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Tag: Sibelius

Sibelius Birthday Post: Bernstein’s Fifth

Longtime followers of this page know that I tend to go a little berserk around the time of Sibelius’ birthday. In fact, for the past few years, I’ve honored “Eight Days of Sibelius,” from the start of the month to December 8 – conveniently, the actual anniversary.

Well, this year, somehow, it slipped by the wayside. I always have Sibelius’ birthday firmly in mind, but I forgot all about the “Eight Days.” Which is why you may have gotten slammed yesterday by multiple Sibelius posts, which I hope at least you found interesting or informative. There’s just so much Sibelius material to share, and I’m always setting it aside, making a mental note to save it for December. Trouble is, the memory isn’t so well-oiled as it used to be!

With that in mind, I hope you won’t turn up your nose at a little leftover birthday cake. I mentioned in one of my posts yesterday that Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is a personal favorite. I haven’t always found Leonard Bernstein to be the ideal interpreter of Sibelius’ symphonies, but I still can’t pass up a live performance. I saw Bernstein conduct it at Carnegie Hall once, back in the 1980s, and it was a fabulous occasion, to be able to hear Lenny work his magic like some grizzled Kalevala wizard.

Here he is, with the London Symphony Orchestra, in 1966:

A sublime, ennobling start to any day – even if the interpretation may not always be my particular glass of vodka.

December 9, 2021
Hear Sibelius Rare 1948 Interview Voice

Have you ever heard Sibelius speak? I mean, his actual speaking voice? Here’s a rare interview he granted in 1948. Click on the settings cog beneath the video for English translations. Sibelius was two days shy of his 83rd birthday. I imagine he sounds very much like Iku-Torso, the malevolent sea monster of Finnish mythology, who rises from the deep to defend the Sampo in the Kalevala. Clearly, the cigars and vodka have done their work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NBrwJi4WoU

Some contemporaneous footage of Sibelius enjoying a cigar with his long-suffering wife, Aino:

December 8, 2021
Björling Sings Sibelius Carnegie Hall 1957

On Sibelius’ birthday, Jussi Björling sings five of the composer’s songs, as part of a memorial concert at Carnegie Hall on December 8, 1957. The composer died only weeks earlier at the age of 91.

Also on the program was Sibelius’ bleakest symphony, the Symphony No. 4, “En Saga,” and “Finlandia.” Sadly, the guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Martti Similä – a close friend of Sibelius, who held posts as chief conductor with the both the Helsinki and Lahti Symphony Orchestras – died not long after, on January 9. This concert was his American debut – and presumably swan song.

Sibelius had been very fond of Björling’s renditions. After a concert in Helsinki in 1951, he invited the tenor to his home, where he presented him with an inscribed photo. Sibelius wrote, “To the genius, the great singer Jussi Björling.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba1qCe85Jss

December 8, 2021
Sibelius Christmas Songs and Enduring Finnish Light

Who knew that the Finnish master, Jean Sibelius, so dreaded the darkest time of the year? Finland’s kind of a bad place to live, then, don’t you think?

The composer once confided to his secretary, “The darkest weeks of the year, from my birthday [December 8] until Christmas, when the sun is at its lowest, are always a difficult time for me.”

I could say it’s a difficult time for me, too, but for entirely different reasons!

They aren’t exactly sung in the streets here in the United States, but Sibelius’ Christmas songs are some of the most beloved in Finland.

He compiled five of them, written between 1897 and 1913, and published them in 1915 as his Opus 1.

The best-known of these is the fourth of the set, “En Etsi Valtaa Loistoa” (“I seek not power, glory or gold”), which he composed in 1909.

The text is by Zacharias Topelius:

I seek not power, glory or gold,
I wish for the light of Heaven and peace on Earth.
Let Christmas bring happiness and put us in mind of heavenly things.
Neither power nor gold but peace on Earth.

May the wonder of Christmas come to both poor and rich;
Into Earth’s darkness bring the light of Heaven.
For you I yearn, you I await, Lord of Earth and Heaven,
Now bring sweet Christmas to poor and rich.

Here it is arranged for male chorus, followed by the fifth of the set, “High are the snowdrifts.”

“High are the snowdrifts” for women’s voices

“I seek not power” in a jazzy arrangement, played in a snowy field!

A glimpse into the Sibelius home at Christmas:

https://finland.fi/christmas/christmas-with-the-sibelius-family/

Happy, happy birthday and Merry Christmas, Jean Sibelius!

December 8, 2021
Sibelius Rediscovered Avanti Orchestra Concert

Earlier this week, the Avanti Chamber Orchestra shared the modern premiere of a rediscovered Sibelius “Concert Overture” on its Facebook page.

Today the complete concert will stream at 12 pm (EDT). Also on the program will be other Sibelius rarities (a suite from his incidental music to “Belshazzar’s Feast” and the melodrama “The Countess’ Portrait”) and the “Conte fantastique” for harp and string orchestra by André Caplet, after Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” If you miss it, I assume the concert will be archived on Avanti’s Facebook page.

For more information:

Avanti! conducted by Tuomas Hannikainen resurrects Sibelius work dormant for 120 years

While you’re waiting, enjoy this brief review of a Sibelius cigar by Zack the Stogie Man!

http://zackthestogieman.blogspot.com/2012/04/jean-sibelius-review.html

May 30, 2021

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