What Sir Colin Davis has to say about Sibelius's Second Symphony hasn't changed in substance since his first recording with the Boston Symphony (Philips), but the paragraphs now flow with ever more assured cadences. The life-anddeath struggle of the second movement is underlined by two alternating tempi which Davis has not contrasted so dramatically before.
Strong rhythmic underpinnings in the Scherzo, the highly contrasted trio and their eventual assimilation into the mighty onrush towards the finale: these all have a distinctively Beethovenian cast. The finale's jubilations justify their length and splendour, just about, with some generous portamento and care over the recitatives of the central, quieter section.
Pohjola's Daughter is an unusual but logical coupling, having its origins in the same Italian trip that brought the birthpangs of the Second Symphony. The tone-poem only saw the light five years after the symphony, however, and you could see it as the Yin to the finale's Yang, moving from the interrupted sonata-form processes of the symphony's first movement into still darker regions of creative despair – the Fourth Symphony looms on the horizon. You can sense this in Davis's conception, which prizes coherence over local colour.

What Sir Colin Davis has to say about Sibelius's Second Symphony hasn’t changed in substance since his first recording with the Boston Symphony, but the paragraphs now flow with ever more assured, Wordsworthian cadences… The life-and-death struggle of the second movement is underlined by two alternating tempi which Davis has not contrasted so dramatically before, not even in the quicker concert performance in Dresden.

Mature wisdom and beautiful playing from the LSO