ProStudioMasters.com

"Set down hard on the heels of an acclaimed concert performance in Glasgow during May 2018, Thomas Dausgaard’s new recording of Kullervo has lots in its favour. Not the least of its many virtues is the enthusiastic, scrupulously prepared and rhythmically spry contribution of the BBC Scottish SO (a shout-out to their crisply articulate strings and irresistibly ‘vocal’ woodwinds in particular). Plaudits, too, for Dausgaard’s purposeful, keen-eared direction, some shrewdly chosen tempos ensuring that Sibelius’s daringly ambitious scheme unfolds with impressive cumulative power; certainly, his lithe, red-blooded handling of the remarkable central scena (‘Kullervo and his sister’) plunges the listener into the thick of the action—an impression reinforced by the comparatively upfront balance afforded to soloists Helena Juntunen and Benjamin Appl (both of whom cover themselves in glory) … all told, a hearty welcome to this fresh-faced newcomer." - Gramophone While Kullervo represents just the confident first step in Sibelius’s symphonic odyssey, it is also a viscerally exciting experience on its own terms—little wonder the first performance in 1892 was such a triumph for the young composer. An unmissable acquisition for anyone who knows only the numbered symphonies.