Symphonic Sibelius

This is a disk of two Sibelius symphonies, nos 2 and 3, by Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Maybe not the first choice combination for Sibelius but very workmanlike and reissued as a coupling at a budget price. The second symphony shows Sibelius still in the romantic tradition and came after a trip to Italy, which may account for it not feeling so wintry and bleak as is often the case with his music. The sense of place is just that little bit different, although it is always there in Sibelius. The third symphony can even be seen as looking back beyond romanticism to a more classical format. Sibelius stated variously that writing a symphony was like collecting together small pieces of mosaic and puting them into a whole, or like a river gathering in tributaries and flowing on to an ultimate destination. These two works illustrate either of those approaches.