Hans Rosbaud’s Recordings of Jean Sibelius

courtesy of Naxos of America

One of the more fortuitous circumstances that sustained me during pandemic conditions was the discovery of the Hans Rosbaud Edition. Rosbaud was the founding conductor of the Southwest German Radio (SWR) Symphony Orchestra based in Baden-Baden. His tenure began in 1948, and he kept his position there until his death in 1962. The Edition is released by SWR Classic, the “house label” of the ensemble; and each release provides historic recordings of a different category of repertoire. When I wrote about this series in September of 2020, the category was Gustav Mahler with performances of Das Lied von der Erde and six of the symphonies.

Almost exactly a month ago, SWR released its latest album in this series, two CDs of performances of the music of Jean Sibelius. Specifically, the collection accounts for three of the symphonies: Opus 43 (the second) in D major, Opus 63 (the fourth) in A minor, and Opus 82 (the fifth) in E-flat major. Opus 63 and Opus 82 fill the second CD. On the first Opus 43 is preceded by three songs performed by bass Kim Borg with orchestral accompaniment. The first of these comes from incidental music composed for a performance of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The other two are taken, respectively, from the Opus 36 and Opus 17 collections.

Rosbaud took a great interest in music composed by his contemporaries. Before World War II he was an “early adopter” of composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók. Following the war, the SWR Symphony Orchestra was welcomed at many contemporary music festivals with a repertoire that included music by Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Igor Stravinsky. (I first became aware of Rosbaud through a Westminster LP with performances by all three of those composers.)

Some might think that Sibelius was an “outlier” in such a repertoire. Those harboring such thoughts have probably not encountered the Opus 63 symphony. Over the course of that symphony’s four movements, one is clearly aware that Sibelius was just as occupied as Schoenberg with getting beyond the constraints of tonal traditions to explore new approaches to expressiveness. The tritone in the opening motif of the first movement clearly establishes the composer’s desire to explore new territories of both syntax and rhetoric.

While we are now more acclimated to those “new territories,” there is no mistaking that Sibelius was seeking a bold departure from both Opus 43 and its successor, Opus 52 in C major. Granted, Opus 63 was followed by the Opus 82. Some would see this as a regression back into the conventions of tonality. Nevertheless, this was still an adventurous undertaking, even if its explorations shifted from harmonic progression to overall structure. Thus, a “program” that follows the path of the three symphonies in this collection serves as a context for the composer’s approaches to inventiveness.

Some may dismiss the songs as a “warm-up” for the “journey through the symphonies.” To be fair, Sibelius’ approach to art song follows a different path than his approach to instrumental composition. For that matter most listeners have had little, if any, contact with that side of Sibelius’ catalog. Unless I am mistaken, I have encountered his vocal music in Davies Symphony Hall only once. However, since one of my earliest projects involved covering the BIS Sibelius Edition, I confess to enjoying more “points of reference” for this genre. Regardless of familiarity, however, the songs themselves are all brief and can easily be taken as an amuse-bouche before getting down to the familiar “meat and potatoes” of Opus 43!