The ongoing Sibelius discography project has been updated, now including Valse triste and assorted new releases.
To download the latest version click here: Sibelius_Discography_20160817
For more information on the discography project and recent releases see our Discography & Recordings page.
‘Vienna through Finnish spectacles’
Jean Sibelius Complete Works (JSW)
Overture in E major, JS 145, and Balettscen, JS 163,
edited by Tuija Wicklund
Back in the 1970s, when Paavo Berglund’s pioneering work to introduce Kullervo as a concert work was under way, there was scarcely any public awareness of Sibelius’s output prior to En saga. Nowadays, thankfully, the situation is very different, with his substantial corpus of early chamber music at last beginning to find the recognition it deserves. The works in this new JSW volume, written while Sibelius was a student in Vienna in 1890–91, bridge the gap between those early chamber works and Kullervo.
The Overture is in sonata form; Sibelius described the Balettscen in a letter to Adolf Paul as ‘Vienna through Finnish spectacles’. Click here to read the full review of this new JSW volume.
Arts in Residence January 2017 – update
Sibelius – Master of the Orchestra
On 10–12 January 2017 a course concentrating entirely on Sibelius will take place at the Best Western Plus Connaught Hotel, Bournemouth. The primary focus of the course will be the Fifth Symphony, and attendees will hear the work in concert at the Lighthouse, Poole on 11 January, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Feddeck.
The course, hosted by Terry Barfoot, will also discuss the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, Jordens sång, The Tempest, The Oceanides and Tapiola, and there will be a discussion with past and present members of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
Further information: click here for a factsheet (pdf)
Bookings: Arts in Residence, 25 Mulberry Lane, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 2QU
Enquiries: 02392 383356
E-mail: info@artsinresidence.co.uk
www.artsinresidence.co.uk
Osmo Vänskä completes second Sibelius cycle
Osmo Vänskä has completed his second Sibelius symphony cycle on disc with the release of Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7.
He conducts the Minnesota Orchestra, of which he has been principal conductor since 2003, and this is the first of the team’s recordings to have been recorded after the end of the orchestra’s extended lock-out.
Previous releases in the series, Symphonies Nos 2 and 5 on BIS-1986, and Nos 1 and 4 on BIS-1996, have been acclaimed by critics, the latter disc winning a Grammy award in 2014.
Vänskä’s previous Sibelius cycle, with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, was hailed in the magazine Gramophone as ‘the finest survey of the past three decades’.
The disc (BIS-2006), recorded in May/June 2015 in surround sound and released as a hybrid SACD, will be released internationally in August 2016 to coincide with the orchestra’s European tour, with performances in Lahti, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.
A recording of Kullervo by the same musicians together with the YL Male Voice Choir and soloists Lilli Paasikivi and Tommi Hakala, made at live performances in Minnesota in February, is scheduled for release at the end of 2016.
Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio – Update
More details of the Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio (artistic director: Federico Ermirio) taking place in October 2016 have been released.
Friday 30 September (morning):
Press conference and music at Villa Durazzo, S. Margherita
Saturday 1 October, 5pm, Spazio Aperto Hall, S. Margherita
Opening conference: The Inheritance of Jean Sibelius, with Federico Ermirio, composer
Friday 7 October, 9pm, N. S. della Rosa (Cathedral), S. Margherita
Opening concert: ‘Against a Pale Glow’. A Nordic Travel
Eva Alkula, kantele / Orchestra Polledro / Federico Bisio conductor
Grieg/Gudmundsson/Sibelius/Nielsen
Saturday 8 October, 5pm, Spazio Aperto Hall, S. Margherita
Lumikiteistä (Snow Crystals)
Eva Alkula, kantele / M. Del Monte, flute / D. Ermirio, cello
Karjalainen/Yli-Salomäki/Saariaho/Pärt/Laakso/Sibelius
Sunday 9 October, 5pm, N. S. del Suffragio, Recco
Le Salon Spirituel / Eva Wymola, mezzo-soprano / Andrea Carcano, piano
Tchaikovsky/Dvořák/Sibelius/Mahler/Handel/Bizet/Franck/Gounod
Sunday 9 October, 9pm, Villa Durazzo, S. Margherita
A Romantic Violin
Essi Kiiski, violin / Eduardo Andrade, piano
Sibelius/Andrade/Grieg/Maier-Röntgen
Thursday 13 October, 5pm, Spazio Aperto Hall, S. Margherita
Meeting with extracts from the film ‘Sibelius’, 2003 by Timo Koivusalo
Thursday 13 October, 9pm, Oratorio S. Erasmo, Sori
Animula Vagula
Domenico Ermirio, cello / Folke Gräsbeck, piano
Busoni/Bax/Debussy/Sibelius
Friday 14 October, 9pm, Villa Durazzo, S. Margherita
Sibelius and the Slavonic World
Eva Wymola, mezzo-soprano / Andrea Carcano piano
Tchaikovsky/Dvořák/Sibelius/Minkov/Janáček
Saturday 15 October: Piano Recitals
5pm, Piero Bozzo Hall, Bogliasco
Music by the Sea
Andrea Carcano plays Sibelius/Busoni/Rósza/Rautavaara/Grieg
9pm, N. S. del Suffragio, Recco
Sibelius &…
Folke Gräsbeck plays Busoni/Gräsbeck/Ermirio/Sibelius
Further information:
Festival website: http://sib150.wix.com/festivalsibeliusen
e-mail: sibeliusfestival@gmail.com
Click here to download the flyer as a pdf document.
