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Colin Davis' first Sibelius cycle with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was released in 1977, one of the world's most august record clubs — the Carnegie Hall Selection Committee — deemed it definitive: "the leading Sibelius conductor of our time joining forces with what may well be the finest Sibelius orchestra in the world." When Symphonies 5 and 7 were recorded to four-track in January 1975, Symphony Hall Boston was no stranger to experiments in quadraphonic recording ever since Deutsche Grammophon became the orchestra's exclusive record label in 1970; however, by the mid-1970s, quadraphony was all but abandoned and this album was never released as a quad LP.
For this release Rainer Maillard at Emil Berliner Studios has used the original, edited four-track quadraphonic master tape to make a new stereo mix sent directly to the cutter head. This preserves a pure analogue path throughout. The Philips engineers of the 1970s would similarly have mixed the four front and rear channels before cutting but this downmix would have resulted in a two-track stereo copy for mastering, whereas here the lacquer is cut directly from a 'live' mix into stereo from the four Quad channels. Sonic results have been further enhanced by distributing the recording across three sides instead of the original double-sided LP. This has also enabled Decca to include Davis' December 1975 recording of Sibelius' last major orchestral work, Tapiola, on the fourth side.
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