SIBELIUS, J.: Symphony No. 4 / Pohjola's Daughter / Finlandia
Polytech Male Choir, Helsinki Philharmonic, Segerstam
ODE1040-2

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime.

This week’s pick from the Ondine label (ODE1040-2) spotlights Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony. The composer made the following diary entry in November 1910, with the work still in progress: “A symphony, after all, is not a ‘composition’ in the usual sense. It is more like a declaration of faith at various stages in one’s life.” The Fourth reflects a serious self-searching in which Sibelius painfully lays bare his soul. The symphony is in four movements, but these are far from conventional. The second movement, a scherzo, presents an essentially bright first half followed by a chromatically distorted and darker second.