The programmes for the five concerts concentrate almost exclusively on Sibelius’s most popular orchestral works. The soloists will be Japanese: Kyoko Tabe, piano and Yuzuko Horigome, violin.
Founded in 1930, the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the foremost symphony orchestras in the Nordic countries, and has previously made international concert tours to Great Britain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Estonia, Germany, Spain and the United States. Recent chief conductors include following Hannu Lintu, John Storgårds and Eri Klas, and since August 2013 Santtu-Matias Rouvali has been its artistic director.
As well as being chief conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Santtu-Matias Rouvali (b. 1985) is principal guest conductor of the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. He takes up the position of chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony from the 2017/18 season. Other orchestars with which he collaborates include the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Bamberger Symphoniker.
The planned venues and programmes are as follows:
Friday 19 May at 7 pm: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan
Sibelius: Finlandia
Grieg: Piano Concerto (Kyoko Tabe, piano)
Sibelius: Symphony No 2
Saturday 20 May at 3 pm: Fukuyama Read & Rose Concert Hall
Sibelius: Finlandia
Grieg: Piano Concerto (Kyoko Tabe, piano)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Tuesday 23 May at 7 pm: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan
Sibelius: En saga
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (Yuzuko Horigome, violin)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
Wednesday 24 May at 7 pm: Hamamatsu Act City Concert Hall
Sibelius: Finlandia
Grieg: Piano Concerto (Kyoko Tabe, piano)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
Thursday 25 May at 7 pm: Osaka Symphony Hall
Sibelius: Finlandia
Sibelius: Violin Concerto
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
The concert series includes a performance on 6 December to celebrate the centenary of Finland’s independence, featuring the first UK performance of the complete Press Celebrations Music (including Finland Awakes, the original version of Finlandia).
Sakari Oramo has been principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 2013, and has recorded a complete Sibelius cycle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Erato/Warner Classics).
27 September 2017 / 19:30 Richard Strauss Tod und Verklärung Berg Violin Concerto (Alina Pogotskina violin) Sibelius Symphony No. 5 Click here for prices & information
27 October 2017 / 19:30 Schmitt Symphony No 2 Franck Symphonic Variations Ravel Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (Jean-Efflam Bavouzet piano) Sibelius Symphony No. 3 Click here for prices & information
29 November 2017 / 19:30 Sibelius Symphony No. 6 Anders Hillborg Violin Concerto No. 2 (UK première) (Lisa Batiashvili violin) Sibelius Symphony No. 4 Click here for prices & information
6 December 2017 / 19:30 Finland Awakes! – Celebrating Finnish Independence Day Sibelius Press Celebrations Music (UK première) Sibelius Cantique and Devotion (Guy Johnston cello) Sibelius Symphony No. 1 Click here for prices & information
6 January 2018 / 19:30 Sibelius Symphony No. 7 Sibelius Luonnotar (Anu Komsi soprano) Aarre Merikanto Ekho (UK première) Sibelius Symphony No. 2 Click here for prices & information
Programmes have now been announced for the 2017 Sibelius Festival in Lahti.
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s 18th International Sibelius Festival will take place at the Sibelius Hall from 30 August until 3 September 2017, and its artistic director is Dima Slobodeniouk, principal conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. There will also be a guest appearance by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali as well as chamber concerts and other events. This year’s theme is the centenary of Finland’s independence. The festival is also part of the national ‘Finland 100’ programme of events.
Click here to read our review of three recent Sibelius publications from Breitkopf & Härtel: the study score of Skogsrået (The Wood-Nymph), a selection of 18 piano pieces and the manuscript facsimiles of Luonnotar.
The autograph manuscript of Sibelius’s String Quartet in D minor (‘Voces intimae’), Op. 56, signed twice (‘Jean Sibelius’), was offered for auction at the bi-annual Music and Continental Books and Manuscripts sale by Sotheby’s, London on 29 November 2016. The sale also offered the complete autograph manuscript of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony (‘Resurrection’).
This is the autograph manuscript of Sibelius’s most famous chamber work and features the original ending, which differs from the published version. The original ending can be heard on a recording by the Tempera Quartet on BIS-1466 (or BIS-1903/05).
The large number of new recordings of ‘Voces intimae’ (see e.g. our Discography & Recordings page) in recent years have confirmed its status as one of Sibelius’s middle-period masterpieces.
The quartet was completed in 1909 and published by Lienau the same year. Although this manuscript was used by Sibelius’s publisher to set up the first edition in 1909, it contains important differences from it. The final twenty-one bars differ markedly from the printed scores and were evidently completely rewritten on a later manuscript.
This is the sole surviving manuscript of the whole work.
Guide price: £ 200,000-300,000 € 222,000-333,000
Update: The manuscript of ‘Voces intimae’ remained unsold. The manuscript of Mahler’s Second Symphony was the star of the auction, selling for £4,546,250.
