If you are considering buying the recent BIS SACD of Stenhammar's 2nd Symphony by Christian Lindberg & The Antwerp SO, you might want to hold off a month. Coming in October, there will be a competing version by Herbert Blomstedt & The Gothenburg Symphony. For filler, the Antwerp disc has eleven and a half minutes of music written for a Strindberg play, while the Gothenberg disc gives you the Serenade, which usually runs around 36 minutes or so. The somewhat odd thing here is that the Blomstedt SACD is also on BIS. Anyway, it is listed on the HMV Japan site with a release date of October 20.
From the excerpts of Lindberg's recording that I've listened to I had already decided that his first movement was too quick, allowing insufficient time for the music to breathe. In this respect the classic Westerberg recording (50 seconds longer in this movement) on Caprice...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stenhammar-Symphony-No-minor-Wilhelm/dp/B000027S1O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536163297&sr=8-1&keywords=stenhammar+westerberg (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stenhammar-Symphony-No-minor-Wilhelm/dp/B000027S1O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536163297&sr=8-1&keywords=stenhammar+westerberg)
...is still the one to beat.
Thanks for the heads-up about Blomstedt's recording, though. Now that should be a proper competitor for Westerberg, if this excerpt is anything to go by:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCjZj3DIoO0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCjZj3DIoO0)
Blomstedt's is a wonderfully considered, wise performance of this great nordic masterpiece. For those who don't know it, I would look no further. The fact that the coupling is the miraculous Serenade, Op.31, is even further reason for choosing Blomstedt (one of the great conductors - and still active at 91!)
I totally second Alan's opinion about Blomstedt...he's been around for so long , and he has made so many cd's , that we (I) almost took him for granted.
Then I noticed that many of his cd's (remember, those countless Deccas with the San Francisco Symphony?) remain staples in my collection, because they have not been really bettered.
It took some time to really appreciate him, because he's not one of the "showy" ones, but make no mistake , he's a great conductor for sure, one that's totally in service of the music.
BTW, on the BIS website, the Stenhammar cd (which is , for me at least, a surefire purchase) is announced as a November release for Europe.
A note aside: I noticed that the cd total time, symphony plus Serenade, is an astonishing 83:31, stretching the limits of the Philips Red Book, that defined at around 80 minutes the maximum duration of a cd.
It's always a pleasure when more than one good recording of a work exists, and it never fails to amaze me how different good performances can be. That said, in my book no one has yet surpassed Stig Westerberg's heroic conception and recording of this symphony.
Perhaps interesting to the forum: Blomstedt will be playing Stenhammar's 2nd Symphony with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (on 28 & 29 March)and the Berlin Philharmonic (early April).
In Berlin it's actually in May (16 -17-18)..maybe it's time to go back to the Philharmonie...
Listened to most versions on the market including Blomstedt new live accolade recording. Nothing comes near to Stig Westerburg in my opinion.
Well, Blomstedt's does, for the reasons given above. But Westerberg's will always remain a classic.
The last time I listened to the Westerberg I was underwhelmed. Not sure if it was either the work or the recording, but I tend to incline choosing the former.
You and the late John Leonard agree (he once wrote in passing "after too much of a Stenhammar symphony, we...") but I find the best recordings and performances of the work fairly amazing and overwhelming things myself :)
I think it's a fabulous piece...and so is No. 1.