Jean Sibelius has remained my favourite composer throughout my life. Something in his work touches me directly. One of my greatest pleasures was to attend the unique concert series in which all his symphonies were performed (for the first time) in sequence, under the direction of the young and brilliant conductor Thomas Dausgaard. When I told him, during the post-performance reception, that it was the best performance of the 4th symphony (my favourite) I had ever heard, he replied that it was his favourite as well.. giving much the same reasons I would have. It is the most difficult, and perhaps the least played of the seven symphonies.… dark, ambiguous, complex, and intriguing.
This photograph is by Jousuf Karsh, the Canadian portrait photographer who made iconic images of Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemmingway, and many others. Karsh remembered details of the sitting:
“I arrived at Sibelius’s home ‘Ainola,’ named for his wife Aino, laden with gifts from his admirers — an inscribed manuscript from composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, a warm letter from Olin Downes, the celebrated music critic of the New York Times, a box of his favorite cigars and a bottle of old cognac from the Canadian High Commissioner in London. This last we shared with little Finnish cookies and coffee. His daughter interpreted for the straight-backed patriarch of eighty-four, although there was such a meeting of minds that words became scarcely necessary. The structure of his face reminded me of carved granite, yet with infinite warmth and humanity. This photograph was one of the last taken. He was visibly moved as I told him how the Finnish workers, in their northern Canadian logging camps, doubled their wartime output when his Finlandia was played for them.”
The links go to related articles on this blog. Some others:
The Kalevala, is the Finnish epic that inspired much of Sibelius’ music. A youthful work of his, Kullervo Op.7, is a choral-orchestral telling of part of the epic. I also discuss it here. En Saga, Op.9 is another. I have also written blog items about his string quartets, and his first symphony.
