Sibelius – Symphony No 6

Before starting to listen to this I couldn’t remember anything at all about it from the previous times I had heard it (about twice). That is unique because with all the other Sibelius symphonies I could remember something, if only (as with the Seventh) a vague recollection of pleasure. As I started to listen to the Sixth, it all started to come back. For the first few minutes, the slow intro to the first movement, I thought that this was something really good which I had totally forgotten about, which was a bit worrying. But as the work went on, this feeling subsided, and I started to remember why I had forgotten Sib 6. Except for those first few minutes, yes, this is unmistakeably Sibelius. It’s not bad Sibelius (if such a thing exists: his quality control is pretty rigorous). But there doesn’t seem to be anything extraordinary: nothing which made me sit up and think “gosh”, let alone “F***ING HELL!!!”. I’ll come back to it again, when I have time. But it didn’t fire my enthusiasm.