Visit the Sibelius Museum in the composer’s childhood home and the 13th-century Häme Castle. Drive through birch forests to Hämeenlinna, one of the oldest settlements in Finland and birthplace of Sibelius. Concert at the Sibelius Hall with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk (conductor), Tuuli Takala (soprano), Tommi Hakala (baritone), The Polytech Choir: Have You Courage? The Rapids-Shooter’s Brides The Origin of Fire Kullervo. Time to settle into the hotel before the evening performance. Afternoon drive to Lahti, a pleasant if unspectacular town with attractive waterfront and adjoining parkland. The morning walk includes the Art Nouveau railway station by Eliel Saarinen and the Ateneum, Finland’s foremost art museum, with a collection of brilliant National Romantic pictures. Begin with a walk through the Neo-Classical heart of the city: the Esplanade, Senate Square, cathedral and Market Square. 10.15am from London Heathrow to Helsinki (Finnair).
Our four nights there are preceded by a night in Helsinki, staying at Sibelius’s preferred Hotel Kamp, in order to set the National Romantic scene. The small lakeside city of Lahti has hosted the festival annually since 2000 with performances taking place in the stunning timber concert hall, renowned for both design and acoustics. Other highlights include a programme featuring Finnish soprano Karita Mattila and the folk-inspired En saga, a recital with exciting young cellist Jonathan Roozeman, and a performance of Kullervo with Sibelius Academy graduate and baritone, Tommi Hakala. They perform the same symphony nearly 100 years on, in addition to Symphonies 5 and 6. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra, directed by Dima Slobodeniouk, are joined by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, themselves conducted by Sibelius in 1924 for the world première of Symphony No.
The twentieth year of the International Sibelius Festival presents a number of symphonies interspersed with other orchestral, chamber and choral music. He lived through and gave expression to the period of National Romanticism when Finland rebelled against Russian political and cultural dominance and emerged as an independent nation in 1917. His main literary influences were Nordic, particularly the Kalevala, the great Finnish national epic, and the landscapes which moved him so intensely are the forests and lakes of central Finland. Sibelius was also one of the most place-specific of composers. While displaying a range of stylistic influences, they are nevertheless highly original and distinctive, and are rooted in a passion for nature and a sense of the endurance of the human spirit.
Sibelius’s compositions are among the greatest and most universally appreciated achievements of western music.
0 kommentar(er)
