Essential Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was one of the most unusual major composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – an outsider whose new methods of constructing music would prove almost as influential as Wagner's.
Read more…Sibelius was fiercely loyal to Finland, his native country on Europe's northern fringe. But he was also in love with central Europe's rich musical life and traditions – notably its composers (including Wagner and Bruckner) and its great orchestras (he once auditioned to join the Vienna Philharmonic's violins). It was the orchestra that would induce Sibelius's greatest masterpieces, including seven symphonies and a series of mystical tone poems. Like Finnish architects of the period, Sibelius believed in functionalism. His symphonies aren't 'argued' like those from the Germanic tradition; instead, the shape of his melodies and the colour of his harmonies determine the direction his orchestral works take, as if the music is growing out of itself. But Sibelius was also a master of the miniature – a gifted songwriter and a stoic Lutheran whose music often gravitates towards solemn hymns.