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Pohjola's Daughter by Jean Sibelius
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Topic: Pohjola's Daughter by Jean Sibelius
Ken S
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Just a few words: If you can find the Leonard Bernstein & New York Philharmonic recording of it, GET IT! It's terrific music, and sounding astonishingly like some truly furious horror movie music - almost as if Bernard Herrmann had listened to it before writing his PSYCHO score ...and this Sibelius work may also inspired John Williams to invent the JAWS theme.Really.
KEN
posted 11-10-2003 03:29 PM PT (US) Marian Schedenig
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quote:
Originally posted by Ken S:
Just a few words: If you can find the Leonard Bernstein & New York Philharmonic recording of it, GET IT! It's terrific music, and sounding astonishingly like some truly furious horror movie music - almost as if Bernard Herrmann had listened to it before writing his PSYCHO score ...Since I have the excellent Berglund Sibelius 8 CD set on EMI, I can never tell which work is which (there's just way too much great stuff on them). So I'm not sure which one Pohjola's Daughter is, but there is one cue on these discs that Herrmann definitely had in mind when he wrote the swamp music for Psycho. Plenty of other Herrmann-like bits too.
I've said it before, I highly recommend that Berglund set. It's 8 CDs full of mostly excellent stuff.
posted 11-10-2003 04:23 PM PT (US) Timmer
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Well ken, I thought i'd give it a spin right now, hope your happy!Oh, and it's from the very same excellent set that Marian mentioned above.
NP : I'm sure you can guess?!
posted 11-10-2003 05:45 PM PT (US) Timmer
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Well I just finished listening and I could imagine (I don't know why...it just sprung to mind) some epic Ernest Hemmingway style fight with a huge Marlin (I guess it's not that far off a barrel chase in Jaws?), it didn't sound that horrific to me though I could hear the Jaws references, I could also hear a distinct similarity to Spitfire Prelude and Fugue by William Walton, I'm sure Walton would have been very familiar with the work of Sibelius.NP : why change a good thing?...En Saga - Sibelius
posted 11-10-2003 06:07 PM PT (US) SFT
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What can you say? Sibelius was a genius - one of my all time favourites. One of the greatest symphonists ever - virtually perfected the form - and in my mind he is the undisputed master of the tone poem.
Pohjola´s Daughter is one of the best of them, as well as En Saga. The Lemminkainen Suite is also superb, containing not only the immortal Swan of Tuonela, but three other stunning tone poems.My favourite though, is the amazing "Luonnotar" for orchestra and soprano. Totally unique in the history of music - nothing resembles it - and so fantastically evocative and grand.
BTW, when expanding the Sibelius collection, check out the BIS label. They have done some of the best releases, and is currently up to a bout 50 discs in their attempt to record the complete Sibelius output.
Other than that, you simply cannot go wrong with the Berglund set on EMI.
SFT
posted 11-16-2003 10:18 AM PT (US) Old Infopop Software by UBB