Leif Segerstam 1944–2024

Leif Segerstam, 2015
Leif Segerstam with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
in Lahti in 2015
(photo: © Lahti Symphony Orchestra / Juha Tanhua)

The conductor and composer Leif Segerstam has died at the age of 80.

Born in Vaasa, Finland, on 2 March 1944, Segerstam was one of the most versatile musical talents in the Nordic countries. He enjoyed a distinguished and colourful career since 1962, when he made his debut as a violinist. His first conducting appearance came the following year, when he also gained his conducting diploma from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He also studied the violin, piano and composition Sibelius Academy, and continued his education at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Segerstam was chief conductor of ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1975 until 1983, and principal conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1995 until 2007, later becoming its chief conductor emeritus. He was also principal conductor of the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and appeared at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland. He held positions with numerous other orchestras, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and  guest-conducted all over the world. From the autumn of 1997 until the spring of 2013 he was professor of orchestra conducting at the Sibelius Academy. The Nordic Music Committee (NOMUS) awarded Segerstam the 1999 Nordic Council Music Prize, and in 2004 he was awarded the annual Finnish State Prize for Music.

His music-making was sometimes controversial but was distinguished by a fiercely sharp intellect coupled with boundless creativity. In an interview with Bruce Duffie in Chicago, he emphasized that the purpose of music is ‘communication’; ‘music is always reborn when it is relived in the performing moment’.

Leif Segerstam, 1967
The young Leif Segerstam (1967) (Photo: Lauri Kautia. CC BY 4.0)

Segerstam was a powerful interpreter not only of composers such as Mahler and Allan Pettersson but also of Sibelius. He  had an instinctive and profound understanding of Sibelius’s sound world, producing performances that were both monumental and full of inner life. His Sibelius discography was vast and wide-ranging, including not only two complete cycles of symphonies (Danish National Symphony Orchestra / Chandos and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra / Ondine) but also a series of rare works and theatre music (Turku Philharmonic Orchestra / Naxos) and much more.

He displayed exceptional creativity as a composer throughout his musical career. He wrote more than 370 symphonies, well as concertos and chamber and vocal music.

Leif Segerstam passed away on 9 October 2024.

Sibelius One AGM 2024

Sibelius One AGM 2023 in Hesan kamari
Sibelius One’s 2023 AGM in Hesan kamari

All members are welcome to Sibelius One’s Annual General Meeting 2024, which will take place at Hesan kamari, Ainola, Järvenpää, Finland at 12 noon on Thursday 29 August 2024.

Members attending the Lahti Sibelius Festival can travel together by train.

We are grateful to Julia Donner and the staff at Ainola for generously allowing us to use Hesan kamari for our AGM.

Click here to download agenda

Sibelius One Magazine July 2024 now being sent out

Sibelius One Magazine 2-24-07 cover

The July 2024 issue of Sibelius One’s magazine is now ready.
Included in this issue:

  • Finnish Folklore in the Work of Jean Sibelius  David Revilla Velasco
  • Sibelius – Pure and Simple – 25 years of the Lahti International
    Sibelius Festival  Andrew Barnett
  • The Sibelius in Korpo Festival 2002–23  Folke Gräsbeck
  • Fake News  Artificial Intelligence writes about Sibelius

Subscribers have been sent their copies of  the magazine. For more about our magazines, or to add the magazine to your subscrciption, please click here.

All our previous magazines (now including the January 2024 issue) are now available for current members to download: click here.

Spagnuolo manuscript at auction

Spagnuolo title

The manuscript for Sibelius’s Spagnuolo is being auctioned by Sotheby’s on 26 June 2024 at 10:00 BST.

Ths manuscript of Spagnuolo for piano, JS 181, is boldly signed (‘Jean Sibelius’). it is a fair-copy manuscript, written in black ink on up to six two-stave systems per page, with bold autograph title (‘Spagnuolo’) at head and signature at end (‘Jean Sibelius’), a few deletions and erasures.

Auction: Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern; Lot 148.

