Customer Reviews (2)

Inspiring Reading
It is enjoyable to read a biography written by someone who knew and worked closely with Sibelius. This is a book about the man behind the music. I appreciate reading of the goodness, human frailties and ordinary human qualities of this man - who knew God through his music. His wife is quoted as saying that her husband's music is "like the Word Of God." That is my experience of his music. I thoroughly enjoyed and was inspired by this book.

a very poor portrait
I never so badly wanted to read a biography after I had listened to Tapiola, the greatest work of Sibelius. While I opened this book with admiration, I could hardly finish it. Despite the excessive praise from theauthor, I find Sibelius as a humanbeing is far less great than his music.Of course, his self-critism about his 8th symphony is admirable, but manyevidences show that he failed to appreciate other people's merits. Hepitied and arrogantly humoured the less gifted artists, but neverencouraged them. His defamation to Wagner is outragous even to me, who donot care twopence about Wagner. After all, Sibelius never wrote a decentopera. While the author, once a secretary for him, worshiped him as a God.It is not unusual to relate sound to color by their frequencies, yet theauthor attributed Sibelius' doing so to the so called 6th sense, not tomention some luck guesses even less convincingly attributed to the 6thsense. Undoubtedly, Sibelius also made many wrong guesses which werepurposely not written in the book, otherwise, he would have been afortune-teller as famous as a composer. In other words, the "6thsense" chapter is purely the fancy of the author. In the chapter"the pressure of commonplace", the author cynically spared nopain to praise the lack of economic sense in the composer, which is in noways a virtue. In summary, this book is not a very objective biography, butinvolutarily reveals the shortcoming of a great man. ... Read more

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48 pp. ... Read more

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Chapters: Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 7, Symphony No. 3, Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2, Symphony No. 8, Symphony No. 6. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 43. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 82 is a major work for orchestra in three movements by Jean Sibelius. Sibelius was commissioned to write this symphony by the Finnish government in honor of his 50th birthday, which had been declared a national holiday. The symphony was originally composed in 1915. It was revised first in 1916 and then again in 1919. The original version was premiered by Sibelius himself with the Helsinki City Orchestra on his own 50th birthday, 8 December 1915. The second version (only part of which has survived) was first performed by the Orchestra of Turun Soitannollinen Seura in Turku exactly one year later. The final version, which is the most commonly performed today, was premiered by Sibelius conducting the Helsinki City Orchestra on 24 November 1919. The 1910s were a decade of change for the symphonic form which had existed for over a century. In 1909 Schoenberg continued pushing for more dissonant and chromatic harmonies in his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16. From 1910-1913 Igor Stravinsky premiered three revolutionary ballets The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps). Ravel and Debussy were at work developing and performing their Impressionistic forms. And in 1911 the premiere of Richard Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier further pushed music toward a new style. Though having spent nearly 30 years in the public spotlight, Jean Sibelius found his works receiving poor reviews for the first time with the 1911 premiere of his Fourth Symphony and, as James Hepokoski theorized, the composer was beginning to sense his own e...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3786267 ... Read more

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Chapters: Viktoria Mullova, Sergey Khachatryan, Jiafeng Chen, Leonidas Kavakos, Lisa Batiashvili, Ilya Kaler, Pekka Kuusisto, Alina Pogostkina, Hyun Su Shin. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 39. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, named after Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, is a competition for violinists up to age 30. It is held every five years (-00 and -05) in Helsinki and is considered to be one of the top 3 most appreciated violin competitions in the world. The first competition took place in year 1965, eight years after the death of the composer. The competition is arranged by The Sibelius Society of Finland. The competition has always had high-level competitors, and winners such as Oleg Kagan, Viktoria Mullova, and Leonidas Kavakos have become internationally performing soloists. The popularity amongst the players might be explained by the location of the competition: Finland connecting western Europe and USSR was probably considered safe enough by the Soviet authority to allow players to attend the competition. The competition has three rounds: the first round, the second round, and the final round. After each round, a number of competitors are chosen to proceed to the next round, and after the final round the finalists are ranked. In the final ranking, the performance in each round is considered as a whole. To be accepted in the competition, candidates need to send a performance sample for a competition committee for pre-selection. The first round program consists typically works of Bach, a sonata by Mozart, and Paganini's capriccios. It is said that Bach measures readiness, Mozart measures understanding of style, and Paganini measures technical ability. The second round, often referred as the semi-finals, consists typicall...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3461493 ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Jean Sibelius, Oskar Merikanto, Aarre Merikanto, Erkki Melartin, Armas Launis, Einar Englund, Toivo Kuula, Mauri Antero Numminen, Ilmari Hannikainen, Armas Järnefelt, Joonas Kokkonen, Selim Palmgren, Leevi Madetoja, Uuno Klami, Eicca Toppinen, Martin Wegelius, Robert Kajanus, Bernhard Henrik Crusell, Ernest Pingoud, Fredrik Pacius, Pekka Airaksinen, Yrjö Kilpinen, Ernst Mielck, Väinö Raitio, Santeri Siimes, Olli Mustonen. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Jean Sibelius, né le 8 décembre 1865 à Tavastehus, dans le grand-duché de Finlande et mort le 20 septembre 1957 à Järvenpää, près d'Helsinki, est un compositeur finlandais de musique classique. Il est, avec Johan Ludvig Runeberg, l'un des Finlandais qui symbolisent le mieux la naissance de l'identité nationale finlandaise, bien qu'il soit suédophone (comme d'ailleurs Runeberg). Aino Sibelius, sa femme, en 1922.Johan Christian Julius Sibelius (Janne pour ses amis et Jean, en français, pour son activité musicale) naît à Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus en suédois) au nord d'Helsingfors, dans une famille parlant le suédois, et fait ses études dans une école de langue finnoise. Étudiant en droit, il interrompt ses études avant de les terminer. Il étudie ensuite le violon et la composition au conservatoire d'Helsingfors, à Berlin et à Vienne, avec Wegellus (Helsingfors), Becker (Berlin) et Karl Goldmark (Vienne) notamment. Il échoue à devenir violoniste dans le Philharmonique de Vienne et de retour à Helsingfors en 1892, il y enseigne la théorie musicale. Entre 1900 et 1929, encouragé par ses pairs, et malgré de longues périodes de dépression, il se consacre presque exclusivement à la composition. Dans les années trente, il cesse assez brutalement de composer,...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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Sibelius completed this work in February 1923 and conducted the premiere at Helsinki on February 19 of that same year. His first reference to the work, in 1918, described it as wild and passionate in character. Dark with pastoral contrasts. Probably in 4 movements...intensifying in a dark orchestral swell [until the main theme is drowned. At the same time he cautioned that his plan could change - and how it did! - depending on the way my musical thinking develops. I am always a slave to my themes and obey their demands. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Scandinavian Studies, published by Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study on December 22, 1998. The length of the article is 933 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Jean Sibelius and Olin Downes: Music, Friendship, Criticism.(Review) (book reviews)
Author: Bertil van Boer
Publication: Scandinavian Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1998
Publisher: Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
Volume: 70Issue: 4Page: 524(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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