Record companies have to make records. Only this mundane fact accounts for Chandos’ pointless release of John Storgards and the relentlessly uninteresting BBC Philharmonic in the complete Sibelius symphonies, and now in a new Nielsen cycle. Its utter irrelevance is only enhanced by the recent appearance of two excellent new cycles, from Dacapo (Gilbert/New York Philharmonic) and BIS (Oramo/Royal Stockholm Philharmonic). Who does Chandos think wants to buy this stuff? Let’s not forget, this is the label’s third complete cycle, after Thomson and Rozhdestvensky, neither of which rank with the best–never mind individual performances of which one, Gibson’s Fourth, remains a reference version. Give it up guys; Gibson aside, Nielsen isn’t your cup of tea.
In general, these new performances are easy to summarize: they are cautious and boring. Many movements are just slightly under tempo: the openings of the First and Third Symphonies, and especially the finale of the Fourth. In this latter, Storgards’ emphasis on clarity of texture–welcome in theory–sounds merely fussy and robs the music of impact. The great climax in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony badly misfires thanks to Storgards’ decision to spurt forward, combined with some ill-balanced brass playing. When he isn’t being slow and dull he’s being fast and dull, specifically in the finale of the Second Symphony, with its blurred articulation and lack of accentuation.
Even the engineering falls well below the label’s best work, with notable differences in level and consistency between, for example, the Third and Fourth Symphonies on the same disc (they were recorded over a year apart). Indeed, recording of this cycle began in 2012. It’s a shame Chandos waited to make them all before releasing the earliest performances; had they done it the old fashioned way and put them out a single disc at a time we could have panned the first release and saved them the trouble of continuing.
