NEW CHAMPIONS OF THE SIBELIUS CAUSE

With all the current talk about a “New Romanticism,” i.e., contemporary composers preaching and practicing a return to tonality and with it, a return--they hope--to a semblance of that old time melody, more cynical listeners may well choose to return instead to the various manifestations of the old Romanticism.

Not that Brahms or Schumann are in need of revival; or that such later, once esoteric, manifestations as Bruckner and Mahler need assistance, either.

It is, rather, the so-called post-Romantics who deserve and are likely to have their innings. Rachmaninoff is being taken seriously--and well beyond the confines of his two or three top tunes. Sibelius, through the efforts of some notably dedicated acolytes, would seem to be undergoing a period of rediscovery and respectful reappraisal.

Sibelius is presently in the fortunate position of having as champions a pair of conductors whose careers are quite spectacularly on the ascendant: Vladimir Ashkenazy, whose Sibelius symphony cycle with the Concertgebouw Orchestra for London Records is nearing completion, and Simon Rattle, whose cycle with his own City of Birmingham Symphony has just begun with the Second Symphony (Angel DS-381960).

The latter is notable for grandeur and expansiveness. Not a hot-blooded, young man’s performance; but then Rattle is hardly your typical young conductor. This reading projects the mellowness, warmth and architechtonic perceptions of a thoughtful, veteran musician.

The Birmingham orchestra is a dedicated and responsive rather than slick body. Its sound is not voluptuous, but it does deliver the goods and the brass section would seem to be first rate.

Yoel Levi is also a young conductor--in outlook as well as years--and hardly a familiar name. His reading of the Sibelius second (Telarc DG-10095) betrays some of the less endearing characteristics of the youthful musician.

Levi’s Sibelius has the superficial thrills with which Rattle is unconcerned. It is generally faster, sometimes to the point of being rushed, and more tautly inflected than the Englishman’s. The playing, by the Cleveland Orchestra, of which Levi is associate conductor, is dazzling in the bright, brilliant way of the great American orchestras (Telarc DG-10095).

There is nothing even faintly contemptible here, but the Levi-Cleveland Sibelius is more flashy than probing, more showpiece than passionate statement.

As a brief bonus, Rattle gives us the rare and haunting “Scene with Cranes” from “Kuolema” (the source of “Valse Triste”), while Levi dishes (and blasts) out merely another “Finlandia.”

Sibelius arrives as well from Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; the recondite Fourth Symphony and the more approachable, if still hardly outgoing, Seventh (Angel DS-38135).

Berglund may not convince this listener that there’s more substance than meets the ear in the Fourth (the Sibelius symphony for those who detest Sibelius). But he does keep one listening with his sleek, probing interpretation and the clean, cuttingly clear and intense work of the Helsinki orchestra.

The Seventh is radiantly projected, with a quite astonishing rhythmic acuity and dynamic range, particularly among the solo winds.

One might reflect here on the fact that both Rattle and Berglund have embarked on digitally recorded Sibelius symphony cycles for the same label. The results are likely to be complementary--and fascinating, not only for their differences and the promised rewards of both, but for the fact that neither features the work of one of the so-called “world class” symphony orchestras.

Yet another “provincial” organization, the Glasgow-based Scottish National Orchestra, nears completion of yet another Sibelius cycle, the latest installment coupling the First and Seventh Symphonies (Chandos ABRD 1086).

The conductor is an old Sibelius hand, Sir Alexander Gibson, and his handsomely executed reading of the First is a beauty--dramatic, suavely lyrical and notably successful in imposing order on the diffuse rhetoric of the finale.

The Gibson-led Seventh is a loose-jointed, less starkly modern performance than Berglund’s, the Scotsmen’s view of the work being strongly reminiscent of the warmly luminous, celebrated reading by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic.

Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen was a virtual unknown beyond his native borders in 1975 when he recorded a recital of Sibelius songs with pianist Ralf Gothoni. That program has now been issued in this country for the first time (Harmonia Mundi HMC 5142) at the same time that today’s Hynninen, on the brink of world celebrity, has recorded most of the same songs and a good number more with the same pianist (Finlandia FA 202, two discs, a Polygram import).

There is much that is lovely--the ability to sustain soft tones, for instance, in the familiar and demanding “Sigh, sedges, sigh”--in the 1975 program. But, for the most part, the earlier outing showed us the work of a promising artist, with much to learn about creating an air of intimacy.

Hynninen’s failings of a decade ago--a tendency to over-dramatize (and occasionally to bark), to anticipate the beat in fast passages, and to lose focus when pushing for volume--are banished by program two, in fact recorded only five years later.

The Finlandia production is a model vocal recital, sung by an artist at the peak of his vocal and interpretive powers, the possessor of a sturdy, well-supported baritone of ample range and pleasing timbre, and the intelligence to make every word and note part of a meaningful miniature drama.

Sibelius’s songs, in Swedish, German and Finnish, covering the years 1891 through 1915, are lyric gems, sometimes reminiscent of Schumann and Tchaikovsky, more often inspired by Scandinavian folk song. They are seldom trivial or uninteresting, and never more engaging than in the recent Hynninen performances.

Pianist Gothoni is--in both recordings--a pillar of supportive strength.