Having recorded all the numbered Sibelius symphonies with the Minnesota Orchestra, replicating the cycle that he first tackled in the 1990s with the Lahti Symphony, Osmo Vänskä now revisits Sibelius’s first exercise in large-scale symphonic form. The new account of Kullervo is conceived very much along the same lines as his first, with an absolute command of the 80-minute span, with its elements of symphony, cantata and opera. Tempi are more or less the same as before, though perhaps instrumental detail is highlighted more obviously this time; whether that’s down to Vänskä’s conducting or to the balance of the recording is hard to say.
As on the previous recording, the mezzo soloist in the central scena for Kullervo and his sister/lover is the thrilling Lilli Paasikivi, again with the Helsinki University-based YL Male Voice Choir providing the narration; Tommi Hakala is the baritone this time. The same forces are required for Olli Kortekangas’s striking Migrations, which Vänskä commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of modern Finnish emigration to North America; four knotty settings of poems by Sheila Packa, separated by more reflective orchestral interludes. As a bonus on the second disc there’s more Sibelius: the male-chorus version of Finlandia.
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