Sibelius, Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra – Symphonies Nos 5 & 6

This is my post from this week's Tuesday Blog.

For our second post featuring the symphonies of Jean Sibelius, I am featuring Cover2Cover a disc I acquired (of all places) at the Virgin store at Heathrow Airport about 15 years ago.

Since the beginning of his recording career, Colin Davis has been a champion of the music of Jean Sibelius, and his highly regarded cycle of the seven symphonies recorded between 1975 and 1979 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra has been a mainstay of many LP and CD collections over the years. This disc, however, is much more recent, part of anther Sibelius cycle from the early 2000’s with the London Symphony on the orchestra’s LSO Live home label.

In my opinion, the performances compare well to the oft-reissued BSO set. Crisp and clear, and helmed by a more mature (and restrained) Davis, these two symphonies get a very valid reading.

Hope you agree!

Jean SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
Symphony No 5 In E Flat Major, Op 82
Symphony No 6 In D Minor, Op 104

London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis, condicting
Recorded live 10-11 December 2003 (No 5) and 28-29 September 2002 (No 6) at the Barbican, London

LSO Live – LSO0037
Format: CD
Released: Jun 2004

Discogs - https://www.discogs.com/release/1329...honies-Nos-5-6

YouTube - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OL...MshGIfGq7mxmB0

Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/01-sibelius-symphony-5-in-e-flat