Monthly Archives: March 2023

The Tempest, arranged for chamber ensemble

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Miranda – The Tempest (J.W. Waterhouse, 1916). Public domain

Luukas Hiltunen has been commissioned to arrange for chamber music ensemble selected movements from Sibelius’s The Tempest (1925–26) for the Ruovesi Summer Music Festival:

1. The Oak Tree, from Op. 109 No. 2
2. The Harvesters, from Op. 109 No. 2
3. Berceuse, from Op. 109,No. 2
4. Chorus of the Winds, Op. 109 No. 3
5. Dance of the Nymphs, from Op. 109 No. 3
6. Prospero, from Op. 109 No. 3
7. Miranda, from Op. 109 No. 3
8. The Naiads, from Op. 109 No. 3

These movements are ideally suited for performance by a smaller-scale instrumental forces. The suite will be published by Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen, which has already issued Hiltunen’s arrangement for string quartet of Sibelius’s Scène d’amour (WH33255). Wilhelm Hansen has also published Jouni Kaipainen’s reduced version of Sibelius’s incidental music to The Tempest (2008, WH32914).

The new arrangements will be premiered at a concert on Sunday 2 July 2023 at 4 pm at Sofia Magdalena Church, Ruovesi, Finland. The performers will be Anna Aminoff, flute; Eeva Mäenluoma, clarinet; Kasmir Uusitupa, Otto Antikainen and Tami Pohjola, violins; Aida Hadzajlic and Riina Piirilä, violas; Beata Antikainen and Sirja Nironen, cellos; Jarkko Uimonen, double bass and Jan Michiels, piano. The concert also features songs by Sibelius (Johanna Isokoski, soprano) and music by Debussy and Josef Krogulski.
Tickets are on sale from Friday 10 March 2023 via http://www.lippu.fi.
More details (in Finnish): http://www.musiikkiaruovesi.fi/


Luukas Hiltunen

Contact information, Luukas Hiltunen:
UE (Universal Edition AG) Composer Profile: https://www.universaledition.com/luukas-hiltunen-7879
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/luukashiltunenmusician/
Instagram: @luukas_hiltunen_composer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luukas-hiltunen-composer/

New and recent releases from Breitkopf & Härtel

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There have been further releases in the JSW critical edition of Sibelius’s complete works from Breitkopf & Härtel.

In the main edition the most recent releases are:

String Quartets in E flat major, A minor, B flat major and D minor (Voces intimae)

Sibelius’s œuvre contains four complete string quartets. The first three – in E flat major (JS 184, 1885), A minor (JS 183, 1889), B flat major (Op. 4, 1890) – date from his youth and study years. They remained unprinted until long after his death, and the String Quartet in E flat major was also not performed in public. By contrast the D minor ‘Voces intimae’ Quartet was published in 1909 and has long been acknowledged as one of his masterpieces. This volume also includes an incomplete early version of the B flat major Quartet’s first movement.

Edited by Pekka Helasvuo and Tuija Wicklund
SON 634 (€326.00) / 328 pages / ISMN: 979-0-004-80369-1

The Dryad, Op. 45 No. 1; Music zu einer Scène (1904); Dance Intermezzo, Op. 45 No. 2 (including also early version); Pohjola’s Daughter, Op. 49; Pan and Echo, Op. 53

This volume contains five orchestral works from the period 1904–10, the largest and best-known of which is Pohjola’s Daughter. In addition, a fragment illustrating the unrealized plan of a symphonic poem called Luonnotar, which Sibelius reworked into Pohjola’s Daughter, appears as a facsimile. Musik zu einer Scène is now published for the first time.

Review in preparation

Edited by Timo Virtanen
SON 636 (€233.00) / 244 pages / ISMN: 979-0-004-80391-2

Also released separately, based on the scores already issued in the complete edition (edited by Anna Pulkkis and Folke Gräsbeck), are the two major piano trios from 1886–87, the ‘Hafträsk’ Trio and ‘Korpo’ Trio. These important scores are published for the first time in the JSW edition.
‘Hafträsk’ Trio in A minor, JS 207: EB 9448 (€39.90)
‘Korpo’ Trio in D major, JS 209: EB 9449 (€39.90)

     

A new paperback study score of the Lemminkäinen Suite has also been released, based on the Urtext (edited by Tuija Wicklund) previously issued in hardback (2013).
Lemminkäinen: PB 5576 (€39.90)

All of Sibelius’s symphonies except the Fifth have already appeared in the JSW edition. The Fifth is currently being prepared, edited by the project’s editor-in-chief Timo Virtanen.