JEAN SIBELIUS Orchestral Songs, Luonnotar

 

Soile Isokoski (soprano)

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra / Leif Segerstam

 

This hybrid SACD features the Finnish star soprano Soile Isokoski with her first all-Sibelius recording of works for voice and orchestra, featuring the tone poem Luonnotar and eighteen of his orchestral songs.

 

Luonnotar (Daughter of Nature), completed in 1913, is a powerful tone poem for soprano and orchestra and fits Soile Isokosiki's voice like a glove. Based on an excerpt from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, the song tells of the mythical creation of the earth and the sky.

 

This recording contains almost all of Sibelius' songs that were orchestrated by the composer himself (the only missing song being out of Isokoski's vocal range). Almost all the other songs featured on this recording were orchestrated by Jussi Jalas, Sibelius' son-in-law, or by his close contemporaries. The booklet contains all lyrics in their original language (Finnish, Swedish), as well as in their English translation.

 

Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski is recognised as one of the finest singers in the world. Her rendition of Four Last Songs and other orchestral songs by Richard Strauss with Marek Janowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra received a Gramophone Award in 2002 [ODE9822].

 

The Finnish lyric soprano Soile Isokoski — a losing finalist at the 1987 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, who has made a bigger international career than that year’s winner — has arguably the most beautiful voice of her type, excelling in Mozart and Richard Strauss. Here, she sets down her equally glowing credentials as a Sibelian. This is her second recording of the vocal tone poem Luonnatar — the first was for DG, with the Gothenburg SO and Neeme Jarvi — and even though this unique piece was written for the Finnish dramatic soprano Aino Akte (Covent Garden’s first Salome), Isokoski’s radiant timbre shines in this fable from the Finnish epic, Kalevala, in which a nature-spirit-maiden (Luonnotar) creates the heavens with the help of a duck’s egg. Sibelius also orchestrated several of his most celebrated songs with piano for Akte and her successor, Aulikki Rautavaara (Glyndebourne’s first Countess Almaviva), and Isokoski is an ideal exponent here, singing in Swedish and her native Finnish with exemplary clarity.

Times, Four stars

 

Ondine Hybrid SACD ODE10805