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Indeed the early recordings of Kajanus with LSO are the most interesting, close to Sibelius´ time. I read some history of early performances and recordings of Robert Kajanus, a conductor and a close friend of Sibelius. What a pity I don´t have quadraphonic stereo system. And my Berglund´s Sibelius complete which is in SQ format. I revisited many Finnish music records such as Piirpauke´s two first albums. There were stylistic and phrasing details that got to the core of the music in very convincing ways the music made sense on a deeper level.Ĩth December we were celebrating Sibelius and Finnish music. Petersburg under Temirkanov that I "got" those works and understood what had been missing in the somewhat sanitized renditions that I had either heard or been part of with American orchestras and conductors. However, it wasn’t until I had the privilege of playing "Pictures" under Gergiev and "Symphonic Dances" with the St. There have been several fine and memorable performances of the two works. Just two examples based on personal experience (for whatever it may worth):Īs an orchestral saxophonist I have played Mussorgsky’s (Ravel) "Pictures At An Exibition" and Rachmaninov’s "Symphonic Dances" more times than I can remember including the Rachmaninov with the American orchestra that the work was written for and who premiered it. However, there is no doubt in my mind that in many cases (not all, obviously) a Russian (again, only as an example) conductor can sometimes bring something to the music that eludes conductors who don’t have the depth of understanding of the culture and language that the Russian conductor might. Of course (and only as one example) an American conductor can bring certain interpretative elements to Russian music that render it great or even "perfect" to a given listener. This is something that is well documented and analyzed in musicology. I strongly agree with Schubert’s premise re the connection between the spoken language of a culture and its music and music making.