Finnish maestro Hannu Lintu presents and conducts the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in all seven bold and unique symphonies by their celebrated compatriot Jean Sibelius!
An apparent structural simplicity—perhaps a reaction to the bombast and opulence of great works by Mahler and Strauss resonating in Europe's concert halls at the same time (1907)—is the fertile soil in which Sibelius’s Third Symphony grows, a contrast with his own first two symphonies, exultantly nationalistic and ultra-romantic.
Considered a somewhat “classical” work, this symphony in three movements already shows signs of the boldly expressive side of Sibelius that would shape his remaining symphonies. According to Fabian Dahlström and James Hepokoski (Grove Music Online), "the anti-monumental Third compensates through a further gain in compositional discipline" in which "Sibelius grasped more clearly the artistic project that would dominate his later compositions: to give the impression that his reiterative, uncommonly concentrated language sought to draw out the hidden secrets of sound itself, to free an ontological truth from sound's acoustic materiality."
