Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Sibelius

Vintage Sibelius on “The Lost Chord”

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

December 6, 2025
Autumn Classical Music Crossword Puzzle

It’s ginger snaps for breakfast!

One of things I did to fill the time during the pandemic was think up clues for crossword puzzles while tidying up the house. Here’s the revival of one of those, on the subject of autumn. The answers are all related in one way or another to classical music and the season.

Of course, I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. When filling out the puzzle this morning, I was delighted to find among the answers my old favorites, “SIBELIUS” and “VAUGHANWILLIAMS.”

Follow the link and select “solve online” at the bottom of the page. You’ll then be able to type directly into the squares. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the puzzle, you’ll find the solutions by clicking on “Answer Key PDF.”

Take it or leaf it! Celebrate autumn by raking through 50 colorful clues here:

https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/Data/2020.09/2707/27072447.189.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawNhCEdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFrUEkzQzdkRkFHaG9UQ3pBAR7_GwjVPSq3SjG_y6dWBnKsfCyAJ5GG9vhfFiuIzMMi0Ig-WK8HXFbuudeebQ_aem_sM-JlVkOhrX_QuqfBp0vTw

October 19, 2025
Bryn Mawr Book Sale Haul Classical Music Finds

Here’s my haul for this year’s Bryn Mawr Book Sale (held not in Bryn Mawr, but at the Stuart Country Day School in Princeton). There used to be a lot of classical CDs on offer. For some reason, they no long seem to accept them as donations, even though there are still plenty of crappy DVDs. Be that as it may, the real draw is the books.

Unfortunately, as a former book dealer, my consumption is somewhat dulled, as I’ve seen and acquired so much over the years. (Chain stores are totally ruined for me.) I have a storage locker full of collectible material I need to sort through and get rid of, if anyone is even interested anymore. Still, in this regressive age, it is cheering to see so many people at a book sale milling about with filled shopping bags.

After two humdrum years with no CDs and little else to entice me, you can imagine my excitement to find a table of honest-to-goodness classical music books. And not just Gilbert & Sullivan anthologies and the same three to five books you see everywhere. (I’m looking at you, Arthur Rubinstein’s autobiography.)

At first, I wandered lonely as a cloud, gazing through a fog at a table full of books on popular music. A few boxes of sheet music barely registered. Then, voilà (not to be confused with viola) – suddenly I was on the hook for Beethoven, Mozart, Schoenberg, Webern, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, and even Offenbach. Of particular interest is a paperback on Sibelius from 1952 – when the composer was still alive – full of fun photos.

Some of these titles were from the collection of Princeton University librarian Peter Cziffra (his name is stamped on the bottom edges). Amusingly, in the general biographies section, I found a book on Alban Berg, with “BERG” scrawled in magic marker along the top edge. Either Mr. Cziffra had the book stored with that edge facing out, or he was just sitting at his desk at some point with nothing to do.

I also bought two books that have nothing to do with music. Well, I suppose one of them does, tangentially, as George Barrow’s “The Romany Rye” is a sequel to “Lavengro,” said to be one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ favorite books.

The other is by Henry Kingsley, the brother of Charles Kingsley (author of that Victorian children’s classic, “The Water-Babies”). I’d never heard of Henry and the back cover didn’t reveal much, but I loved the title – “Ravenshoe.” And I just know any company that went by the name Bison Books had to have reissued it as a labor of love. This is one of those occasions when it definitely came in handy to have a smart phone, as I was able to find out a little more about Henry and his novel, which apparently culminates in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sign me up!

I wonder how many of these I’ll actually read before I die. In my field, though, at least the music books are good reference.

Established in 1931, the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale bills itself as the longest-running and largest sale of its kind on the East Coast. Proceeds go to scholarships for local students attending Bryn Mawr and Wellesley Colleges. The cause is all well and good, but I’d contribute more if they brought back the CDs.

This year’s sale runs through weekend (open until 8:00 tonight, 5:00 on Saturday, and 2:00 on Sunday).

The Annual Sale

March 14, 2025
Epic Finnish Music Kalevala’s Lost Chord

Hang on to your stoicism. We’re headed for an epic “Finnish.” This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll conclude 2024 with a program of music inspired by movers and shakers of the “Kalevala.”

The “Kalevala,” a disparate collection of long narrative poems culled from the oral tradition, is frequently referred to as the Finnish national epic. Its fantastic and heroic tales informed the work of Finland’s greatest artists at a time when the country began to surge toward independence after 700 years of Swedish rule and an additional century as a duchy of the Russian Empire.

