Sibelius: Karelia Suite
Osmo Vanska, Lahti Symphony
BIS
Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra
Sony Classical
Vaska’s recording is the classiest. Combine the clarity of inner details with upbeat rhythms, and the results are really infectious. Also, Vanska uses the original version of the second movement complete with a brief song for baritone. At one point, however, the sound becomes so soft only dogs can hear it.
Details pop right out in Ormandy’s especially spirited recording too. The engineering is too hokey for serious sit-down listening--details sound artificially placed on the stereo spectrum. But the performance works well as casual listening.
WebTips: The Ormandy has been re-released several times; you can kill two birds with one stone and buy it on budget-priced Sony “Essential Classics” with terrific interpretations of Finlandia (this Ormandy recording will be recommended for Phils 9 in March), Valse Triste, Swan of Tuonela, En Saga, and Pohjola’s Daughter. Or for about the same price you can get double up by buying it on a 2-CD album with Stokowski’s recommended recording of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1 (see Phils 5).
Glazunov: Violin Concerto
Jascha Heifetz; Walter Hendl, RCA Victor Symphony
RCA
Heifetz turns this neglected concerto into a masterpiece whose themes will stick with you for days. No other recording can hold a candle to this one. True, there isn’t an ounce of resonance around the orchestra, but who cares! Hendl (former dean of the Eastman School of Music) is Heifetz’s hand-in-glove partner who makes the orchestra soar.
WebTips: This performance has been re-released many times, always with Heifetz playing Sibelius’s Concerto (stunning) and Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2 (impulsive). The latest re-issue is in SACD in RCA’s “Living Stereo” series. In any form, it’s a desert island disc.
Stravinsky: Petrouchka
Yuri Temirkanov, Leningrad Philharmonic
RCA
Now here’s a wonder to behold: The Leningrad Philharmonic in 1975 in the days just before one of the world’s greatest orchestras was decimated once Jews were able to emigrate from the Soviet Union. They’re playing at full-tilt with stunning principal players (especially the flute). Yuri Temirkanov, then a 37-year-old unknown buried in Russia, soon would become one of the most sought-after conductors in the West. This is a full-blooded performance that will have you dancing in your seat (Petrouchka, after all, is a ballet). Even more remarkable, the sound on this Soviet-made recording is superb in this re-mastered mid-priced RCA disc with ballets by Andrei Petrov and Ravel. More remarkable yet, it’s still available. My previous first-choices are now also-rans.
WebTips: This album is pictured on Amazon.com.
