All members are welcome to Sibelius One’s Annual General Meeting 2022, which will take place at Hesan kamari, Ainola, Järvenpää, Finland at 12 noon on Thursday 1 September 2022.
Finlandia Hymn for violin and piano
Duo Lehtinen & Lipasti
In November 2021 the composer and arranger Luukas Hiltunen was commissioned by Duo Lehtinen & Lipasti to prepare an arrangement for violin and piano of Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia Hymn. Sibelius himself made a piano transcription of the Finlandia in its entirety, published by Breitkopf & Härtel. In his old age he also made vocal and choral versions of the hymn section with texts by Wäinö Sola and V.A. Koskenniemi. Luukas Hiltunen’s arrangement of the hymn for violin and piano, the first for this combination of instruments, is based on mainly the composer’s own piano version, with reference to the version for symphony orchestra in order to achieve more sonorous and expressive results.
Duo Lehtinen & Lipasti is a collaboration between Pauliina Lehtinen and Sakari Lipasti. Pauliina Lehtinen is a violinist, chamber musician and orchestral player who has been a member of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Finnish National Opera Orchestra and Turku Philharmonic Orchestra. She studied in Italy and Sweden and has been a pupil of Mi-Kyung Lee, Pavel Vernikov and Hagai Shaham. Pianist Sakari Lipasti studied at the Sibelius Academy where his teachers included Juhani Lagerspetz. He gives numerous concerts as a recitalist, chamber musician and Lieder accompanist, has enjoyed success in numerous competitions and teaches the piano at the Sastamala College of Music.
The first performance of this new arrangement will take place on Saturday 20 August 2022 at 3 pm, at a concert in the Kangasalan Lepokoti in Kangasala near Tampere, the opening event of a concert tour in Pirkanmaa.
More information about Luukas Hiltunen:
UE (Universal Edition AG Wien) Composer Profile: https://www.universaledition.com/luukas-hiltunen-7879
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/luukashiltunenmusician/
Instagram: @luukas_hiltunen_composer
Linkedln: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luukas-hiltunen-composer/
Twitter: @hiltunen_luukas
Photo of Duo Lehtinen & Lipasti © Pette Rissanen, supplied by Luukas Hiltunen
Sibelius One Magazine – July 2022
The new issue (July 2022) of Sibelius One’s full-colour magazine will soon go to press.
Features planned for this issue include:
Lost works by Jean Sibelius David Revilla Velasco
Sibelius’s Helsinki A pictorial guide to the city as Sibelius knew it
Jean Sibelius – ‘To the giant of Finnish Music’ Contemporary reports of Sibelius’s 50th birthday celebrations
The Sibelius Society of Japan Shihoko Iino
The magazine will be sent out automatically to subscribers. To subscribe or order a copy, please click here to visit the Magazine page of this website.
Discography updated 1 June 2022
The ongoing Sibelius discography project has received another update. To download the latest version (free) click this link: Sibelius_Discography_20220601. For more information on the discography project and recent releases click here to visit our Discography & Recordings page.
JSW Symphony No. 6 review
The critical edition score of Sibelius’s Sixth Symphony has been released in Breitkopf & Härtel’s JSW series, edited by Kai Lindberg. Click here to read our review of this volume.
Jean Sibelius: Complete Works (JSW), edited by the National Library of Finland and the Sibelius Society of Finland
Series I (Orchestral Works) Vol. 7: Symphony No. 6, Op. 104, edited by Kai Lindberg
SON 633 · Price: 140.00 €
156 pages · ISMN: 979-0-004-80368-4
Sibelius at the 2022 Proms
The 2022 BBC Proms will run from Friday 15 July to Saturday 10 September. Sibelius is represented at three concerts, including the Proms début of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Click the links below for more information (BBC website) and ticket bookings.
Prom 34, Thursday 11 August 2022, 19:30, Royal Albert Hall
Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA
Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Kian Soltani, cello; BBC Philharmonic / Eva Ollikainen
Prom 42, Thursday 18 August 2022, 19:30, Royal Albert Hall
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4
Carl Nielsen: Symphony No. 4, ‘The Inextinguishable’
Francesco Piemontesi, piano; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Thomas Dausgaard
Prom 52, Friday 26 August 2022, 19:30, Royal Albert Hall
Claude Debussy: La mer
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Thomas Adès: Märchentänze
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5
Pekka Kuusisto, violin; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Nicholas Collon
Information from BBC website
First performance of Luukas Hiltunen’s Sibelius-inspired symphony
Luukas Hiltunen in Järvenpää
Photo: © Luukas Hiltunen
The first performance of Luukas Hiltunen’s Sibelius-inspired symphony took place on 18 April 2022. It was played by Sinfoniaorkesteri Vivo (the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Finland) under its chief conductor Erkki Lasonpalo at the Järvenpää Hall.
Luukas Hiltunen took almost eighteen months to complete his Symphony No. 1 for full orchestra, finishing it in June 2020. The score consists of 72 pages, and the work plays for approx. 30 minutes. There are three movements: an Andante espressivo first movement in A minor, a scherzo (Allegretto grazioso) with trio (Moderato assai e sempre espressivo), and an extensive finale (Andante sostenuto). It is scored for 2 flutes (both doubling piccolos), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion (snare drum, cymbals and bass drum), harp and strings.
