Click here to read our round-up of recent Sibelius publications from Fennica Gehrman.
The volumes (issued 2015–2019) are:
– Piano Miniatures
– Five Esquisses for piano, Op. 114
– Six Humoresques for violin and orchestra
– Six Humoresques for violin and orchestra (arr. Jani Kyllönen)
– Rakastava (1911 and 1912 versions)
– Scherzo for strings
– Andante festivo
In recent years, in addition to a steady flow of new works about Jean Sibelius, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to Aino (1871–1969), the composer’s often long-suffering wife. Now a major biography of her has been published – the most extensive to date – written by Riitta Konttinen, emeritus professor of art history at Helsinki University, who has previously written about Finnish women artists such as Venny Soldan and Helene Schjerfbeck and also contributed to the book about Ainola that appeared in 2015. Konttinen points out that Aino was a remarkably strong and independent person who overcame many difficulties including the death of one of her daughters and her husband’s debts and alcohol problems.
Aino Sibelius, née Järnefelt, was born into an large and influential family: daughter of a general, with siblings who excelled in the fields of drama, painting and music. She was not only the mother of six daughters but also a highly skilled organizer whose competence at managing the family made an effective counterbalance to her husband’s impulsivity and financial naïvety. She was a talented linguist, writer, mathematician and artist as well as a fine amateur musician. Her passion for Ainola’s garden is well-known and her skilful cultivation of fruit, vegetables and berries made a significant and sustainable contribution to the family’s economy. Her empathy with and belief in her husband’s music were unshakeable even if she did become exasperated at his sometimes immoderate behaviour. Nonetheless, she kept her emotions strictly under control, especially in public. She continued to live at Ainola – the house she and Jean had commissioned and lived in since 1904 – until 1969, the year of her death at the age of 97.
Aino Sibelius by Riitta Konttinen. Published by Siltala, Helsinki 2019. In Finnish
Link to purchase: click here
Members of Sibelius One at the 2019 AGM. Photo: © Rob Ebbers
Sibelius One’s 2019 AGM was held at Ainola on 5 September.
Members may read or download minutes of the 2019 AGM by clicking this link. Please note that you must be logged in to the site in order to access the page. Also available on the same page are short accounts for 2018 and an updated version of Sibelius One’s constitution.
Fennica Gehrman has signed a publishing agreement for a concert overture by Sibelius. Based on material found in the manuscript of the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower), it was discovered by the conductor Tuomas Hannikainen, following references made by Sibelius himself. A significant work that, according to Hannikainen, stands up well on its own, it lasts 11–12 minutes and was conducted by Sibelius at concerts of his works at the Fire Brigade Hall in Turku on 7 April 1900, and the next day at the Old Academy Hall in the same city. The reviewer of Uusi Aura called the piece a ‘ballad’ that ‘attracted much attention’; his colleague in Åbo Underrättelser mentioned that the piece had not been performed in Turku before, and was received with ‘sympathetic applause’, though conceding that it was somewhat overshadowed by the suite from King Christian II. The score of the overture is scheduled for publication in autumn 2019.
Previously it has been assumed that the overture performed in Turku was just the orchestral introduction to the opera, some three minutes of music that lack an effective concert ending. When examining the original manuscript, however, Hannikainen became curious about some markings and changes, apparently in Sibelius’s handwriting. Through extensive research into the manuscript and other sources he was able to reconstruct the longer overture, i.e. the Concert Overture.
The ongoing Sibelius discography project has received another update. To download the latest version (free) click the link below: For more information on the discography project and recent releases click here to visit our Discography & Recordings page.
Sibelius One’s Annual General Meeting 2019 will be held at Hesan kamari, Ainola, Järvenpää, Finland at 12 noon on Thursday 5 September 2019. All members are welcome!
Click here for the agenda as a pdf file: SibeliusOne_AGM_Agenda_2019
The fifth Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera in Italy will take place from 27 September until 13 October 2019. Its artistic director is Federico Ermirio.
Artists performing include the Myrsky String Ensemble, Andrea Carcano, Giovanni Alvino and Folke Gräsbeck (piano), Eva Alkula and Jenny Vartiainen (kantele), Irene Cerboncini (soprano) and the Symphony Orchestra of La Spezia Conservatory conducted by Giovanni Di Stefano.
