A new recording made on Sibelius’s own piano at Ainola will be released by BIS Records in early 2015, marking both the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the piano itself. The Steinway instrument heard on this recording arrived at Ainola in 1915, as a gift paid for by 144 of Sibelius’s grateful supporters on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday.
Performed by Folke Gräsbeck, the programme contains a wide-ranging selection of Sibelius’s piano music, familiar and unfamiliar, including also some of the composer’s own piano transcriptions of his orchestral music. Folke Gräsbeck’s credentials as a Sibelius interpreter are second to none: he participates on 24 discs in the complete Sibelius Edition project for BIS Records including the complete solo piano music (10 CDs) and discs of songs, works with solo instruments and with choir. He also gave the first piano recital at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti in 2000, with a programme consisting exclusively of Sibelius piano music premières. His repertoire also includes Sibelius’s Piano Quintet, four piano quartets and five piano trios. Gräsbeck has performed 397 out of Sibelius’s total of approx. 600 works, plus fragments, and has given the first performances of 90 of them. This new recording was made in May 2014.