In a nod to Finnish endeavor, we’ll hear “Aino” by Robert Kajanus. Kajanus was Sibelius’ first great champion, who conducted first performances of many of the composer’s major works and led the Helsinki Philharmonic for 50 years. He also wrote over 200 pieces himself. “Aino” was composed in 1885 for the Kalevala Society, to mark the 50th anniversary of the poem’s publication.

The subject is the wizard Väinämöinen, one of the poems’ heroes, who always seems to be plagued by ill luck. In this particular tale, he wins a singing contest, plunging his rival, Joukahainen, into a swamp. When the latter promises the wizard his sister’s hand in marriage if Väinämöinen will save him from drowning, the sister, Aino, drowns herself rather than submit to this seemingly unbearable fate. She later returns to taunt the grieving Väinämöinen in the form of a salmon.

One of the most important Finnish composers after Sibelius was Uuno Klami. Klami brought a degree of French polish back from his studies in Paris, where he fell under the irreverent sway of Les Six. This led to the composition of an unusually anti-heroic take on the Kalevala legends, “Lemminkäinen’s Island Adventures.” However, in spite of his occasionally Gallic disposition, Klami grew into one of Finland’s most respected composers. Sibelius recognized his talent and even lobbied for a small lifetime income for Klami from the Finnish government.

Klami’s most ambitious Kalevala inspiration is his “Kalevala Suite,” of 1933, which he extensively revised ten years later, when this former “enfant terrible” recognized the importance of his role as an artist in a country at war. Unlike Sibelius’ better-known “Four Legends from the Kalevala,” Klami’s suite scrupulously sidesteps the heroes’ actual adventures. He opts instead to paint on a much broader canvas, with movements titled “The Creation of the Earth,” “The Sprout of Spring,” “Terhenniemi” (replete with the sounds of nature and the sunny bliss of a summer’s day), “Cradle Song for Lemminkäinen” (Lemminkäinen’s mother’s song, sung over his dead body, soon to be resurrected), and “The Forging of the Sampo” (a kind of talisman everyone seems to want).

Of course, no composer had more success drawing on the Kalevala legends than Jean Sibelius. We’ll conclude the hour with a Sibelius rarity, “A Song for Lemminkäinen,” from 1896. This follows on the heels of the composer’s “Lemminkäinen Suite” (also known as “Four Legends from the Kalevala”), written earlier in the decade.

I hope you’ll join me for this “Epic Finnish,” on The Lost Chord, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 28, 2024
Sibelius Finland’s Musical Hero

Well, “8 Days of Sibelius” got away from me.

I intended to post Day 6 when I got back from a concert in Philadelphia on Friday (for which I had to be there extra early), but then I got stuck there until extra late. Yesterday, Day 7, I already had a baseline of three posts – two to promote my radio shows, “Sweetness and Light” and “The Lost Chord,” and another to acknowledge Pearl Harbor Day – and then I simply got too busy and was unable to contribute a fourth.

In order to keep up, what I really needed was a good snowstorm. But as it is, this year, you’re only getting 6 Days of Sibelius.

How important is Jean Sibelius to Finland? December 8, the composer’s birthday, is a national holiday. The Finnish flag is flown everywhere and the date is celebrated as a Day of Finnish Music. I can’t think of a single artist here in the United States we revere on anywhere near the same level. But of course, for the Finns Sibelius is a source of national pride for multiple reasons, not least because of his importance to the cause of Finnish independence.

Yle Klassinen, now my classical music station of choice, is playing all Finnish music today. Keep in mind, they’re seven hours ahead of New Jersey, so at the time I’m posting this, it’s already late afternoon there. You can stream the audio online or, if you have a digital radio (like me), enjoy it in that fashion. If the playlist doesn’t come up in English for you, there should be a translate function, when you visit the website.

Here’s the homepage:

https://areena.yle.fi/podcastit/ohjelmat/57-llL6Y4blL

The current playlist:

https://areena.yle.fi/podcastit/1-72178759

A very happy birthday to Jean Sibelius. My life is so much the richer for his music.

Sibelius honored in Helsinki with the crowd singing his “Finlandia Hymn” for the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2015

Inspiring video set to “Finlandia” celebrating Finland’s natural wonders – and of course Sibelius’ wondrous music!

December 8, 2024

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