Jodi-Ritter

Thanks for your helpful edits!

Hello, Jodi-Ritter! I wanted to welcome you to Wikipedia. Thank you for your help on the article Discography of Sibelius symphony cycles! I was the primary author, and it was a lot of research! I figured I had missed a few, and you certainly educated me with the two additional cycles you added (I had had no idea that Berglund-CoE had a DVD)! I just wanted to ask for a few clarifications, if that's okay with you:

1. Is the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra the same as Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra? Looks like it, but I wanted to consult you first before making the change.
2. Is the the Symphony Hall, Osaka the same as Osaka Festival Hall? Again, wanted to double check first.
3. I think there is a link Sachio Fujioka in Japanese Wikipedia for the conductor, no?
4. I wanted to just make sure that the Denon you have cited for the 1962 Watanabe cycle is indeed distinct from the Denon 1981 Watanabe cycle. It was my understanding that the former only existed on LPs (which I own), but it seems like you've found (or own) a CD version. (Perhaps only available in Asia?)

Thanks, ~ Silence of Järvenpää 00:57, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind words! I am a huge Sibelius nerd and am collecting all the symphony cycles on CD/Blu-ray (the only one I don't own yet is the newest one by Hughes), so I wanted to contribute to the page.

Firstly, yes, the Berglund (4) was released this February (Feb. 4th 2022) for the first time. It took place at the Helsinki Festival 1998 (Aug. 23-25) and to my knowledge was originally aired on TV. It was released on 2 DVDs (ICAD 5162) or 1 Blu-ray (ICABD 5163), I own the Blu-ray version. Unfortunately the website of the label only has a distinct page for the DVD version and not for the Blu-ray, so this is the page I linked in the article.

For new recordings the website https://sibeliusone.com/recordings/ is a great source and they even list new recordings by unknown labels or in asia (for example the Fujioka cycle), so this is a very helpful source to keep track/look for knew recordings. They helped me a lot with finding rare performances (in fact I only knew about the Fujioka cycle due to their website) and are quite fast updating the newest soon-to-be-releases. However, the uppermost recording will always be "Nordic Love – Selected songs by Jean Sibelius", because this is a CD produced by the website owners and they want to advertise it, so always look under it for the newest recordings. Another (more unreliable) source is Amazon, when you search for "Sibelius" in the Music-CD- category and sort for release dates they are sometimes even faster than Sibeliusone.

Now I will try to answer your questions:

1. The cycle with Sachio Fujioka and the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (incl. Violin Concerto with Sukeyuki Iwatani) was released on September 7th, 2021. To my knowledge the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra and the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra are not the same Orchestra. I wondered about it, too, but the Wikipedia page for the Osaka Phil states it was founded as the Kansai SYMPHONIC orchestra, not the Kansai PHILHARMONIC orchestra. The Wikipedia page for the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra and the booklet of my CD-Box offer two different websites:

Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra: https://www.osaka-phil.com/

Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra: https://kansaiphil.jp/

You can see the difference in the count of the subscription concerts, the OPO is playing their 562nd subscription concert soon, the KPO their 332nd. The booklet of the cycle states the dates of the performances as well as the number of the subscription concert. The latest date was the one of the Violin Concerto, which was added to the box as a bonus (July 17., 2020, 312nd subscription concert). This matches the subscription concert counter of the KPO-website, the orchestras are in fact distinct.

2. Again, both concert hall seem to be not the same. Via the KPO-website (I looked for the concert hall of the upcoming subscription concerts) I found the website of The Symphony Hall, Osaka, while the Wikipedia page for the Osaka Festival Hall links another website:

The Symphony Hall: https://www.symphonyhall.jp/

Osaka Festival Hall: https://www.festivalhall.jp/en/

Additionally both websites offer maps for accessing, they both show different places.

3. You are right, the Japanese Wikipedia page seems to be the one for the conductor, his biography listed on the page matches with the short artist portrait in the boklet of the CD box.

4. Yes, better to be safe than sorry :D I can assure you that the Denon-CD-Box I have cited is indeed distinct from the 1981-Denon-CD-Box. I own them both, I found them on German Amazon (that's where i am from) in February 2020 (1962 cycle) and May 2020 (1981 cycle) and compared them precisely to make sure they are different. Yesterday I compared them again and as well with the information already offered on the Discography page, so all my edits are directly based on the original boxes (booklets, front cover, back cover). Here are the links:

1962: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00005EP5W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1981: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00005EP5X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was quite surprised at the time because the prices were surprisingly low - around 40€ for the 1962-box and around 50€ for the 1981-box, both in very good condition and I didn't even knew that the 1962-cycle was released on CD (to my knowledge the only official release yet). The 1981-cycle has been reissued in a black CD-Box since. tower.jp states that the 1962-cycle was released on CD to honour the 40th anniversary of the Japan Philharmonic.

It can be confusing because both CD-boxes were released only in Japan in 1996 and have a similar look of the front and back cover. However the 1962-box has a sandish colour whereas the 1981-box has a grey-ish colour. They both have different label codes (my versions: 1962: COCO-80406-409; 1981: COCO-80410-413, even though I found images on the web with slightly different codes), the 1982 box has an added "pcm Digital"-label on the top right corner of the box and the runtimes of the symphonies are different. The 1962-box states "ADD" on the back cover, the 1981-box "DDD", so they are 100% distinct. If you like I can take some pictures of the boxes and booklets to clarify further.

As far as I can tell both boxes look legit and not like bootlegs, both contained the OBI (japanese paper piece with information wrapped around one edge of japanese CDs/CD-boxes) and both are listed on reliable websites like tower.jp. Therefore I am quite sure that these are real, official releases.

