Lise Davidsen/Bpo/Gardner - Jean Sibelius: Luonnotar, Tapiola, Spring Song

Follo wing their acclaimed recordings of Schoenberg with Sara Jakubiak and Britten�s Peter Grimes with Stuart Skelton, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic turn their attention to the music of Sibelius. Written in 1913 for the diva Aino Ackt�, the tone poem Luonnotar draws on text from the Finnish national epic poem, the Kalevala. Its virtuosic demands are ably met here by award-wining soprano Lise Davidsen, who also feature in the Suite from Pell�as and M�lisande, music re-worked by Sibelius from his incidental music written for the first performances of Maeterlinck�s play in Helsinki, in 1905, in Swedish. The tone poem Tapiola, from 1926, is Sibelius� last great masterpiece and evokes the forests of his native Finland. The programme is completed by a pair of much earlier works, Rakastava (the Lover) and V�rs�ng (Spring Song). The album was recorded in Surround Sound and is available as a hybrid SACD.