Conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste has been conducting the symphonies of Sibelius all over the world throughout his conducting career. 35 years after his first recording of the complete cycle, Saraste returns to the symphonies of Sibelius with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra – the orchestra with which Sibelius conducted the premieres of his symphonies back in the day.

The symphonies of Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) have served as milestones in the conducting career of Jukka-Pekka Saraste. “Finnish conductors and orchestras have a lot of lore about how to perform Sibelius’s symphonies […] and a wealth of experience and tacit knowledge has been passed down in this way. Conductor Jussi Jalas [Sibelius’s son-in-law] provided me with inside information on tempos and on the ‘yellow notes’,” Saraste explains. The ‘yellow notes’ were instructions handed to conductors by Sibelius after rehearsals and performances. “My symphonies have a compulsive drive that makes them whole,” Sibelius once said to Jalas. This is a core concept in Saraste’s readings of Sibelius, and it involves not just tempo but the movement of motif material, from the micro level to the macro level, from germs of ideas to symphonic structures.