Thomas Sondergard - Sibelius: Symphony 2 Live - BachTrack

Sibelius’ Symphony no 2 in D major is material of a softer grain, opening with a gorgeous, dense middle-range string texture that can’t fail to bring to mind the pastoral picture painting often associated with the composer. It’s a surprise then that the air he breathed into its broad body was that of Italy, rather than Finland, though it was as a symbol of Finnish resistance that the piece really found a life of its own. Just as they had the night before, the BBCNOW’s strings really shone in those moments of rich writing so familiar from this failed-violinist-of-a-composer, and they gave conductor Thomas Søndergård that same combination of warmth and transparency that had informed the previous evening’s Seventh Symphony.