Arts in Residence – Sibelius
Music by Sibelius will feature prominently at courses arranged by Arts in Residence in November 2016 and January 2017.
The courses are directed by Terry Barfoot. Terry writes widely on music for Britain’s leading journals, orchestras, festivals and record companies. He lectures at venues throughout the country and is publications consultant to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony is one of the featured works in the weekend course ‘The Symphony in the 20th Century’, taking place on Friday 18–Sunday 20 November 2016
at the Wroxton House Hotel near Banbury, Oxfordshire. Other symphonies under discussion are by Elgar (No. 1), Honegger (No. 2), Walton (No. 1), Shostaovich (No. 4), Vaughan Williams (No. 5), Prokofiev (No. 5) and Nielsen (No. 5). Click here for a course leaflet (Banbury).
This course is being repeated at the Grange at Oborne, near Sherborne in Dorset on 29 November – 1 December. Click here for a course leaflet (Sherborne).
On 10–12 January 2017 a course concentrating entirely on Sibelius will take place at the Connaught Hotel, Bournemouth. The primary focus of the course will be the Fifth Symphony, and attendees will hear the work in concert at the Lighthouse, Poole on 11 January, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Feddeck. Further information on this event will be published later.
Bookings: Arts in Residence, 25 Mulberry Lane, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 2QU
Enquiries: 02392 383356
E-mail: info@artsinresidence.co.uk
www.artsinresidence.co.uk
Sotheby’s auction results
Of the four Sibelius manuscripts auctioned at Sotheby’s on 24 May 2016, two found buyers.
Pohjola’s Daughter (Lot 149) was sold for £221,000 (including buyer’s premium).
Pages from The Captive Queen (Lot 152) were sold for £32,500 (including buyer’s premium).
The piano transcription of Pelléas et Mélisande (Lot 151) and pages from the Violin Concerto (Lot 150) remained unsold.
New JSW release: Overture in E major & Ballettscen
The latest release in Breitkopf & Härtel’s JSW critical edition of Sibelius’s music contains two orchestral rarities: the Overture in E major, JS 145, and Ballettscen, JS 163. These are Sibelius’s first two purely orchestral works, dating from his study year in Vienna (1890–91).
This volume is edited by Tuija Wicklund. Among the new information revealed in the volume is that the ending of Ballettscen was changed: the one in the autograph manuscript differs from the one in the score made by the copyist Ernst Röllig.
The catalogue number is SON 627 and the volume costs €141.88.
More information (including downloadable introduction in English and German) and orders: https://www.breitkopf.com/work/6198/16575
See also: review of the JSW Scènes historiques (SON 625): click here
Sibelius and Elgar in Worcester
The Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kevin Slade will perform a programme of Sibelius (Finlandia; Symphony No. 5) and Elgar (Violin Concerto – soloist Martin Cropper) at St Martin’s Church, London Road, Worcester at 7.30 pm on Saturday 21 May 2016.
The orchestra, which was founded over 100 years ago with the help of Edward Elgar, gave its first concert in the Public Hall, Worcester, on 26 April 1906, with Ivor Atkins conducting more than 100 players. Elgar assisted in drawing up the programme, and conducted occasionally in performances of his own works. His daughter Carice played the violin in the orchestra for many years. Today Keith Slade is the Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra’s dynamic young conductor. He studied the clarinet at the Royal Northern College of Music and is a former BBC Young Musician of the Year Woodwind Finalist.
Tickets are available via the orchestra’s website (click here): Adults £12 / Concessions £10 / Children £5 (one free with each adult ticket).
Worst composer ever? (new article)
The Polish-born but naturalized French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher René Leibowitz (1913–72) was significant in promoting serialism and the New Music in France after World War II, and famously described Sibelius – on the occasion of the Finnish composer’s 90th birthday – as ‘le plus mauvais compositeur du monde’. In a new article Ronald Powell discusses his music in the context of other composers, notably those of the Second Viennese School. Click here to read the article.