This is the album for any James Ehnes fans and all Jean Sibelius enthusiasts, long delayed in lockdown and now at last bringing together the composer’s works for violin and orchestra. Having almost been a professional violinist himself, Jean Sibelius had a particular affinity for the instrument. Nerves got the better of him and he switched to conducting his own music. In his Violin Concerto in D minor, Op 47, you may detect the influence of Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, but the mood, from the opening phrase, urgent yet fragile, sturdy and volatile, is indelibly his.
Ehnes, the internationally revered Canadian violinist, is a flawless technician and a serious, ever perceptive musician. The performance here is muscular but sensitive, with vigorous, well-shaped accompaniment by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner. Sibelius wrote no other concertos but left several pieces for violin and orchestra, included here: the Humoresques, Op 87 and 89, various serenades (Op 69) and, one of his last works, the three-movement suite Op 117.
