Part of this project was, that also Russian students studied Finnish culture. So here are their essays.
Andrei Bertenev: Ville Haapasalo
When I saw the movie "Love in the City" with Ville Haapasalo in one of the main roles I was very interested with his work and I decided to learn more about him.He was born on 28.02.1972 in Lahti, Finland. As a child, he was involved in many sports, but not less than the sport he loved theater. He dreamed that he would go abroad and in winter he would play in the NHL, and in the summer - act in Hollywood. Soon Ville realized that he should choose one thing . And he decided to choose the theater.
In 1991, nineteen-year-Ville decided to go to England to study acting, but soon decided to study in Leningrad.
Ville knew almost nothing about the USSR. All his DETAILs were limited by the fact that in this country play good hockey. When he arrived he did not know any words in Russian. Not a word he did not understand at the entrance exams to St. Petersburg Theatre Academy named after N. Cherkasov. He was accepted just because he had paid for the study. The first time Ville just came to the lectures and didn’t understand anything. The study began only a year later when he began to speak Russian.
Russian viewers learned Ville Haapasalo thanks to Alexander Rogozhkin’s comedy "Peculiarities of National Fishing", where he played a guy named Raimo.
In 1995, he gave up acting and went to Finland and worked as a truck driver. At the same time, he married actress of Finnish theater and they have a son and a daughter. A year later he returned to the same movie.
Russian viewers learned Ville Haapasalo thanks to Alexander Rogozhkin’s comedy "Peculiarities of National Fishing", where he played a guy named Raimo.
In 1995, he gave up acting and went to Finland and worked as a truck driver. At the same time, he married actress of Finnish theater and they have a son and a daughter. A year later he returned to the same movie.
After some time Ville wanted to create his own firm to realize the ideas to make movies.
His main goal remains the role of Raskolnikov by F.Dostoevskiy.
Aleksei Veselov: Aleksis Kivi
When I first visited Finland I was interested with the monument of Alexis Kivi most of all, I wanted to know more about his works and I thought, why not to write an essay about him?
Alexis Kivi (1834-1872) is an outstanding writer who holds a unique position in the Finnish literature.
He is the pride of Finnish culture.
The Finns have found a lot in common with A.Pushkin and A.Kivi...
A.Kivi was born three years before the death of Pushkin - but, nevertheless, they have a lot that unites them. And the similarity is not limited to their literary work. As Alexander Pushkin for Russia as Alexis Kivi for Finland - more than a brilliant writer, but also a creator, the "father" of the national literatural language. Both fought to liberate the creativity of prejudice censorship, envy, hostility, conservatism in art. They believed in impossible, looked to the future, fought and, of course, they were right. They were ruled and inspired by inner strength, even in cases when defeat seemed to be inevitable.
As we know, only the exile to Mikhailovskoe helped A.Pushkin to avoid the sad fate of his fellows Decembrists whose ideas he shared. As for A.Kivis, he led almost hopeless war on behalf of the Finnish Literature and Culture , which at that time was under the influence of Sweden. Kivi refused the Swedish language, which was the main language of the ruling class in those days, and began to work for common Finns. Only this was enough to stay him in the history of his Motherland forever.
But God gave Kivi not only courage, but also talent. "Kulervo", "Nummi Shoemakers" and "Engagement" are works that laid the foundation for creative activity of A.Kivi. The main novel "Seven Brothers"was created in 1870 and translated into many languages.
In this novel there was a classical description of the Finnish character. "Seven Brothers" is a kind of "Encyclopedia of Finnish life" (as it is known, for such an encyclopedia of Russian life became"Eugene Onegin" in the time of A.Pushkin.
....... "I live" - this was the last words said by A.Kivi when he was dying. Once he was the most famous patient of psychiatric clinic in Lapinlahti. He suffered a fever, often starving and he didn’t have any strength to live . Writer died in his brother Alpert's house in 1872, ten months after getting returned from the hospital. He was only 38 (another coincidence: A.Pushkin was also 38 when he was fatal wounded in a duel).
And as so often happens with talents, time of physical death was the beginning of immortality ...
One of the areas in Helsinki is called the Theatre. Here is a famous Drama Theatre named after
Alexis Kivi. His plays are always on the stage - and not only in the homeland of the author. Not once Alexis Kivi works were shooted. Erkki Karu directed the film "Village Shoemaker" which had a great success.
During our trip I would like to know more about Finnish literature.
Väinö Linna was born in 20th of December 1920. He is one of the most well-known Finnish author . Väinö Linna was born in Urjala in the Pirkanmaa region. He was the seventh child of Viktor (Vihtori) Linna (1874–1928) and Johanna Maria (Maija) Linna (1888–1972). However, Linna's father, a butcher, died when Väinö Linna was only seven years old. He early to understand that was necessary to earn bread of his own. When he was be young he worked a farmhand, a butcher, a worker. But he become well known as writer . His first novel ‘Päämäärä’ (1947). His second novel was “Black Luve” (1948). Both of this novels were written under the influenced of modern aesthetics. But the most well-known novel ‘The Unknown Soldier’ . Väinö Linna served as a soldier fighting as a soldier against Russia in Sovet-Finnish
War in 1939. That is why you can fill real war atmosphere. Väinö Linna was strongly against war and the reader can clear understand that .
