Sibelius/LPO/Vanska; Birmingham Contemporary Music Group; Bostridge/Pappano | Classical review

Royal Festival Hall, LondonWigmore Hall, LondonBirmingham Town HallSibelius embarked on his symphonic journey in a blaze of confidence. However tentative he felt about writing it, his First Symphony opens with a shock, not the expected cry but a despairing whisper. A lone clarinet, with faltering, distant drum roll, meanders across a musical landscape as empty as the Finnish tundra, edging round desolate chromaticisms and dropping to a triple pianissimo so hushed you strain to hear.Already risky...

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