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A Sunday Spin - Dorati conducts Sibelius 2

Jerry Dubins, who must be Fanfare's most prolific writer, once gave a list of his top Sibelius symphony recordings. Even though I don't always agree with Dubins, I respect his taste so I investigated a few of them. His somewhat obscure choice for the 2nd Symphony was the Dorati/Stockholm Philharmonic on RCA Victrola, apparently never issued on CD.

I was able to score a sealed copy of this which I cleaned yesterday and played today. First, I think it is indeed an excellent reading - more "romantic" than I prefer, but with good tempos - e.g. not overly slow like the Barbirolli reading issued on Chesky. Dorati gets good orchestral execution from the Stockholm Phil, and the sound is surprisingly good.

I say surprisingly good since the vinyl is paper-thin - I have a number of the Victrola issues, and this has to be as thin as I've seen. I had a hard time cleaning it on the Clearaudio Double Matrix Pro, which generally doesn't like thinner records. And, the vinyl is kind of crappy - not quiet at all.

Too bad, because I like this reading a lot better than say, the Monteux (famous, but I don't think he was a committed Sibelian) or even the Karajan Philharmonia recording. (Why didn't HvK, who was a committed Sibelian, record the 2nd for DG?)

Dubins is one of those guys who prefers the Sibelius violin concerto to all of his other works, but is less passionate about the symphonies. It is interesting to see this kind of bifurcation - the violin concerto is atypical of Sibelius' work - and I personally find way more in the symphonies, but I know of others who feel the way Dubins does. My only LP of the violin concerto with with Oistrakh and coupled with the 3rd symphony conducted by Kletski.



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Topic - A Sunday Spin - Dorati conducts Sibelius 2 - TGR 13:16:58 11/29/15 (25)

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