Repertoire: The BEST Sibelius Symphony No. 4

This, Sibelius' darkest and grimmest symphony, has been blessed by a remarkable number of superb recordings. In this talk, I offer seven performances for your consideration, along with listening tips that should help you to understand just what makes this symphony so special.
Musical Examples Courtesy of Ondine Records

[tarakb]

One of the most stunning openings to a symphony ever written.

[mercedes]

Been waiting for this one; Sibelius 4th is one of my favourites: tight, elusive and mysterious.

[m.l.pianist]

The first movement is absolutely incredible. Few musical works can sustain my attention so intensely from its first note to its last note.

[sprucescentedschizoid]

I was listening to the Segerstam recording while walking through a thick, desolate forest without any paths or means of navigation. Needless to say, it was a mildly terrifying experience

[jimjudkins]

My favorite Sibelius symphony, especially the 3rd movement. It was gratifying to learn that Sibelius chose this movement to be played at his funeral.

[Taoiste]

These little keyboard examples were definetely a nice addition to this great survey, thank you so much !

[johnkim]

Along with the 7th and Tapiola, the 4th is a supreme masterpiece of the first half of the 20th century. Thanks for the great review.

[bannan]

I have to agree with your choices and also think that Sibelius 4 is dark rather than grim. I have a few string playing friends who have worked with Berglund in concerts and on recordings playing Sibelius (London orchestras, CBSO and Bournemouth). Berglund was insistent on the strings playing with different types of vibrato depending on what worked for the music. Sometimes he asked for no vibrato at all. For me his work in Bournemouth was superb, building on what Silvestri achieved. Terrific review, David. Thanks.

[samlaser]

I wish you had been my music teacher back in the early 60s....

[marknewkirk]

Way back in the distant past, when I was just a lad, I ordered a recording of Sibelius 4 from a mail-order catalogue. It was a Beecham recording from the 1930s on Columbia Special Products, I think. It was dirt cheap - like 99 cents. The postage cost more than the record. My parents had very conservative tastes, and my exposure to anything "modern" had been very limited.
Dave, you say "don't be afraid"... I was afraid when I heard it. I was very, very afraid. But I kept listening to it over and over. And yes, my parents thought I had lost my mind. Maybe they were right.
Then a couple of years later, I bought the Berglund LP, and my fears were amplified by modern stereo sound. By that time, my listening had been banished from any room in the house within earshot of the other inhabitants.
***correction*** Not Columbia Special Products. It was on Vox/Turnabout.

[robertkunath]

Yes! This is a video for which I have been waiting. And it's fantastic! The Sibelius 4th is probably the only work for which I have a collection of modestly Hurwitzian proportions (a mere 35 or so recordings). Of course, I still lacked several of the recommendations (Sanderling and the most recent Segerstam, though I have his earlier recording). As DH writes in his User's Guide to Sibelius "This is a hell of a symphony, " and, for me, it marks the moment when I grew up as a classical music listener. I was around 30, and had never found a way into Sibelius. But I was reading the old Penguin Stereo Record Guide (for which the Sibelius expert Robert Layton was one of the authors), and it kept referring to how strange and austere the Sibelius 4th was. I decided I really had to give it a try. I made a trip to Tower Records and picked up the Karajan Sibelius 4th and 5th recordings. Say what you will, since they were the EMI versions generally considered inferior, but I became a convert. I played the 4th the evening I got it, and was puzzled. Then I played it the next day. And the next. And the next. For a month. I was in grad school and had a brilliant and kind Chemical Engineer roommate who heard it several times as well (when he wasn't in the lab), and who didn't think I was crazy. Some months later, Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony were playing it in concert, and when I told Jeff that I was going to hear it, he said he wanted to go too. So, by all means, keep on listening, but give some other people the chance to listen too! Of versions not mentioned, I've enjoyed Davis and the BSO, Saraste and the Finnish Radio Symphony, and Szell and the Cleveland (only on the CO's Szell centennial set from 1997, but posted at YouTube). One I don't recommend is Bernstein: he has great performances of the 5th and the 7th, but the plodding finale of the 4th is a letdown. For "historic" performances, it's fascinating to hear Schneevoigt, Stokowski, and Rodzinski (in a 1947 recording on 78s that wasn't legally on CD until the NYPO 175th anniversary box set on Sony came out). As several others have noted, DH has the perfect adjectives for the 4th, and the one that I like best is "indifferent." My sense is that the 4th is about a a larger world (and universe) that just doesn't care about us, and that makes it an extraordinary experience. Long live DH, and many thanks for these insightful and enthusiastic talks!

[iraeich]

I love the Sibelius 4th. One of my all time favorites.

[indranilpoddar]

New line of Tshirts Dave...love them...

[lerossignol]

I like the way you talk about classical music! Please continue, greetings from Germany.

[davidaiken]

Splendid introduction to Sibelius' greatest symphony. In the third movement that emergent theme consoles with its open fifths suggesting a fulfillment, perhaps a "healing" of the raw tritones which have until then dominated. But the "collapse" of that theme at the climax brings a reversion to the omnipresent tritones. Though I had known this work for decades, it wasn't until this year, amid the terror of the pandemic, that the significance of this intervallic shift was brought home to me. You rightly noted that this symphony better heard as "desolate" rather than tragic. Of course it's absolute music and Sibelius would stoutly deny that this symphony is "about" anything other than itself. But I can't help but thinking that the desolation in question is not anthropocentric, but rather an evocation of nature, in all its wildness and indifference to human values. I'll have to check out the Segerstam recording sometime. To date, I have found that Karajan "reigns supreme" in this work, though Ormandy and Colin Davis are not far behind.

[johns]

One of my very first classical purchases and still on my 10 desert island discs list, the Karajan BPO 4th. As with the Bernstein VPO Mahler 6th, after playing it I can't listen to anything else for about 24 hours. Along with HVK's Sibelius 5th and Prokofiev 5th, one of the very few recordings that sounds better on vinyl than cd, to my ears.

[stevenbugala]

I don’t understand why certain so-called modernists couldn’t appreciate Sibelius’ forward-looking abilities. You’d think that on paper, the Fourth would be right up Boulez’s alley. No matter. It’s such a great work!

[fredrickroll]

I've never seen you so excited! Thank you for a GREAT lecture! For years, I didn't know what to do with this symphony - until, one day, I heard that "mountain rise" and collapse in the third movement - and then I GOT IT! (I read later that Sibelius had survived a bout with throat cancer before he composed it.) This symphony personifies for me the Finnish winter as the Dark Night of the Soul!

[richardcaffyn]

Thank you for a very perceptive & revealing discussion about Sibelius 4. I'll investigate Segerstams's recording. It would be great if you could review Tapiola sometime in the not-too-distant future.

[gavinaustin]

Thanks Dave. I love this format of providing some musicological discussion of the piece, and then talking about the recordings.