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Seventh presided over a Hymns review – a
rich seam of
Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony, an unprecedented programme that,
until a memorable music and mine
22-minute single-movement, contains all the rendition of
drama of much longer pieces. But it’s also, some Email Mahler's Third, Schubert:
say, a symphonic scream. was high on Winterreise
energy but low on review – Finley
• All articles in this series emotional and Drake, dream
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Posted by Buy classical music from the Guardian

Tom Service
Tuesday 18 March
2014 07.00 GMT
theguardian.com
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speeding up from an adagio to an allegro, and slowing View now
down from presto to adagio. But the effect is even
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final appearance of the trombone theme, whose three-
fold appearances are the symphony’s most obvious
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yet shatteringly moving slow music at the start and
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theme – are too massive to be contained by any

structure, even one as sophisticated as Sibelius’s. I’m On Music
somehow aware, listening to the piece, of the vast Most viewed Latest
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performances below, and take your own journey into
the other-world of Sibelius’s most astonishing and
fantastical symphony.
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Bernstein’s powerful and emotional interpretation

Five key recordings

Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä Vänskä’s restraint

heightens the architectural and expressive power. Watch it
here.

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Leonard Bernstein

Bernstein does the opposite - there isn’t a more
obviously emotional 7th out there - and this is
immensely powerful playing. Watch it here.
London Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis: always masterly
in Sibelius; this performance reflects a lifetime of
experience with this music.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Beecham:

Beecham had the imprimatur of Sibelius himself –
listen why.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Simon
Rattle: Rattle’s scream – find out whether it convinces
– or terrifies.

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3 comments. Showing 50 conversations, threads collapsed , sorted oldest first

Rafi Zabor 1
18 March 2014 7:29am

For me, the third and final appearance of the trombone theme is a gigantic
apotheosis that obviates the possibility of anything like a scream, although it is true
that in its aftermath Sibelius is leaning into the coming silence and beyond it to the
end of life. I think that's the way Bernstein hears it in his expansive Vienna
performance, which is my favorite along with the utterly dissimilar, highly
concentrated Beecham interpretation; which, yes, does confirm your point about the
range of responses we can have to this music, which to my surprise has become the
most important to me of all the Sibelius symphonies.

1 PERSON, 2 COMMENTS

Sexnodrugsallmusic
18 March 2014 8:34am

The Berliners under Karajan in '68 (Deutsche Grammophon) is the recording for me.

I'm also with the previous poster: this listener definitely hears victory. A hard-won,
lacerating victory, full of heartbroken backward glances, maybe, but there isn't the
unequivocal dispair of the 4th Symphony, nor the (literally) haunted protagonist of
Tapiola gazing shellshocked at the sunrise.

Sexnodrugsallmusic Sexnodrugsallmusic
18 March 2014 8:57am

"Despair", even. The day this comments feature allows one to undo obvious
bloopers like that, which one nevertheless only spots after posting, will be a
happy day in this household.

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