Jean Sibelius

The best-known of Finnish composers, notably for his seven symphonies and other orchestral works such as Kullervo, Finlandia and Tapiola, Sibelius proved himself to be a modern artist, going beyond clichés about his inspiration coming from nature or Nordic mythology. Son of a military doctor and amateur musician, Johann Julius Christian Sibelius, nicknamed "Janne", was born in Hämeenlinna on December 8, 1865. The Grand Duchy of Finland was under Russian rule at the time, and most of its inhabitants spoke Swedish, as did the Sibelius family. When his father died in debt in 1868, the family moved in with his maternal grandmother in Loviisa, where an uncle taught him the violin and an aunt the piano. In view of his interest in music, he also took lessons from the leader of the local brass band, Gustav Levander, and played chamber music with his sister and brother, beginning to compose in this form. In 1885, he entered Helsingfors University to study law, while taking violin and composition lessons at the Music Institute founded by Martin Wegelius (later the Sibelius Academy), where he met the virtuoso pianist Ferruccio Busoni and his future wife, Aino Järnefelt. A year later, he adopted the first name Jean, after finding in a drawer postcards so signed by a traveling uncle. In 1889, the successful premiere of his String Quartet in A minor at the Conservatory earned him a scholarship to study in Berlin with Albert Becker and in Vienna with Karl Goldmark. Sibelius began composing for orchestra. Inspired by Elios Lönnrot's Kalevala legends, in 1892 he began work on Kullervo, for baritone, soprano, male chorus and orchestra, followed by the symphonic poem En Saga. In the autumn, he begins teaching violin at the Helsinki Conservatory. He planned to write an opera, but abandoned this idea in favor of the incidental music Karelia, in homage to Karelia, a region bordering Russia, premiered under his direction by the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra on November 13, 1893. These works established Sibelius as the country's leading nationalist composer. After a stay in Bayreuth to listen to Wagner's operas in situ, he finally preferred Liszt's approach, then visited Berlin and Venice. On his return, he composed the Lemminkäinen Suite (1895), including "The Swan of Tuonela", followed by his only opera, The Girl in the Tower (1896), which remains little performed. Despite his popularity and the support of the jury, the composer was unsuccessful in his bid for the post of professor of music at Helsingfors University. Nevertheless, he signed a contract with Berlin publisher Breitkopf & Härtel and set to work on his first symphony, triumphantly received in 1899. A symbol of Finnish patriotism in the face of Russian oppression, the manifesto Finlandia was chosen for performance at the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris, following a tour of the Symphony Orchestra across Europe. In Italy, where he was staying with his family, Sibelius composed his Symphony no. 2, whose equally triumphant reception in Helsinki on March 8, 1902 was a consecration and remains one of his most frequently performed works. Kuolema (1903), with its famous "Valse triste", and the Violin Concerto op. 47 (1904), which has become a standard in the repertoire, followed shortly afterwards. In 1903, he moved his family to a villa north of Helsinki, in Järvenpää, which he named Ainola. However, the problems of alcoholism he had experienced since his youth only worsened, before combining with his taste for gambling. In 1905, he conducted his orchestral suite Pelléas et Mélisande, based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play, which had already inspired Debussy and Schönberg, whose compositions, like Richard Strauss's symphonic poems and Mahler's symphonies, he regarded with interest. For under the guise of a Nordic post-romantic composer, Sibelius belonged to this generation turned towards modernity. In fact, Strauss conducted the Berlin premiere of his Violin Concerto, reworked for the occasion, and Mahler met him in Helsinki, even if their points of view diverged. In parallel with the lengthy work on his Symphony No. 3, premiered in 1907, he again draws on the legends of the Kalevala for The Daughters of Pohjola, a symphonic poem performed in St. Petersburg in December 1906. After surgery for a throat tumor, Sibelius returned to the studio for Symphony No. 4 (1911) and the symphonic poems The Bard and Luonnotar, premiered in 1913. In 1914, Sibelius made a trip to the United States, where he was invited to present his new work, Les Océanides(Aallottaret, in Finnish), at the Norfolk Festival. Awarded an honorary doctorate from Yale University, Sibelius immediately began composing Symphony No. 5, premiered in 1915 by Robert Kajanus and reworked in 1919, with its famous "swan-horn" finale. This troubled period for Finland, between the Russian Revolution and the First World War, led to the country's independence, declared on December 6, 1917. For his part, Sibelius, who supported the Finnish claim, began writing his Symphony no. 6 in 1919, which was completed in 1923. His single-movement Symphony no. 7, in germ since 1914 and premiered in Stockholm on March 24, 1924, marks the culmination of his work, as does Tapiola, premiered in New York in 1926, for his symphonic poems. Meanwhile, the incidental music for The Tempest (1925), based on Shakespeare, was composed for the Royal Danish Theatre. In 1930, Sibelius began writing Symphony No. 8, interrupted by pleurisy, and abandoned the composition three years later. Unproductive during the Second World War, he claimed to have completed it but, dissatisfied, burned it. Only a copy of the first movement survives. Withdrawn to his property in Ainola, he devoted his last years to other pieces, and in 1950 received an official visit from President Juho Kusti Paasikivi. On September 20, 1957, Jean Sibelius died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 91.

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