Sibelius Symphonies

Check out Paavo Berglund complete sibielius symph. with the chamber orch. of Europe on the FINLANDIA label. Very good readings by top notch players. And very well recorded by Tony Faulkners and Onno ?( whats his lastname).

Best complete set for me is Maazel/London, recorded in 1960's this is a young Maazel giving us a set for the ages with great sound that betters most new modern recordings.

I own the critics darlings like Ashkenazy, Davis, Karajan, Berglund etc but much prefer the Maazel set even though there are few other Maazel works I really like. Other sets I prefer are Bernstein/Sony and Gibson/Chandos.....three great sets there that are not normally touted heavily by critics.

For Karajan much prefer his EMI recordings to critics favorite DG versions, the Barbirolli/Chesky 2nd is magnificent and essential. The Szell/Phillips 50 2nd is very good also but Barbirolli mentioned is a touch better.

Have not heard the Vanska/BIS set yet.....the Kamu 1,2,3 performances contained on DG Trio CD are well worth getting although sound is not great. The Neemi Jarvi and Mariss Jansons performances are very good buy not quite elite status, still preferred to Ashkenazy, Davis etc.

Since this thread has been revived, I'll add one more performance I've been enjoying very much recently: not one of his symphonies, but Finlandia as performed by Mackerras and the London Proms Orchestra on RCA LSC 2336 (the Classic Records 45 r.p.m. reissue is very good, the engineering by Kenneth Wilkinson is superb).
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I've been a Sibelius buff for 40 years and have many recordings of the symphonies, including the complete sets by Maazel (Decca/London), Bernstein (Sony), Berglund (EMI), Jarvi (BIS), Rattle (EMI), both the Davis sets (Boston on Philips and London SO on RCA), Saraste (RCA), as well as numerous individual performances. Without question the best set of the Sibelius symphonies is the recent, second Colin Davis one, with the London Symphony Orchestra, on RCA. No modern conductor has shown as thorough and consistent a grasp of the very individual Sibelius idiom as Colin Davis, the unchallenged dean of Sibelius interpreters of our time. And the LSO/RCA set has the advantage of excellent recent digital sound, engineered by Tony Faulkner. My second choice would be Ashkenazy's spirited and eloquent but somewhat Russianized readings on Decca/London.

If you like Sibelius, don't miss the classic Heifetz/Hendl/Chicago SO performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto on RCA, far and away the greatest recording ever made of this magnificent work, by the violinist who "owned" this piece as few other virtuosos have ever owned a concerto, and who played it in a way no other violinist could approach. This recording always had superb sound, but is now sounding better than ever in the recent RCA hybrid SACD release (at mid-price to boot). In a class by itself.