Scènes I comes from the same collection (now known as "Press Celebrations Music") that produced Finlandia, while Scènes II dates from the period of the Fourth Symphony and the evocative tone poem The Bard, which you can hear in the atmospheric writing for harp in the central Love Song and concluding scene At the Drawbridge. There is so much pleasure to be had here, and I am delighted that Naxos has decided to devote a single disc to these works, giving them the prominence that they deserve (as opposed to their usual appearance as "fillers" for one of the symphonies).

The performances are splendid. Pietari Inkinen is yet another talented Finnish conductor worth getting to know. He is now serving as music director of the New Zealand Symphony, and he leads the music with obvious authority. The interpretations aren't quite as rhythmically incisive as Järvi's on BIS, but they are more lovingly shaped in such places as the Spanish music in the closing movement of Scènes I, that luminous Nocturne in King Christian, or the same work's delicious Musette. Warm and full sonics complete an irresistible package that no one with even a passing interest in Sibelius (or juicy Romantic music in general) should miss.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com