A new genius

From the first bars of pianissimo tone poem "En Saga" we know that something will happen. Mikko Franck will tell us a great exciting story, frightening and oppressive, as crescendos seem endless. The orchestra of the Swedish Radio deploys a full sound, which is very dense motor action. The young chef Finnish agency the different desks of the orchestra in his way, which gives this version a very personal character. The study on the overall color is impressive, the dosages of each instrument are finely thought: it sounds like Bernstein in his later years. The rhythmic contrasts are highlighted, without these to be nipped. Everything seems to flow naturally but nothing was left to chance. It is the same in the great adventure of Kalevala legends of Lemminkäinen, a kind of Don Giovanni local. As in En Saga, sound density is impressive. We hear the different influences that took Sibelius, including especially Wagner. The variety of climates is amazing, both in the suffocating and morbid slow swan Tuonela, whose page count is made strikingly under the baton, in Lemmikäinen to Tuonela, the slow but inexorable crescendo takes us into the heart of an adventure which one is not sure to leave alive as the feeling of oppression overwhelms us (very present drums and their unison with the brass, are not to do with this feeling of saturation). Even the finale suggests that partially espor that we will not. This first disc is a complete success. Provided Mikko Franck preserves.