Several major Sibelius manuscripts are being sold at auction by Sotheby’s, London, on 24 May 2016.
It is rare for major Sibelius manuscripts to be sold, and even rarer for a number of important manuscripts to be offered at the same time. All of the works in question are among the pieces that were published by Robert Lienau in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Foremost among these is the autograph manuscript of Pohjola’s Daughter; Sotheby’s remark that ‘no manuscript of this importance and calibre has appeared on the market for over ten years’. Also on sale are the primary sources for the final version of the Violin Concerto (although most of the autograph score is lost) and the complete piano transcription of the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande. Finally there is a set of eight autograph fragments, plus a score containing other revisions, pertaining to the male choir version of the patriotic cantata The Captive Queen.
The Pelléas manuscript is of particular interest because it contains two previously unknown piano transcriptions of movements that were omitted from the published piano version of the suite.
The estimated price range for these items ranges from £30,000–50,000 (The Captive Queen) to £200,000–300,000 (Pohjola’s Daughter).
On Wednesday 4th May 2016 at 6.30 pm the Embassy of Finland in London is organizing a concert of Finnish music by Duo Teos (Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä, violin and Roope Gröndahl, piano) followed by a buffet reception at the Finnish Ambassador’s Residence in London.
Members of Sibelius One are invited to attend this concert but the number of tickets available is strictly limited and they will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Click here to find out how to apply for tickets.
The ongoing Sibelius discography project has been updated.
To download the latest version click here: Sibelius_Discography_20160421.
For more information on the discography project and recent releases see our Discography & Recordings page.
Nazig Azezian and Jussi Makkonen Photo: Marko Haapalehto
Sibelius Inspiration is the name of a concert arranged by cellist Jussi Makkonen and pianist Nazig Azezian that combines Sibelius’s music and Finnish nature in a unique way by means of video and multimedia. The concert includes some of Sibelius’s best-known compositions and also exhibits Finnish costume design and an Ainola garden fragrance made especially for the concert. The successful world première of the multimedia concert was held at the Orpheum Theatre in New Orleans on 27 September 2015.
The cellist Jussi Makkonen is an expert on Sibelius’s music. He and the pianist Nazig Azezian have performed Sibelius in Finland for hundreds of thousands of listeners. In recent years, concert tours have taken them, besides Finland, to Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Romania, Moldova, Estonia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines. Their all-Sibelius CD (original compositions and arrangements) with Annastiina Tahkola, mezzo-soprano, Esa Ruuttunen, baritone and Susanna Mieskonen-Makkonen, violin, was released in 2015.
The Sibelius Inspiration multimedia concert is an all-encompassing experience: by the means of music, video, sound and light, the audience is transferred into the world that inspired the Jean Sibelius. The concert takes the listener to the world of Sibelius’s home and the floral splendour of the Ainola garden, to the magical moss forest at dusk, and to the summit of the Koli mountain in the midst of a thunder storm. Sibelius’s compelling music, the narration and the videos filmed for the concert bring Finnish nature, as seen by Sibelius, palpably close to the listener.
The videos for the multimedia concert were filmed and directed by Aira Vehaskari. Mert Otsamo, a well-known Finnish fashion designer, designed the artists’ performance costumes for the concert. The Finnish parfumeur Max Perttula designed the Ainola garden fragrance for the concert. The fragrance is tied in with the concert: the scent of Ainola’s flowers spreads in the concert hall as the audience is transported into Ainola’s garden by means of multimedia. The L’air d’Ainola fragrance was released as a women’s perfume on the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth, 8 December 2015.
In recent years the duo has performed more than 1,300 school concerts in Finland in recent years, and dozens of school concerts in different parts of the world as well. The concerts have already had over 300,000 listeners. Response to these concerts has been very enthusiastic in Finland, Norway and the United States. At these concerts the players not only perform Sibelius’s music to the children but also tell them stories about Sibelius’s life and the compositions heard at the concert. The new multimedia concert has been performed at schools as of autumn 2015, to great acclaim.
In addition, in January 2015 Makkonen and Azezian released a children’s picture book on Sibelius’s life in Finnish, English and Swedish called Melody Forest. The book has become one of the best-selling children’s books in Finland. The Melody Forest book has illustrations by Katri Kirkkopelto, and the book has been distributed to every Finnish elementary school with the support of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. In August 2015 they became the first Finnish classical cello-piano ensemble to receive a gold record award (over 10,000 copies sold) – for the Sibelius-themed record included with the Melody Forest book.
A disc of songs and folk song arrangements by Martin Wegelius has been published by Fuga (FUGA-9410).
Wegelius – who founded the Helsinki Music Institute (forerunner of today’s Sibelius Academy) in 1882, was Sibelius’s teacher there from 1885 until 1889. Wegelius was a versatile musician – a pianist, composer, conductor and critic – who had studied in Vienna, Leipzig and Munich and who would direct the Music Institute until his death. He was to prove a good friend to Sibelius and take a kindly, even paternal interest in his development. Wegelius was a capable administrator who could take the credit for many international musicians (including Busoni) coming to Helsinki. He was also an obsessive Wagnerian, with a particular fondness for Die Meistersinger; he wrote a 323-page biography of Wagner and also established the first Finnish Wagner Society. His music has hitherto been very sparsely represented on disc.
The new recording features two of Finland’s foremost young singers, the soprano Hedwig Paulig and the baritone Tuomas Lehtinen, accompanied on the piano by Gustav Djupsjöbacka. Some of the items also feature a choral part, here performed by the Spira Ensemble.
Okko Kamu’s five-year period as principal conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra is coming to an end this spring with three concerts at the Sibelius Hall.
Finally, on Thursday 12th May, Kamu will conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with soloists Camilla Nylund, soprano, Tuija Knihtilä, mezzo-soprano, Mika Pohjonen, tenor and Mika Kares, bass, and the Chorus Cathedralis Aboensis. Further information and link to buy tickets: click here.
Kamu will be succeeded by Dima Slobodeniouk, who will conduct this year’s International Sibelius Festival in September. Sibelius One members who wish to join our group booking for the festival are asked to register their interest now. Click here for more information.
To mark Kalevala Day (Finnish Culture Day, 28 February), we have added a new text about Sibelius’s symphonic fantasia Pohjola’s Daughter to our library of articles about Sibelius’s music. Click here for the article.
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The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s 17th International Sibelius Festival will take place at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti on 8th–11th September 2016. The three orchestral concerts will be conducted by the orchestra’s chief conductor and the festival’s new artistic director, Dima Slobodeniouk.
Sibelius One will be organizing a group booking for the 2016 Sibelius Festival, for hotel accommodation and concert tickets. We should like to invite members to make provisional bookings now for this year’s festival. Please send your details to gm@sibeliusone.com. In particular it is important to let us know which nights
you will require a hotel room.
‘For the orchestral concerts at the 2016 Sibelius Festival I have chosen works from different periods that, I feel, speak to each other’, says Dima Slobodeniouk. ‘One of the programmes consists of works that Sibelius composed in successive years: Pelléas et Mélisande in 1905, Pan and Echo in 1906 and the Third Symphony in 1907. I feel that there is such a clear thread that unites them all that I could not fail to play them in proximity to each other. In the other orchestral programmes I have aimed both for contrasts and for musical affinities.’
