Sibelius: Songs - Vol 2

"Monica Groop, following her success in the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, has built up a busy career. Communication is her strength, and unevenness of line a relative weakness. Sibelius's songs are a rich and still undervalued part of the song repertoire. Still only four or five are really well known, and none of those is included here. Not all are of very special quality: the title is probably the best thing about the 'Fool's Song of the Spider' (from King Christian II), and the Hymnto Thaïs gains interest through being Sibelius's only song in English rather than through intrinsic merit. Yet there are many delights here, including the closing waltz-song, The small girls.
The acoustic is perhaps somewhat too reverberant but has plenty of presence." Gramophone