Sibelius Kullervo on BBC Four tonight.

[Norfolk Born]

Sibelius is a bit of a no-go area for me

My dear Anna - have you ANY idea what you're missing? Please take steps to remedy this sad state of affairs without delay. I, and other Sibeliophiles, will be only too glad you take your proverbial hand and recommend works and recordings. Your first free tip: start with the 2nd symphony (one of the greatest of all 'big tunes' in the last movement) and then proceed to the 5th. (Save the 4th till last).

[johnb]

BBC Four's blurb on the concert states:

Christopher Cook introduces a concert as part of the Barbican Centre's Tender is the North festival of Scandinavian culture.

And, from the Barbican's website:

The Barbican's ‘Tender is the North’ festival of Nordic culture back in 1992 awoke the capital and the country to the rich and often little-known artistic bounty of the Northern lands of Scandinavia, Iceland and Finland, and featured an unforgettable LSO Sibelius symphonic cycle conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

So it is likely that the performance dates back to then.

I am all in favour of the BBC raiding its archives, IMO it should happen much more often. But I do object to them giving a misleading impression that the broadcast is a relay of a recent concert.

[Bryn]

To be fair, John, it is marked as a repeat on the Radio Times site, though not, it would appear, on the BBC4 schedule page:

http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/nq2wm/kullervo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017gss6

Aha! See the opening of this CD of the 7th, etc. :

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=310479

[Bryn]

Um, what happened to the advertised Finlandia, or as it was announced prior to the broadcast "Colourvor and Finlandia Symphonies"?

[Nick Armstrong]

My dear Anna - have you ANY idea what you're missing? Please take steps to remedy this sad state of affairs without delay. I, and other Sibeliophiles, will be only too glad you take your proverbial hand and recommend works and recordings. Your first free tip: start with the 2nd symphony (one of the greatest of all 'big tunes' in the last movement) and then proceed to the 5th. (Save the 4th till last).

Anna Anna Anna!! I second third and fourth almost everything our dear Norfy says! And Fifth, Sixth and Seventh (my favourite symphonies) it! I would suggest the Fifth to start with - but that's only because No 2 has a lot of Tchaikovsky in it and would have put me off had I started there - but then again, heartface, you are familiar with my little foibles...

By the way, I didn't think it was a recent concert - I assumed it was from the archives and HURRAH that they have mined a seam back to the early 90s! I salivate at what else there is in the vault.

Incidentally, why have they put it on now? It's hardly a symphony, is it, so doesn't fit in the with the current 'season'... Not that I care. Random top-quality archive concerts should form an increasing part of BBC4 - lowering costs and raising quality

[johnb]

I'm getting p*ssed off with the way classical concerts are misleadingly scheduled on BBC Four.

Finlandia was advertised as being part of this broadcast but was cut from the programme and a 15 minute 'filler' inserted instead (although Finlandia is still included in the blurb on the BBC Four schedule web pages). The other week something similar happened with the Rattle/BPO broadcast.

With this and the misleading programme details for tonight's broadcast I can only assume that the BBC scheduling staff are totally incompetent.

(I greatly enjoyed the broadcast though. Let's hope that they raid the archives again ... Soon.)

[RobertLeDiable]

Well, that horrible boxy Barbican sound didn't help, but really - compare this to Berglund, Vanska or Salonen and there's no contest. Until the choir and soloists came in we got Sir Colin's usual generalised one-pace vigour with undercharacterised playing and far too little dynamic contrast. The Helsinki University Chorus brought it alive as it always does. Hyninen was excellent, and Isokowski was good too, though the balance with orchestra wasn't always very helpful. And the final peroration was botched. This way of doing Sibelius has been surpassed by the new generation of Finns that has come up in the last 20 years. They understand the music's wildness and extremities in a way that, for me, Davis doesn't get.

[amateur51]

But, as predicted, it was the best Kullervo symphony broadcast on BBC 4 tonight

[Petrushka]

I'm getting p*ssed off with the way classical concerts are misleadingly scheduled on BBC Four.

Finlandia was advertised as being part of this broadcast but was cut from the programme and a 15 minute 'filler' inserted instead (although Finlandia is still included in the blurb on the BBC Four schedule web pages). The other week something similar happened with the Rattle/BPO broadcast.

With this and the misleading programme details for tonight's broadcast I can only assume that the BBC scheduling staff are totally incompetent.

(I greatly enjoyed the broadcast though. Let's hope that they raid the archives again ... Soon.)

Amen to all of this!

[RobertLeDiable]

But, as predicted, it was the best Kullervo symphony broadcast on BBC 4 tonight

I have no doubt it was. Probably the best of the week actually!

[amateur51]

I have no doubt it was. Probably the best of the week actually!

[Anna]

Um, what happened to the advertised Finlandia, or as it was announced prior to the broadcast "Colourvor and Finlandia Symphonies"?

Well, Be Still My Soul, Fin-lan-dia!!! I am now quite buggered as to what it was I listened to (whilst reading Charles Dickens, it must be said!) And here was I, quite ready to admit to a sneaky admiration for Sibelius and naff jumpers and dodgy hairdos but vowing an aversion to Caliban's awful wodka.

Edit: Found and put on Violin Conc. B Minor (really good, with really dramatic pauses!) and a couple of those serenade and humeresque things, oh, and a suite, Op 117. Let it not be said, I do not keep up at the back!

[PaulT]

Does anyone know who the Controller of BBC 4 is, if the channel has one? He/she really needs to get a grip.

[Petrushka]

Does anyone know who the Controller of BBC 4 is, if the channel has one? He/she really needs to get a grip.

BBC4 Controller is Richard Klein.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/

[Chris Newman]

I have sent the following request to Points of View. I doubt if it will get as far as Jeremy but one can try:

I do not wish to sound ungrateful. The last two weeks on Friday evenings BBC 4 has given us excellent performances of symphonies as a tie in with the excellent series SYMPHONY with Simon Russell Beale showing on the evening before. The archive programmes are trailed as being presented by the original presenter and, in the case of last night, Christopher Cooke would have introduced the musicians lined up to play Sibelius's Kullervo Symphony and the popular Finlandia. In the event Mr Russell Beale did the honours and we had pop music in the time alloted to Finlandia. As the rest of the evening was pop music perhaps BBC 4 could stick to its promised schedules, please. The same thing happened the previous week. A case of hind quarters and elbows not knowing each other?