Price estimate: 8,000 – 12,000 GBP

Link: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern/jean-sibelius-autograph-manuscript-signed-of

Jean Sibelius signature

Images from Sotheby’s website

Valse triste – first performance

Jean Sibelius’s famous Valse triste was performed on 14 April 1904 in Vaasa, ten days before its purported premiere in Helsinki

Sheahan Virgin

Wasabladet

Jean Sibelius’s Valse triste is one of his most popular compositions. It began life as ‘Tempo di valse lente – Poco risoluto’, its original purpose having been to accompany a dance scene in Death (Kuolema), a three-act, Symbolist play by Sibelius’s brother-in-law Arvid Järnefelt (1861–1932). The play was premiered on 2 December 1903 at the Finnish Theatre in Helsinki, with Sibelius conducting. Shortly thereafter, he refashioned the waltz into a standalone concert piece, to which he gave the now-familiar name Valse triste. Most notably, he altered the ending and added parts for flute, clarinet, horn and timpani.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

 

Sibelius on original instruments

Finnish Baroque Orchestra
Finnish Baroque Orchestra (photo: © Jaakko Paarvala)

Later this month the Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO) and the conductor Tomas Djupsjöbacka continue their period sound exploration of the music of Jean Sibelius in a concert featuring his Violin Concerto and Fourth Symphony. In the orchestra of Sibelius’s time, the string instruments used gut strings and the woodwind had different mechanisms from today. The Vienna horns and the German trombones also have an impact on the sound. Since Sibelius’s own time, neither of these works have been performed on instruments like the ones that were used then.

Founded initially as the Sixth Floor Orchestra, the Finnish Baroque Orchestra has played an essential role in the emergence of the early music movement in Northern Europe. FiBO has been both an innovator and leader in the early music scene in Nordic countries since its inception in 1989. The ensemble’s repertoire is grounded in baroque music, but ongoing revelations in historical performance research have encouraged the orchestra to broaden its horizons to both much earlier and much later music. This includes everything from medieval music to performing Jean Sibelius on period instruments, as well as a wide variety of newly commissioned works. FiBO is the orchestra in residence at the historic House of Nobility in Helsinki, Finland and tours widely across Finland and internationally. FiBO has received awards such as the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s Finnish Musical Act of the Year and Disc of the Year.

Known as a versatile musician with strong roots in chamber music, Tomas Djupsjöbacka is the founding cellist of the string quartet Meta4 as well as a member of the renowned Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Since his conducting debut in 2013 with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Djupsjöbacka has appeared with most Finnish orchestras. He has been orincipal conductor and artistic director of Vaasa City Orchestra since 2021.

The soloist in the Violin Concerto is Ilya Gringolts, one of the absolute top violinists of today and a long time collaborator of FiBO. After studying violin and composition with Tatiani Liberova and Zhanneta Metallidi in St Petersburg, he attended the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with Itzhak Perlman. He won the International Violin Competition Premio Paganini in 1998. Ilya Gringolts is a professor at the Zurich University of the Arts and was appointed to the renowned Accademia Chigiana in Siena in 2021.

Friday 24.05.2024, 7.00 pm, Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna
Saturday 25.05.2024, 6.00 pm, Helsinki Music Centre

Tickets and more information: click here

Sibelius at the 2024 Proms

BBC Proms 2024 visual

The programmes for the BBC Proms 2024 have been announced. Sibelius is represented at the following concerts (links to BBC website beneath each concert listing):

Friday 26 July 2024 at 7.30 pm
The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Gateshead (Proms around the UK)
Germaine Tailleferre: Little Suite
Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto
Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 8
Alena Baeva, violin
Royal Northern Sinfonia / Dinis Sousa
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ez39hn


Wednesday 7 August 2024 at 7.30 pm
Royal Albert Hall, London
Robert Schumann: Genoveva – overture
Jean Sibelius: Pohjola’s Daughter
Hans Abrahamsen: Horn Concerto (UK premiere)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
Stefan Dohr, horn
BBC Philharmonic / John Storgårds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ec8mzc


Saturday 24 August 2024 at 7.30 pm
Royal Albert Hall
Julius Eastman: Symphony No. 2, ‘The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved’ UK premiere
Gustav Mahler: Rückert-Lieder
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Dalia Stasevska
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e5qxp6


Sunday 25 August 2024 at 7.30 pm
Royal Albert Hall
Lara Poe: Laulut maaseudulta (Songs from the Countryside) (BBC commission: world premiere)
Jean Sibelius: The Wood Nymph
Gustav Holst: The Planets
Anu Komsi, soprano / Royal College of Music Chamber Choir
Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra / Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ep5wxj


Sunday 8 September 2024 at 4 pm
Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (Proms Around the UK)
Doreen Carwithen: The Men of Sherwood Forest – overture
Elizabeth Kelly: Lace Machine (BBC commission: world premiere)
Sergei Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The Adventures of Robin Hood, suite
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 3
Clare Hammond, piano
BBC Concert Orchestra / Anna-Maria Helsing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/efnqwh