A Sibelius Commemorative Concert will take place in Melbourne, Australia, to celebrate the 156th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
This free event will feature an all-Sibelius programme arranged and performed by the Inventi Ensemble and soprano Jessica Carrascalão Heard.
The event is arranged by the Melbourne radio station 3MBS and is sponsored by Geoff Hayes, a member of Sibelius One.
It will take place on Wednesday 8 December 2021 at 11:15am (for an 11:30am start) at the Good Shepherd Chapel, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia
To reserve a seat, please e-mail subscriptions@3mbs.org.au or call 9416 1035. Places are strictly limited. Book early to avoid disappointment.
All guests are required to be fully vaccinated. Please ensure you have your certificate for verification at the Chapel entrance. Face masks must be worn indoors at all times.
John Davis, President of Sibelius One, passed away on 27 October at the age of 92.
John was interested in Sibelius since the early 1940s, when his father took him into a music shop in Bristol bought him his first record – a 78 of movements from the Karelia Suite – just at the time that news was coming through of the Russian invasion of the Karelian Isthmus. He was heavily involved with the Torbay Recorded Music Society for over half a century and co-ordinated large music groups travelling in the UK and internationally.
John’s first ‘live’ concert experience was watching Sir Henry Wood conduct Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony in the Pump Rooms in Bath in the early part of the war. His parents were both musicians, his mother being a former LRAM piano tutor (her pièce de résistance was the Sibelius Romance in D flat major – his initiation into the piano world of Finland’s greatest composer) and his father a church organist. After the family moved from London to the Bristol area during the war, John’s father went around various churches repairing and tuning organs, and at this time John himself developed a keen love for and interest in this instrument. Right from his earliest samplings of classical music on disc, John was an avid fan of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski.
As well as being devoted to music, John enjoyed a distinguished career in the Royal Navy and as a driving test examiner, conducting over 32,000 tests.
After moving to South Devon, he joined the Torbay Gramophone Society (later to become the Recorded Music Society) in 1958 and soon became embroiled in its management. This led him to present programmes nationwide with subjects including Sibelius, Stokowski and music for orchestra and organ. In 1970 he was a founder of the Torbay Musical Weekends, held at the sumptuous Palace Hotel in Torquay; in this context he worked with guest presenters of the highest calibre including Sir Georg Solti and Sir David Willcocks.
In the 1960s he started co-ordinating groups to attend ‘live’ concerts across this country, particularly in Birmingham, Exeter and London. A trip to Prague to hear the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra play Má vlast by Smetana was the start of a whole series of group musical trips to Europe and the USSR.
John Davis at Ainola in 2014, admiring the greetings card to Sibelius signed by every member of the Philadelphia Orchestra (photo: Sibelius One)
From 2001 onwards he was a regular attendee at the Lahti Sibelius Festival, and in 2006 he also visited the Sibelius Festival on the island of Korpo. He sponsored organ pipes in both Symphony Hall in Birmingham and the Sibelius Hall in Lahti, and was privileged to attend the inauguration of the organ in the Sibelius Hall. He became President of Sibelius One when the organization was founded in 2014 and held that position for the rest of his life.
John’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for music were as legendary as they were infectious, and his good humour and kindness will be fondly remembered by all those lucky enough to meet him. He is survived by his wife Christine, daughter Julia, son Edward and four grandchildren.
The arrangement by Luukas Hiltunen of the Scène d’amour from Sibelius’s ballet-pantomime Scaramouche has been played at a concert at the composer’s home, Ainola. The performance, on 26 July 2021, was given by the Kamus String Quartet (Terhi Paldanius and Jukka Untamala, violins; Jussi Tuhkanen, viola; Petja Kainulainen, cello) as part of ‘Meidän Festivaali’ (‘Our Festival’).
Scaramouche is one of the longest and most unusual of Sibelius’s large-scale scores, and the composer himself made piano arrangements of two passages (Danse élégiaque and Scène d’amour) and a violin/piano version of the Scène d’amour.
Luukas Hiltunen has previously made arrangements for symphony orchestra of Sibelius’s organ works Intrada and Surusoitto, and his First Symphony (2019–20) reflects his familiarity with Sibelius’s style of writing music for orchestra. The symphony has been published: the score and performance materials are now available through Universal Edition (UE) online shop: https://www.universaledition.com/luukas-hiltunen-7879/works/symphony-no-1-30501. Luukas Hiltunen is currently working on his String Quartet No. 1, ‘A tale of two lovers’. The subtitle alludes to the programmatic content of the work, loosely inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The work will play for around 40 minutes and performance materials will be available both in printed and digital forms through Universal Edition AG.
Previous performances of the Scaramouche arrangement have taken place on 23 March 2018 at the Church of the Cross, Lahti, Finland (Lahti Conservatory String Quartet), 21 July 2019 at the Sibelius Hall, Lahti (string quartet from Orkester Norden) and 1 May 2021 at Korundi House of Culture, Rovaniemi (Lapland Chamber Orchestra).
Members of the Kamus Quartet at Ainola’s Cafe Aulis
A new book on Sibelius by Daniel M. Grimley, Jean Sibelius: Life, Music, Silence, has just been published by Reaktion Books.
Daniel Grimley is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford and Douglas Algar tutorial fellow at Merton College. His books include Delius and the Sound of Place (2018).
