I have no hesitation in ranking Jean Sibelius as one of my top two favorite composers. He and Vaughan Williams pretty much run a three-legged race. Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865. This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll anticipate his 160th birthday with an hour of early recordings of his music.
Robert Kajanus was Sibelius’ good friend, a sometimes rival, and often a drinking buddy. The duo was captured during one of their infamous binges in a painting by the artist Akseli Gallén-Kallela (pictured). Kajanus set down first recordings of a number of Sibelius’ major works, including the underappreciated Symphony No. 3, which we’ll hear in a 1932 performance, with the London Symphony Orchestra.
As a personal aside, it was actually this recording that served as an introduction for me to the composers’ grandson. For a number of years, I owned a second-hand book business in Philadelphia. I suppose it’s hardly surprising that if anyone ventured into the shop there would be probably an 8-in-10 chance that I would be playing Sibelius.
Well, on this particular occasion, the composer’s grandson, Anssi Blomstedt (son of Sibelius’ youngest daughter, Heidi), wandered in during the Kajanus 3rd, which impressed him sufficiently that he struck up a conversation with me. It turned out he is a documentary filmmaker who was actually living in Philadelphia at the time. By further coincidence, Simon Rattle was coming to town to conduct Sibelius’ 5th Symphony. I was able to get Anssi an introduction to Rattle, who invited us to attend a rehearsal. Somewhere in Vanity Fair’s archives there is a photo of Rattle planting a big kiss on Sibelius’ grandson’s forehead.
Anssi later returned the favor by introducing me to Einojuhani Rautavaara, who came to Philadelphia for the premiere of his 8th Symphony. I’ve got a snapshot of me with Rautavaara, and I’m grinning like a Tyrannosaurus rex. I know I’ve posted it before.
Back to tonight’s show: I’ll also include a highly regarded performance of Sibelius’ last major work, the tone poem “Tapiola,” from 1926. The piece takes its name from Tapio, the forest god mentioned throughout the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, who inhabits the stark pine forests of the wild North. Again, Kajanus gave the piece its first recording, in 1932, but we’ll hear an equally atmospheric, and at times awe-inspiring reading, given seven years later, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky.
Sibelius would live another 30 years after the completion of “Tapiola.” Although he spent a portion of that time laboring at a highly-anticipated 8th Symphony, with the premiere promised to Koussevitzky, he eventually destroyed the manuscript.
We’ll give the last word to one of the heroes of the Kalevala, the swashbuckling Lemminkäinen. Eugene Ormandy was a superb interpreter of Sibelius’ “Four Legends from the Kalevala.” A stereo recording he made with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1978 must be one of his finest. However, his 1940 recording of the last of the legends, “Lemminkäinen’s Return,” is on a whole other level. It surpasses even Sir Thomas Beecham’s legendary account, in terms of sheer virtuosity and visceral excitement. If there’s a more hell-for-leather performance of the piece, I have yet to hear it.
I hope you’ll join me for “Vintage Sibelius,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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IMAGE: “Kajustaflan” by Akseli Gallén-Kallela. Pictured (from left to right), the artist, composer Oskar Merikanto, Robert Kajanus, and Jean Sibelius.
All you need to know about Gallén-Kallela and “The Symposium,” and then some, here:
https://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn14/coleman-on-sibelius-gallen-kallela-and-the-symposium
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