I am going to add some missing information on the Daejin Kim cycle soon (recording dates of the individual symphonies) but the page looks extremely impressive so far, great work! Jodi-Ritter (talk) 07:54, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, Jodi-Ritter! Thanks for your thorough (and friendly reply)... it was a lot of help, and I am glad that you, too, subscribe to the 'better-safe-than-sorry' worldview. I should say, as well, that it's a relief to have someone come in and check my work on this discography, as many of the cycles were very much out of my reach. I think I own about 20+ of them but, unlike you it seems, I am not a completist (in my collection... I am for this Wikipedia list). My favorites so far are Berglund-CoE and Vänskä-Lahti SO.

I mainly spend my time researching and writing about Sibelius's compositions, as you can see from looking at my edit history. But the discography was a special project, precisely because I wanted to centralize and standardize the information on the Sibelius cycles... when I started, I had no idea there'd be so many. Although I am a devoted Sibelian, too, I feel like it's time for the classical music world to diversify! To have just two complete Leevi Madetoja cycles, one complete Erkki Melartin cycle [albeit with cuts], one complete Dag Wirén cycle, and one complete Aulis Sallinen cycle is just criminal negligence in my opinion! :)

My most recent project was Sibelius's 'opera' The Maiden in the Tower. Do you know it? I like it a lot. And my next push (when I have the time) will be the ballet-pantomime Scaramouche. I also began a massive overhaul of Kullervo (probably my favorite Sibelius piece, despite my initial distaste for it), which I do need to return to! Do you envision your contributions to Sibelius Wikipedia ending with the discography? I should note that I also hope this list I/we constructed for Sibelius's cycles will inspire some editors who know and love Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, etc. to make discographies of their own.

Thanks for the edits to Kim's cycle. And no need for pictures regarding Watanabe. I appreciate you having a similarly high standard of research and sourcing... makes co-editing so much easier. Warmly, ~ Silence of Järvenpää 14:00, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

PS: You may be able to help on the incomplete cycles section, too. In particular, I found it very difficult to navigate the various Karajan efforts and Ormandy efforts. I think I got the former figured out correctly, but I have the distinct feeling that my work on Ormandy is incorrect. Might he have had three incomplete efforts rather than two?

I also recently learned that Leaper has a second effort, with a Spanish orchestra here is Nos. 1 & 3 and here is Nos. 2 & 7 and here is No. 5... do you know if he did Nos. 4 & 6? I haven't found it. At a minimum, I need to add this to the table of incomplete cycles. ~ Silence of Järvenpää 14:00, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Silence of Järvenpää! Thank you a lot for your kind words and personal insights!

I got quite addicted to Sibelius and mostly his symphonies which is why I started to collect all existing symphony cycles some years ago. Your discography actually helped me in this, so thanks a lot! My favourite may be Berglund/Bournemouth but Vänskä/Lahti is fantastic too, especially for the 1915-version of the 5th and additional alternative parts of other symphonies. I gone quite far in completing all existing CD/DVDBlu-ray-recordings of the 5th symphony, my favourite piece of music ever, someday I am sure I will make it :D

Yes, I saw that you did quite a ton of work regarding nordic composers, I am in awe of your work! And you are right, especially Melartin needs new recordings, hopefully Wirén's 1st symphony can be found/performed in the future. Regarding Madetoja I do only know the Storgårds-cycle, maybe I need to listen to Volmer too? Two composers I would like to add to the list of being in need of new recordings of their symphonies is Aarre Merikanto (although I really enjoyed Petri Sakari's recordings) and Heikki Suolahti (his Sinfonia Piccola needs a professional recording!).

I do know "The maiden in the tower" just barely, I got both recordings but only listened to Paavo's once. Unfortunately I am no "opera guy", so that isn't exactly my cup of tea ;) I am definitely seeing myself to contribute to other Sibelius pages as well, when I find time for it. The few changes I made in the last days took a chunk of time due to me not being experienced with the code or editing at Wikipedia at all. But I am sure I can learn and bet better with it :)

For the incomplete cycles section: I will take a look at it. As far as I know Ormandy recorded Numbers 1, 2, 4 & 5 in mono with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The 1st can be found in a 10-CD-Ormandy-Box by Documents, the other 3 recordings are in the big 120-CD-Box "Eugene Ormandy - The Columbia Legacy" released last year. I got the big box with symphonies 2, 4-5 recently and can edit the information in, however I don't own the recording of the 1st. That would add another incomplete cycle, preceding the two other ones.

For the Karajan: I really hate that he recorded everything (not just Sibelius) a bazillion times, it is so confusing! He recorded Sibelius 5th alone 5 different times! But I will take a look at it and see if I can help any further. The missing 5th in the current section is a mono/radio recording (May 26, 1957)with the Berlin Philharmonic, coupled with Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto played by Glenn Gould (to my knowledge the only existing collaboration between Karajan and Gould). It got released on CD by Sony. If you would like to, I can edit it in together with the Ormandy mono recordings.

You are right, Leaper took a second attempt. To my knowledge he didn't record 4 & 6 a second time, I searched the web for it a few years ago when I saw the other discs existed. I only own the recording of the 5th (of course ;) ) which is coupled with the Violin Concerto.

Kind regards, Jodi-Ritter (talk) 15:28, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, Jodi-Ritter! More later, but for now... some house-warming gifts for you, should you ever decide to create a user space:

• This user enjoys the music of
  Jean Sibelius.

• 5thWhile painful to pick, this user thinks Sibelius's best symphony is No. 5.

Warmly, ~ Silence of Järvenpää 23:12, 6 October 2022 (UTC) (PS: You can ping me by typing {{Ping|Silence of Järvenpää}} or {{U|Silence of Järvenpää}} )