Volume One: Legends and Sagas
01. En Saga, op.9* [17'36]
02. The Swan of Tuonela, op.22 no.2* [9'45]
03. Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49 [13'33]
04. The Bard, op.64* [6'07]
05. Lemminkainen's Homecoming, op.22 no.4* [6'13]
Volume Two: Patriotic and Nature
06. Tapiola, op.112 [17'52]
07. The Oceanides, op.73 [9'06]
08. Night Ride and Sunrise, op.55 [14'02]
09. Finlandia, op.26 [7'29]
10. The Tempest - Prelude, op.109 no.1 [6'14]
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult
Somm Celeste SOMM093 and Black Cat Productions* (recorded for Nixa in July 1956; LPs NCLI6023 and NCL16024 issued 1957; digital downloads 2009)
(16-bit mono FLAC digital downloads, covers and booklet scans)
Recording engineer and producer: unknown
This pair of mono LPs, issued in the year of Sibelius' death, were Sir Adrian's only post-war commercial Sibelius recordings - at that time disguising the London Philharmonic as the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra for contractual reasons. If the sound of these downloads is anything to go by, even for 1956, these mono recordings, made in conjunction with the American Vanguard company, would appear to be not great. They are certainly not in the same league as the Nixa and Anerican Westminster collaborations which were expertly remastered by Mike Dutton and issued on Pye and EMI CDs; let alone the American Everest recordings made in the same location at around the same time.
Unfortunately, Somm have made a bit of a mess of this issue in their selection of tracks (a re-ordered volume two with Pohjola's Daugheter added from volume one) and with poor sound quality - very thin, coarse and harsh - and nothing like as good as the recent Somm Elgar-conducted set, wonderfully remastered by Lani Spahr. In order to maintain the original sequence of works, I have added tracks from the alternative selection of works on the Black Cat download and placed them all in the original sequence. The sound on the Black Cat downloads is just as poor as the Somm (where the recordings are duplicated on the two issues, I could hear no difference). Somm's booklet has a quite good essay by Robert Matthew-Walker but no discographical information. Black Cat's download provided no information whatsoever. (These recordings were issued in the USA in the late 1980s as a pair of CDs - in the correct sequence - by Omega/Vanguard and it is possible that the remastering was superior, if their Everest issues are anything to go by.)
Nevertheless, these performances are the real thing and dispel the illusion of Boult being the staid buttoned-up English gentleman - he was often irascible - and as critic Rob Barnett accurately sums up "this is Sibelius impatient and furious, dangerous and tetchy. There is not a shred of a hint of emotional constipation in these performances". Night Ride and Sunrise is extraordinarily driven and the performances of Tapiola, En Saga and Pohjola's Daughter are stunning. Boult points up that The Oceanides are portrayed by the composer as Mediterranean nymphs. If only Sir Adrian had recorded the other two Lemminkainen Legends.