Rattle has undoubtedly prepared his Berlin Philharmonic to the highest level for this Sibelius project, and the results are rarely less than impressive…Rattle is at his best in the grandeurs of the Fifth's outer movement and the Seventh, which gleams in the superb Philharmonic recording and registers every one of Sibelius's subtle dynamics.

I'm not sure I can remember the opening bars of [the Seventh Symphony] feeling quite so remote, evolving rather than beginning, emerging unformed from the substrata of what has gone before. In that, the famed Berlin Philharmonic string basses - sunk too deep to fathom - are the organic foundation of these performances: the point from which the sound begins and ends…the 'illuminated' opening pages of the Sixth are as beautiful as any I know…and it is extraordinary how something so emotionally distanced can sound so moving.

If it’s a cycle that ends well, it begins impressively too, with an account of the First Symphony sculpted on a grand scale.

The Berlin Philharmonic’s Sibelius is characterized by the depth and power of a truly gorgeous orchestral playing. Simon Rattle’s reading is highly charged and dramatic, full of gripping contrasts, yet also provides sensual pleasure.