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Composer - Jean Sibelius (1903) Performer - Leonidas Kavakos Lahti Symphony Orchestra Osmo Vänskä, conductor Release Date, February 1991 BIS Records You Can Purchase The Full Recording From This Link Sibelius had some difficulty arriving at the final form of the violin concerto and withheld this version from publication. He completed the first version in 1903, but the premiere on 8th February 1904 in Helsinki had a mixed reception with some writers calling it a disaster. One of the reasons, no doubt, was that the soloist Viktor Novácèk (with the orchestra of Helsinki Philharmonic Society under Jean Sibelius) was not up to the work’s dizzying technical demands. Although the original version had good material, Sibelius deleted a lot of material that did not work and Sibelius himself was dissatisfied with the original version. The initial version was noticeably more demanding on the advanced skills of the soloist and was revived in the early 1990s on the BIS record label by violinist Leonidas Kavakos, with the permission of Sibelius' heirs