Luukas Hiltunen has listened to the music of Sibelius ever since he was a small boy, and has become familiar with his style of writing music for orchestra. ‘I’m very proud of the finale, it’s definitely the most advanced and complex musical structure I have written so far’, writes Hiltunen, describing it as ‘a musical journey from darkness to light, ending up with a solemn hymn [an original composition, not an arrangement]… an uninterrupted 15-minute whole, almost like a tone poem inside a symphony, without any external source of inspiration. Therefore it comes very close to Sibelius’s En saga, I think; it creates a unique and every time a different imaginary musical journey, a metamorphosis full of themes that develop and continue imperceptibly, with logical transitions between recognizable states of mind (leitmotifs).’ The music is very approachable; Sibelian touches include the use of triplets, syncopated horn writing and the ways he uses the lower strings, and the work has a noticeably melancholic Finnish character, although it does not make use of direct quotations from folk music.
Luukas Hiltunen has previously made arrangements for symphony orchestra of Sibelius’s organ works Intrada and Surusoitto, and a string quartet version of the Scène d’amour from Scaramouche.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/luukashiltunenmusician
Instagram: luukas_hiltunen_musician
Music publisher (Symphony): Universal Edition, https://www.universaledition.com/luukas-hiltunen-7879/works/symphony-no-1-30501
Music publisher (Scène d’amour): Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen
Jean Sibelelius
New research into the 1865 birth registers in Hämeenlinna has revealed a major error concerning the spelling of the composer’s name.
Some years ago it was pointed out that the order of the composer’s forenames according to the birth records was ‘Johan Christian Julius’ rather than the previously accepted ‘Johan Julius Christian’. The corrected order has been adopted by scholars and authors ever since.
Now it has emerged that the composer’s family name, as presented in the records, was not Sibelius but rather Sibelelius (highlighted in the extract above). This announcement has major implications for all books, recordings and other publications focusing in the composer and his music, all of which will potentially need to be reprinted to reflect the new spelling.
The full page containing the birth record
According to experts from the Finnish Organization Of Linguistics, it is likely that the composer himself initially used the correct form of his name on a regular basis but gradually came to prefer the shorter version around the time he adopted the French form of his forename. ‘Jean är mitt musiknamn’ (‘Jean is my music name’, as he wrote to his uncle Pehr on 31 March 1886).
Nonetheless, the longer version has always been ‘hiding in plain sight’ and sometimes he would sign himself with the original form of the surname, even in later life.
Sample signature from 1955
Early indications are that the authentic spelling will be used with immediate effect by music publishers and record companies.
The ‘new’ signature on the iconic blue cover of the JSW Complete Works edition
and on CD artwork
Work is also under way to update the Sibelelius One logo.
Further information about the uptake of this new spelling will be reported in due course.
Sibelius Symphonies and Tone Poems with David Nice
10 Thursdays, 2.30–4.30pm on Zoom, starting 28 April 2022
After four in-depth terms on Russian music, one on the Czechs and the most recent on the Hungarians, David Nice’s course covering national identity in music turns to Finland, where one name towers above all the others: that of Jean Sibelius. While he only started learning to speak Finnish aged 9 at one of the country’s first national schools – Swedish was his mother tongue – Sibelius’s musical consistency is absolute, from the early tone poems and the programme symphony Kullervo of the early 1890s through to his turning away from all major works in the 1920s.
We’ll be following the adventure from the bracing early masterpieces through to the supreme concentration of the Seventh Symphony and Tapiola, with excursions to the music of other Finnish composers both contemporary with Sibelius and of later generations. Hopes are high for the kind of special guests who’ve been a feature of earlier courses – among them conductors Vladimir Jurowski, Antonio Pappano and Paavo Järvi; pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy; violinists Alina Ibragimova and Josef Špaček; and harpist Jana Boušková.
A wide range of works will be illustrated with excerpts on CD, DVD and YouTube.
‘I cannot recommend these classes highly enough. The classes, all guided by the expert hand of David Nice, comprise discussion, listening to recordings and watching scenes on DVD as well as interviews with internationally renowned singers, conductors and directors who have a particular association with the works being studied.’ – Susan Bullock MBE, soprano and regular class visitor
Fee: £100 for the whole term of ten two-hour classes on Zoom
Email: david.nice@usa.net ASAP to confirm a place
Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera 2022 – foretaste
A short series of 3 concerts and 3 lectures – mostly in April with one concert in June – will give a foretaste of the seventh Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera (which will take place in September 2022). The festival was held for the first time in 2015 and is dedicated to Sibelius and the music scene in the Nordic countries and northern Europe, with repertoire ranging from late Romanticism to contemporary works. Artistic director of the festival is Federico Ermirio.
Lectures and concerts will take place in Santa Margherita Ligure, Chiavari and Sestri Levante. For further information please click here for click here for event schedule and click here for information about the participants (in Italian).
Performers
from Italy:
Trio Gustav (violin, cello, piano)
Iris Faceto, viola da gamba / Dario Destefano, cello
from the USA:
Ambroise Aubrun, violin / Kate Hamilton, viola
Free admission. Info: sibeliusfestival@gmail.com