Jean Sibelius

Synopsis

Great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was born on this date in 1865.

In 1990, on Sibelius’ 125th birthday, Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä led the Lahti Symphony in the belated world-premiere of a previously unknown work by the composer, a Suite for Violin and Orchestra that Sibelius finished around 1929, but never published.

Now, Sibelius was a prolific composer through his fifties, but during the last 30 years of his life, he wrote very little. He had completed his Symphony No. 7, his last, in 1924, and the world waited in vain for an eighth. Perhaps it was due to depression, perhaps it was due to drink — or maybe, creatively speaking, Sibelius had just dried up. In any case, what works he did complete as a senior citizen were either revisions of much earlier pieces, or minor incidental works.

Which makes this genial little suite rather interesting. It’s landscape music, evoking the Finnish countryside, but in a less bleak and abstract manner than usual. It may not be top-drawer Sibelius, but even so, we’re grateful that he decided to put his Suite for Violin in a bottom drawer — and not in the fireplace!

Music Played in Today's Program

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Suite for Violin and Orchestra; Dong-Suk Kang, violin; Lahti Symphony; Osmo Vänskä; BIS 1125

On This Day

Births

• 1731 - Baptism of Bohemian composer and pianist Frantisek Xaver Dussek, in Choteborky

• 1865 - Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, in Tavastehus

• 1882 - Mexican composer Manuel Ponce, in Fresnillo, Zacatecas

• 1890 - Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu, in Policka

• 1919 - Polish-born Russian composer Moisei Vainberg (also Weinberg/Vaynberg, Moisey/Mieczyslaw), in Warsaw

Deaths

• 1562 - Flemish composer Adrian Willaert, 72, in Venice

• 1924 - German composer and pianist Xaver Scharwenka, age 74, in Berlin

• 1980 - John Lennon (of the Beatles), age 40, is shot dead in New York City

Premieres

• 1733 - Bach: Secular Cantata No. 214 (Tönet ihr Pauken, Erchallet Trompeten) at a public performance in the garden of Zimmermann's Coffee House in Leipzig, for the birthday of the Princess-Elector and Queen of Poland, Maria Josepha (the wife of August III). One year later, Bach recycled some of the music for this secular cantata into his sacred Christmas Oratorio.

• 1743 - Handel: Dettingen Te Deum and Anthem in London (Julian date: Nov. 27)

• 1813 - Beethoven: Symphony No. 7, in Vienna, the composer conducting; Also on the program was the orchestral version of Wellington’s Victory (originally conceived for performance by a mechanical orchestra invented by Maelzel called the “panharmonicon”)

• 1844 - Schumann: Piano Quartet, in Leipzig, at the Gewandhaus, with Clara Schumann (piano), Ferdinand David (viola), Niels W. Gade (viola), and Count Wielhorsky (cello); A private performance had also occured in Leipzig in 1842 (see Dec. 6)

• 1849 - Verdi: opera Luisa Miller, in Naples at the Teatro San Carlo

• 1879 - Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite No. 1, in Moscow (Gregorian date: Dec. 20)

• 1915 - first version (of three) of Sibelius: Symphony No. 5, with the Helsinki Municipal Orchestra, with the composer conducting (on his 50th birthday). A second revision of this symphony was premiered by the same orchestral and conductor on Dec. 14, 1916, and a third and final version premiered in Helsinki under the composer's direction on Oct. 21, 1921.

• 1931 - Gershwin: musical show, Of Thee I Sing, in Boston, at the Majestic Theater. This musical opened in New York on Dec. 26th that year, and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1932.

• 1943 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 24, in Moscow

• 1992 - Michael Torke: Monday and Tuesday, for chamber ensemble, at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, by the London Sinfonietta, Lothar Zagrosek conducting

Others

• 1911 - At the Cort Theater in San Francisco, American composer and conductor Henry Hadley leads the first subscription concert of the San Francisco Symphony. The program included Wagner’s Act I Prelude from Die Meistersinger, Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, the Theme and Variations, from Haydn’s Emperor Quartet, and Liszt's tone-poem Les Préludes.