Sibelius was by no means the only composer to draw inspiration from the Kalevala in the late 19th century. Karl Müller-Berghaus’s (1829–1907) opera Die Kalewainen in Pochjola was composed in Turku more than 120 years ago, to a libretto by Franz Spengler. This recently rediscovered work is the first through-composed opera based on the Kalevala, but it has never before been staged anywhere. In late February/early March 2017 the Turku Music Festival and Turku Philharmonic Orchestra will bring the opera to Turku’s LOGOMO cultural centre.
The composer, conductor and violinist Karl Müller-Berghaus was born in Braunschweig, Germany, and served as conductor of the Turku orchestra from 1886 until 1895.
The production features leading soloists including Tommi Hakala, Johanna Rusanen-Kartano, Christian Juslin and Susanna Andersson. It will be directed by Tiina Puumalainen and conducted by Leif Segerstam.
The performance lasts approximately 3 hours and the opera is sung in German.
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra has invited the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra to perform at the concert in the Sibelius Hall on Friday 1 September 2017 as part of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s 18th International Sibelius Festival. The GSO will be conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the rising star conductor, originally from Lahti, who takes over as principal conductor in Gothenburg in autumn and will bring his new orchestra to his home town right away. It will be the first foreign visit by Rouvali together with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (the National Orchestra of Sweden).
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s 18th International Sibelius Festival will take place at the Sibelius Hall from 30 August until 3 September 2017, and its artistic director is Dima Slobodeniouk, principal conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. In addition to the concert by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, there will be three concerts by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Slobodeniouk’s baton (Wednesday 30 August, Thursday 31 August and Saturday 2 September), as well as chamber concerts and other events. The theme of the programmes of music by Sibelius is the centenary of Finland’s independence, and the orchestral concerts will include, among other works, the Second and Fifth Symphonies, Spring Song, En saga, The Wood-Nymph and the Press Celebrations Music; further details of the repertoire will be announced shortly. The festival is also part of the national ‘Finland 100’ programme of events.
Dima Slobodeniouk, artistic director of the Sibelius festival, regards the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s visit as a landmark in the festival’s history: ‘One of Sibelius’s most important champions outside Finland was the composer and conductor Wilhelm Stenhammar, who was principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra from 1907 until 1922. When we speak of Finland’s independence, we should remember that the year 1917 marks an important phase in Sibelius’s life as well, when knowledge of his music was spreading rapidly internationally, and the Gothenburg orchestra played an important part in this’.
Sten Cranner, general manager and artistic director of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, says that the orchestra is genuinely honoured by and grateful for the invitation to perform at the Lahti Sibelius Festival in 2017. ‘Most of all because Jean Sibelius is so important for the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s repertoire, history and identity, but it’s certainly also very special for us in that we will make a guest appearance at the festival for the first time in Finland’s anniversary year. This will also be our very first concert outside Sweden with our new chief conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali.’
The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, one of Europe’s most highly renowned symphony orchestras, was founded in 1905. The orchestra played Sibelius’s music for the first time in 1907, performing the Second Symphony under the baton of Armas Järnefelt. In the decades that followed, the Second Symphony featured on the orchestra’s programmes so often that it became an unofficial calling card.
In February 1911 Sibelius conducted his own music in Sweden for the first time, with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (in works including Pohjola’s Daughter and the Third Symphony), and in 1915 Sibelius’s only wartime trip abroad took him to Sweden, where he conducted his own music in Gothenburg. He visited Gothenburg again to conduct his own works in 1923, and dedicated his Sixth Symphony – completed that year – to Stenhammar. When Stenhammar died in 1927, Sibelius wrote: ‘In all my life I have never met such a noble and idealistic person as Wilhelm Stenhammar. I am proud that I could count myself among his friends. He meant so much to my art! How infinitely empty it feels now that he is no longer with us.
The orchestra’s strong Sibelius tradition continued even after Stenhammar’s time, for example with the conductor Neeme Järvi, who recorded two cycles of Sibelius symphonies in Gothenburg (for BIS and Deutsche Grammophon). Among the BIS Sibelius recordings are also numerous world premières, for instance of the opera The Maiden in the Tower, the Overtures in A minor and E major, Ballet Scene and Academic March.
Born in London in 1979, Shelley, the son of celebrated concert pianists, studied cello and conducting in Germany and first gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition. In January 2015 he assumed the role of principal associate conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
The concerts are as follows:
Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 (soloist: Anna Fedorova)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s Sibelius Festival 2016 marked the beginning of a new era: the start of Dima Slobodeniouk’s tenure as principal conductor of the orchestra and artistic director of the festival.
The festival is now in its seventeenth year and took place on 8–11 September. For listeners it marked a leap into the unknown…
