A new recording by Sibelius

I subscribe to the magazine, The Week, which has a nice digest of news. It also has a weekly review of new CDs, almost always including one of classical music. The other week I saw a positive review of "Kullervo", an early, large-scale symphonic work by Jean Sibelius, his Opus 7, conducted by Robert Spano. I had never heard of it, but when I checked on my broadcast history, I found that 3 stations had broadcast it. WQXR in New York had broadcast as early as February, 2004. I ordered a copy from Amazon. Since the Spano recording was done in May of 2006, the must be other recordings available, though I didn't really check.

What I wonder is are Classical FM stations acquiring new CDs any more, or are they just playing the same old ones? Sibelius symphonies are popular. In 2006, stations KING (Seattle), KCME (Colorado Springs), WUSC (Los Angeles) and WQXR (New York) broadcast all 6 of his symphonies. KVOD (Denver) broadcast all except #6. KVOD likes #2, having played it 70 times in the last 4 years. But it has never played #6. I guess they either don't like it or don't have recording.

"Kullervo" is okay but not memorable, with a thick, brooding, dark, Scandanavian sound. It's based on the Finnish "Kalevala" legends, and, unlike any of Sibelius's orchestral works, has soprano and baritone voices.