To quote the publisher’s website: ‘Few composers have enjoyed such critical acclaim – or longevity – as Jean Sibelius, who died in 1957 aged 91. Always more than simply a Finnish national figure, an “apparition from the woods” as he ironically described himself, Sibelius’s life spanned turbulent and tumultuous events, and his work is central to the story of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century music. This book situates Sibelius within a rich interdisciplinary environment, paying attention to his relationship with architecture, literature, politics and the visual arts. Drawing on the latest developments in Sibelius research, it is intended as an accessible and rewarding introduction for the general reader, and also offers a fresh and provocative interpretation for those more familiar with his music.’
The ongoing Sibelius discography project has received another update. To download the latest version (free) click this link: Sibelius_ Discography_20210907. For more information on the discography project and recent releases click here to visit our Discography & Recordings page.
Owing to the ongoing coronavirus situation Sibelius One’s Annual General Meeting in 2021 will once again take the form of a Zoom Cloud meeting. To enable more members to take part, we have changed the date and time of this meeting. The new timing is given below:
Annual General Meeting 2021
1 pm BST, 19 September 2021
Equivalent times around the world: Sydney, Australia: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 22:00 AEST Singapore, Singapore: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 20:00 SGT Helsinki, Finland: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 15:00 EEST Amsterdam, Netherlands: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 14:00 CEST London, United Kingdom: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 13:00 BST New York, USA: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 08:00 EDT Los Angeles, USA: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 05:00 PDT
The 2021 Sibelius Festival in Lahti begins today, 2 September 2021, with music by Timo Alakotila and Sibelius’s Kullervo, with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska.
Audience numbers are restricted by Covid-19 regulations and the pandemic has prevented Sibelius One from organizing its usual group visit to the festival.
Newly released in Breitkopf & Härtel’s JSW (Jean Sibelius Werke) series is the eagerly awaited critical edition of Sibelius’s music for piano trio, with the first publication of a number of large-scale, important and attractive works from Sibelius’s youth. The volume is edited by Anna Pulkkis and is prepared in collaboration with Folke Gräsbeck, who participated in the first recordings of all these works.
Included in the volume: Allegro in D major, JS 27 (first version and revised version – fragment) Andantino in G minor, JS 43 Menuetto in F major, JS 126 Trio for two violins and piano, JS 205 Trio in A minor, JS 206 Trio in A minor (‘Hafträsk Trio’), JS 207 (including 2 versions of first movement) Trio in C major (‘Lovisa Trio”), JS 208 Trio in D major (‘Korpo Trio’), JS 209
Breitkopf & Härtel’s website: ‘Even before enrolling at the Helsinki Music Institute in 1885, Jean Sibelius had already composed several piano trios mainly intended for ensemble playing within his family and with his circle of friends. These works also gave young “Janne” the opportunity to try his compositional ideas out in practice. His last known work in this scoring originated in 1888. The volume of Jean Sibelius Works, edited by Anna Pulkkis, contains all piano trios, including the Hafträsk Trio, the Korpo Trio and Lovisa Trio… Already on display here are the melodic ingenuity and powerful expressive depth of Sibelius’s later works.’
Sibelius’s Second Symphony will be performed at the First Night of the BBC Proms 2021 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by its principal guest conductor, Dalia Stasevska.
7.30 pm, Friday 30 July 2021
Venue: Royal Albert Hall, London
Tickets: £14 to £62 (plus booking fee)
Full programme: Ralph Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music Francis Poulenc: Organ Concerto Sir James MacMillan: When Soft Voices Die (world première) Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Performers:
Elizabeth Llewellyn, soprano Jess Dandy, contralto Allan Clayton, tenor Michael Mofidian, bass-baritone Daniel Hyde, organ BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Dalia Stasevska, conductor
The concert can be seen on TV: first half on BBC Two at 8pm, second half on BBC Four at 9.05pm
Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra
(Photo: Greg Helgeson/Minnesota Orchestra)
The Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä have announced a Sibelius Festival in January 2022. Concerts will take place at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis.
The Sibelius Festival forms the centrepiece of the orchestra’s 2021–22 season; it features all seven of the Finnish composer’s symphonies, plus the original version of the Fifth, over three weeks, and celebrates the recording cycle that was completed by Vänskä and the orchestra in 2014, one recording of which received the Orchestra’s first Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. Soprano Helena Juntunen and violinist Elina Vähälä are the featured guests during the three-week festival. Vähälä will perform the rarely heard original version of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and, at a separate concert, the standard final version of the concerto. In addition, Minnesota Orchestra violist Sam Bergman hosts a special programme that explores the history behind the multiple versions of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony.
This season marks the end of Osmo Vänskä’s tenure with the Minnesota Orchestra after 19 years as music director. Beyond 2022, Vänskä and the orchestra will maintain their musical relationship, with Vänskä returning for ongoing concert engagements.
Thursday 13 January 2022, 11 am Friday 14 January 2022, 8 pm
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 3
Violin Concerto (final version)* *Elina Vähälä, violin
Saturday 15 January 2022, 8 pm Sunday 16 January 2022, 2 pm
Symphony No. 5 (final version and extended excerpts from original version) Sam Bergman, host
Ticket packages can be reserved from 26 July 2021 onwards. Tickets for individual concerts will be on sale from 7 September.
