Santtu-Matias Rouvali - Sibelius: Symphony No.1 & En Saga - Presto Classical

The young Finnish conductor nails his vivid colours firmly to the mast in this first instalment of a projected Sibelius cycle with Gothenburg, which on this evidence will be cast in a completely different mould to the same orchestra’s grandly expansive recordings with Neeme Järvi in the 1980s. If the unsettling, proto-modernist account of En Saga gripped me more than the symphony, this is nonetheless a Sibelius series to watch.