Regarding the reissue on Forgotten Records of Hannikainen's recordings of Sibelius's 4th Symphony, Philip Borg-Wheeler writes: "As far as I can discover, the Finnish cellist and conductor Tauno Hannikainen (who died in 1968) made few recordings, mostly of Sibelius."
I am a little perplexed that Mr. Borg-Wheeler should feel he needs to undertake the research and discovery personally when as detailed an account as I could make it of Hannikainen's life and music-making was published on MWI quite recently:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2022/Oct/Forgotten-artists-29.pdf .
It will be evident from this article that I hear Hannikainen's Sibelius 4th differently from Mr. Borg-Wheeler, and so did Jonathan Woolf who concluded his review of Hannikainen's Moscow recordings (including this symphony) by saying "If you’ve not come across Hannikainen’s Moscow recordings make haste to hear them; they’re that good."
Naturally, this does not automatically mean that those who hear this as one of the finest Sibelius 4ths ever are right and those who do not are wrong, and Mr. Borg-Wheeler must report what he hears.
But I do think that any readers who, on the strength of Mr. Borg-Wheeler's review, might pass over this performance as a justly forgotten recording by a justly forgotten conductor (though Mr. Borg-Wheeler does recognize the fine qualities of Hannikainen's Tapiola), should be aware that this performance, and its conductor, enjoy legendary status among a large number of Sibelius's admirers.