Sibelius: Piano Works, Vol. 1 (2015)

Beyond the short suite Kyllikki, Op. 41, and the arrangement of Finlandia heard here, the piano music of Jean Sibelius has rarely been played. That's going to change in a hurry after this superb recording by British pianist Joseph Tong, the first volume of a pair. The two works mentioned above frame a set of much less well-known pieces that explore representations of the natural world in progressively deeper ways. The Five Pieces, Op. 75 ("The Trees"), and Five Pieces, Op. 85 ("The Flowers"), are experiments disguised as ... Read More

Beyond the short suite Kyllikki, Op. 41, and the arrangement of Finlandia heard here, the piano music of Jean Sibelius has rarely been played. That's going to change in a hurry after this superb recording by British pianist Joseph Tong, the first volume of a pair. The two works mentioned above frame a set of much less well-known pieces that explore representations of the natural world in progressively deeper ways. The Five Pieces, Op. 75 ("The Trees"), and Five Pieces, Op. 85 ("The Flowers"), are experiments disguised as salon pieces; they flirt with Impressionist harmonies while retreating to conventional tonal cadences at the last possible moment, and their evocations of nature are personal and suggestive of the surroundings of the Finnish country home in which Sibelius lived for much of his later life. The Five Romantic Pieces, Op. 101, seem like sketches for parts of the Symphony No. 6, Op. 104. The real news items here are the almost unknown Five Esquisses, Op. 114, which were written in 1929,... Read Less