Some changes have been made to concert venues as a consequence of the Municipality of Zoagli having been placed under temporary receivership. The revised schedule of concerts and events is given below:
The fifth Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio e Rivieria in Italy will take place from 27 September until 13 October 2019. Its artistic director is Federico Ermirio.
Artists performing include the Myrsky String Ensemble, Andrea Carcano, Paolo Restani and Folke Gräsbeck (piano), Eva Alkula and Jenny Vartiainen (kantele), Irene Cerboncini (soprano) and the Symphony Orchestra of La Spezia Conservatory conducted by Giovanni Di Stefano.
The schedule of concerts and events is detailed below:
Breitkopf & Härtel’s JSW complete edition has published the critically edited Urtext of the tone poem Finlandia as a stand-alone paperback score.
Finlandia is edited by JSW’S editor-in-chief Timo Virtanen and comes with a detailed preface discussing the tone poem’s genesis and publication history. It is fascinating to learn, for example, that Sibelius took the autograph score with him to German in the autumn of 1900 but lost it – necessitating an urgent message to his faithful copyist Ernst Rölling in Helsinki, asking for a score to be written out from the orchestral parts!
The paperback volume is much cheaper than the hardback one will be (SON 630, in preparation) but does not include the full explanation of sources and of the editorial decision-making process that will come when it appears in the full hardback edition. Some asterisks in the score indicate points that will be clarified in the forthcoming volume.
Breitkopf & Härtel Partitur-Bibiothek 5658
Price: €26.64
Orchestral parts also available for purchase.
Also newly released by Edition Wilhelm Hansen is an arrangement by Luukas Hiltunen for string quartet of the Scène d’amour from Scaramouche, Op. 71.
Sibelius himself arranged exctracts from the ballet-pantomime Scaramouche (1913) for piano, and the Scène d’amour also for violin and piano. This arrangement, which is based on the violin and piano version, received its world première performance on 23 March 2018 at the Church of the Cross in Lahti, Finland.
Luukas Hiltunen has also made orchestral arrangements of Sibelius’s organ pieces Intrada and Surusoitto, Op. 111. More information on those arrangements was published in Sibelius One’s magazine in January 2019.
The eighteenth Sibelius i Korpo festival will take place on 18–21 July 2019, on the island of Korpo in the beautiful Turku archipelago.
This extended festival will present Sibelius’s complete piano music – the most extensive survey of his piano music ever in a single event anywhere in the world, including his youth production for the instrument and piano transcriptions of orchestral works. Six pianists are involved: Terhi Dostal, Sae Iida, Janne Mertanen, Laura Mikkola, Joseph Tong and the festival’s artistic director Folke Gräsbeck. The festival is organized by Petri Kirkkomäki.
Events take place primarily at Korpo gård, where Sibelius himself played chamber music when he visited the area in 1887.
Folke Gräsbeck has recorded all of Sibelius’s piano music for BIS – recordings about which the prestigious American magazine Fanfare remarked: ‘Sibelius’s output for solo piano will likely never again be recorded as comprehensively or as well.’
Folke Gräsbeck
Gräsbeck has planned the concerts to correspond with the four main periods in Sibelius’s output:
1) 1885–1889: youth production
2) 1890–1906: the National Romantic period
3) 1906–1923: the time of metamorphosis
4) 1923–1931: achieving synthesis
Large-scale works such as the F major Piano Sonata and Op. 67 Sonatinas alternate with piquant miniatures such as the Thirteen Pieces of Op. 76, some of which last barely a minute. The famous ‘Trees’ and ‘Flowers’ rub shoulders with waltzes and mazurkas.
There are piano suites from theatre music, for instance for the ancient Babylonian drama Belshazzar’s Feast and the love story Pelléas et Mélisande, not forgetting Shakespeate’s Tempest, the music for which comes from Sibelius’s last stylistic period, parallel with the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of Armas Järnefelt’s birth. He was Sibelius’s brother-in-law and the two men were close friends since their student years in Helsinki. His grandson Mikko Sajari will open a Järnefelt exhibition at Korpo gård, assembled by Sibelius’s grandson Severi Blomstedt. Järnefelt’s piano music will also be performed at the festival.
€30 per concert: contact Petri Kirkkomäki (petri.kirkkomaki@kolumbus.fi or info@sibeliusfestivalkorpo.com, or phone +358 400 708878).
