A Symphony That Contains Everything, A Symphony Like The World.

Lake Keitele, Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1905)

Of course it’s Mahler, not Sibelius, who said the symphony must be like the world:

A Trove of Sibelius Treasures

Wild Angelica, Akseli Gallen-Kallela

String Quartet in D-Minor op. 56, Voces Intimae.

In the 8th session of David Nice’s excellent survey of the music of Jean Sibelius, he took a time-out from symphonies to explore others of Sibelius’s musical treasures. Here are performances of each:

In Helsinki

Monument to Alexander II, Senate Square

A young woman strode forward, her cello strapped to her back, to join a gangly young man with a red thatch of hair. The gate personnel announced we would soon begin boarding for the flight to HelSINKi, and the young woman shook her head in contempt. She was Finnish, he was Latvian, and she spoke in English. “These Americans. They don’t even know how to say HELsinki.” The young man nodded with a world-weary air.