Sibelius - Complete Songs

Sibelius the symphonist is well known but Sibelius the song-writer? There are quite a few recordings around of selections from his 100+ songs and many are very good, even excellent. But none have the authority and breadth of scope of this 4 disc Complete Songs recording, a welcome reissue of the vinyl recordings dating from the late 1980s. Tom Krause and Elisabeth Soderstrom are in mellifluous voice and have an unrivalled command of the material they sing. With a few execptions, all the songs are set to Swedish texts by poets who are not well known outside Swedish speaking circles. And as regards Sibelius as a song writer, arguably he holds his own against contemporaries like Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf or Edvard Grieg. The songs cover an enormous field but most impressive and appealing of all are the wonderfully evocative songs about nordic legends and landscapes; here we are close to the symphonist. This recording is a jewel and anyone interested in unfamiliar song repertoire should snap it up.