Reddit reviews Sibelius: Symphonies / Tone Poems

A few to consider, some more affordable than others:

• Complete Webern
  
• Complete Varese
  
• The DG Complete Beethoven Edition (if you can find it anywhere)
  
• The Philips Complete Mozart Edition (if you can find it anywhere)
  
• Steve Reich
  
• Philip Glass
  
• Handel - Orchestral Works
  
• Bach - Orchestral Works
  
• Ravel - Complete Edition
  
• Debussy - Complete Edition
  
• Shostakovich Edition (one of the few Brilliant Classics box sets I can wholeheartedly recommend, unlike many of the others which can be a bit patchy)
  
• Strauss - Complete operas
  
• Wagner - Complete operas (Solti)
  
• Boulez - Bartok
  
• Boulez conducts Schoenberg (far from complete, but this about the best you can do)
  
• Boulez - Stravinsky
  
• Various Bach choral stuff - Gardiner
  
• Stravinsky
  
• Alban Berg Collection
  
• Berlioz - Complete orchestral works (Davis)
  
• Brahms - Complete Edition (absolutely superb collection)
  
• Britten conducts Britten + operas 1 and operas 2 + Complete Britten
  
• Sibelius - Symphonies and tone poems
  
• Elgar - Collector's Edition
  
• Vaughan Williams - Collector's Edition
  
• Barber - orchestral works (Alsop)
  
• Scriabin - Piano works
  
• C.P.E. Bach Edition
  
• Corelli - Complete Works
  
• Telemann - Tafelmusik
  
• Schubert - Masterworks (Brilliant Classics - not always the best recordings, but for the amount of stuff you get, worth the money
  
• Poulenc - complete works
  
• Messiaen - complete edition
  
• Mahler - complete edition (the symphony recordings here are a representative cross-section, you might want to supplement it with another complete cycle, e.g. Solti, Bernstein, Abbado, etc.)
  
• Liszt - Complete piano music
  
• Janacek - Operas
  
• Haydn - Symphonies (Hogwood), not complete, but as close as anyone has come to it
  
• Mozart - Symphonies (Pinnock) - an alternative to Mackerras
  
• Bartok - Piano works
  
• Debussy - Piano works
  
  If you need anything more specific than that, let me know and I'll try to recommend something.
  
  If you have a look in the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section for any of these, you'll find many more.

>My last acquisition was a recording of Pictures at an Exhibition and its just not my favourite take on the piece

Which recording did you get? I'd recommend Fritz Reiner with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or Antal Doráti with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

As for Sibelius, I think the most popular recommendation tend to be for Anthony Collins with the London Symphony Orchestra and it's a really safe pick. You can't go wrong with it. The tempos are quite brisk. He plays through all seven symphonies in three and a half hours, faster than most others.

You should know that you can often listen to complete recordings on youtube before deciding whether you'd like to purchase any of them. Here's a few youtube videos for the complete Sibelius symphony cycle:

• Anthony Collins, London Symphony Orchestra
  
• Vladimir Ashkenazy, Philharmonia Orchestra
  
• Paavo Berglund, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
  
• Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic Orchestra
  
  You can also find samples, usually around 30 seconds per track, at various merchant websites like prestomusic.com or amazon.com. While each sample is short, they can still help give you an idea as to whether you would enjoy the particular recordings.