This thrilling Stockholm performance of Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen Suite under Paavo Järvi isn’t always eclipsed by his illustrious father Neeme’s highly rated BIS performance from Gothenburg. It’s a steadier-paced, inevitably unfolding series of tableaux, without the fluster and fussiness of Paavo’s close Scandinavian contemporaries–Jukka Pekka Saraste and the Finnish Radio Symphony (on RCA), and Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Phiharmonic (Sony). As a result, the deeper imagery Järvi junior brings to the work puts us in mind of performances by an older generation of Sibelians, including Eugene Ormandy and Horst Stein. That comes across most palpably in the second of the four tableaux, the famous Swan of Tuonela, where Järvi attains a darker, denser quality in those impenetrable waters, and his Stockholm English horn player chills the bones in a way that’s closely matched by his rival in Ormandy’s Philadelphia Orchestra account.
And there’s the heroic element, too. One tremendous force is at work as Lemminkäinen begins his homeward journey. Paavo Järvi drives the music forward with unerring control, and his orchestra responds with arresting virtuosity and total commitment. It could be argued that Ormandy’s team has greater collective virtuosity, especially in the matchless Philadelphia string department, but I especially admire the naturalness and authority that the Stockholm Philharmonic under Järvi brings to this majestic score. Their account of the tone poem Nightride and Sunrise is among the most cathartic I know of, yet it narrowly misses the rapture that Simon Rattle and the Philharmonia Orchestra brought to it on EMI.
Nevertheless, I’d still be delighted to have Järvi’s fine-toned and brilliant reading as a plausible alternative, and in any event, Solveig Kringelborn gives one of the most searching renditions of the soprano part in Luonnotar yet realised on CD. In total, these are Sibelius performances of the front rank, and if you want a benchmark interpretation of the Lemminkäinen Suite, this is as good as you’re likely to find, even if the string playing lacks the final ounce of lustre that Ormandy could conjure from these pages.
