’s stunning low notes, rich; and penetrating without that hollow quality some mezzos develop when they dig for bottom. Listen to the gradual fade she achieves on sustained tones, a discipline that requires not just artistry but musical imagination.
In “Kvarnen” (The Mill Wheel), the piano’s pounding ostinato—Derwinger attacks it with vigor—creates a hypnotic backdrop for Groop’s perfectly calibrated dynamic control. “Var jag en ros vid vägen” (A Flower Stood by the Wayside) addresses friendship with touching directness, while “Jag är ett träd” (I Am a Tree) has something of the funeral march about it, the naked winter tree longing for snow’s cold covering. Groop’s low register here…
well, it’s simply spine-tingling. There’s no other word for it. The Josephson cycle isn’t uniformly successful—”Hertig Magnus” never quite coheres despite its fascinating contrasts—but “Vänskapen” (The; Flower of Friendship) compensates with dark passion, a memorable vocal line that Groop delivers with controlled intensity.
“Näcken” (The Watersprite) concludes the set with dramatic urgency, its obstinate piano part perhaps nodding toward; Schubert’s “Der Tod und das Mädchen.” Sibelius’s sole English-language song, “Hymn to Thais,” remains an oddity. It doesn’t quite work, though Groop’s top notes certainly thrill. The Six Songs — Op.
72 (the first two are lost), begin with “Kyssen” (The Kiss), and here Groop’s tonal variety becomes particularly evident. “Pretty as a rose in bud” emerges with sublime delicacy—remarkable considering those photographs of the forbidding, bald Sibelius, brandy and cigars in hand. But he was a family man with five adoring daughters, and these tender songs reveal that side.
“Ekons nymf” (The Echo Nymph) captures cold Nordic sunlight with disarming simplicity, Groop performing the echo effects with both precision and dramatic flair. Derwinger deserves credit throughout. He made his debut at seventeen playing Liszt’s ferocious Second Concerto, and his technical command shows.
More importantly, he never dominates, never overwhelms the voice. I prefer him here to Bengt Forsberg, who accompanies Anne Sofie von Otter in other BIS Sibelius recordings—Forsberg sometimes seems too eager to make his presence felt. The Op.
86 songs from 1916 vary in quality. “Dolj er, blommor” (Hidden Union) and “Tanken” (And There Is a Thought) feel bare, even austere. But “Våren flyktar hastigt” (The Coming of Spring) has strange joy, and “Längtan heter min arvedel” (Longing Is My Heritage) achieves power through simplicity alone.
Groop’s communication skills—never forced, never strained even in the most sustained passages—serve these songs ideally. “Sångarens belöning” (The Singer’s Reward) offers another memorable vocal line, and “Små flickorna” (The Little Girls) ends the recital with waltz-like infectiousness. Pure fun.
Not every song here is a gem. But the singer is. Groop’s voice combines purity of intonation, remarkable breath control, and that elusive quality of making even modest material sound worth hearing.
The release quality from BIS is exemplary—warm, present, detailed without being clinical. This remains, more than two decades after its release, an essential Sibelius document and one of the finest recital discs in the catalogue. Desert island material, absolutely.