His second well known novel ‘Under the North Star’ was written in 1962 .This book is a story about Finnish poor peasants. Linna's social realism has had a profound influence on Finnish social, political and cultural life. His novels have a place in Finland's literary canon, among Kalуala, Seven Brothers and other classics. Many quotations from his works are nowadays Finnish sayings. The opening line of Under the North Star, "In the beginning there were the swamp, the hoe — and Jussi", is recognized by most Finns as well as Rokka's famous exclamation, "Where do you need a real good man, here you have one!", from The Unknown Soldier. Showcasing the value of his legacy, Linna was pictured on the 20 markkaa banknote which was in use from 1993 to the introduction of the Euro. In addition, both of his major works have been filmed twice.
Jean Sibelius was born in December 8, 1865 in Tavastguse in the Grand Duchy of Finland. According to family tradition the future composer learned to play a musical instrument, which he had to choose himself. He chosed the violin. When he was just 10 years old he wrote his first short play. Later his musical attraction grew and he began to systematically worked under the guidance of the local wind orchestra leader Gustav Levendera. Appreciable influence on early work of Sibelius had two Finnish musician: he was taught the art of orchestration Robert Kajanus, conductor and founder of the Association of Helsinki orchestras, and mentor in the field of symphonic music was music critic Karl Flodin.
But God gave Kivi not only courage, but also talent. "Kulervo", "Nummi Shoemakers" and "Engagement" are works that laid the foundation for creative activity of A.Kivi. The main novel "Seven Brothers"was created in 1870 and translated into many languages.
In this novel there was a classical description of the Finnish character. "Seven Brothers" is a kind of "Encyclopedia of Finnish life" (as it is known, for such an encyclopedia of Russian life became"Eugene Onegin" in the time of A.Pushkin.
....... "I live" - this was the last words said by A.Kivi when he was dying. Once he was the most famous patient of psychiatric clinic in Lapinlahti. He suffered a fever, often starving and he didn’t have any strength to live . Writer died in his brother Alpert's house in 1872, ten months after getting returned from the hospital. He was only 38 (another coincidence: A.Pushkin was also 38 when he was fatal wounded in a duel).
And as so often happens with talents, time of physical death was the beginning of immortality ...
One of the areas in Helsinki is called the Theatre. Here is a famous Drama Theatre named after
Alexis Kivi. His plays are always on the stage - and not only in the homeland of the author. Not once Alexis Kivi works were shooted. Erkki Karu directed the film "Village Shoemaker" which had a great success.
During our trip I would like to know more about Finnish literature.
Aleksei Dunaev: Väinö Linna
Väinö Linna was born in 20th of December 1920. He is one of the most well-known Finnish author . Väinö Linna was born in Urjala in the Pirkanmaa region. He was the seventh child of Viktor (Vihtori) Linna (1874–1928) and Johanna Maria (Maija) Linna (1888–1972). However, Linna's father, a butcher, died when Väinö Linna was only seven years old. He early to understand that was necessary to earn bread of his own. When he was be young he worked a farmhand, a butcher, a worker. But he become well known as writer . His first novel ‘Päämäärä’ (1947). His second novel was “Black Luve” (1948). Both of this novels were written under the influenced of modern aesthetics. But the most well-known novel ‘The Unknown Soldier’ . Väinö Linna served as a soldier fighting as a soldier against Russia in Sovet-Finnish
War in 1939. That is why you can fill real war atmosphere. Väinö Linna was strongly against war and the reader can clear understand that .
His second well known novel ‘Under the North Star’ was written in 1962 .This book is a story about Finnish poor peasants. Linna's social realism has had a profound influence on Finnish social, political and cultural life. His novels have a place in Finland's literary canon, among Kalуala, Seven Brothers and other classics. Many quotations from his works are nowadays Finnish sayings. The opening line of Under the North Star, "In the beginning there were the swamp, the hoe — and Jussi", is recognized by most Finns as well as Rokka's famous exclamation, "Where do you need a real good man, here you have one!", from The Unknown Soldier. Showcasing the value of his legacy, Linna was pictured on the 20 markkaa banknote which was in use from 1993 to the introduction of the Euro. In addition, both of his major works have been filmed twice.
Artem Eliseev: Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was born in December 8, 1865 in Tavastguse in the Grand Duchy of Finland. According to family tradition the future composer learned to play a musical instrument, which he had to choose himself. He chosed the violin. When he was just 10 years old he wrote his first short play. Later his musical attraction grew and he began to systematically worked under the guidance of the local wind orchestra leader Gustav Levendera. Appreciable influence on early work of Sibelius had two Finnish musician: he was taught the art of orchestration Robert Kajanus, conductor and founder of the Association of Helsinki orchestras, and mentor in the field of symphonic music was music critic Karl Flodin.
Creativity of Sibelius - not only bright page in the history of musical culture in Finland, the composer has gone far beyond his homeland. The heyday of the composer falls in the late 19th - early 20th century. - A time of growing national liberation and revolutionary movement in Finland. At that time Finland was part of the Russian Empire and experienced the same mood ominous era of social change. Sibelius worked in various genres. He wrote seven symphonies, symphonic poems, three orchestral suites. Violin Concerto, two string quartets, piano quintets and trios, chamber vocal and instrumental works, music for drama performances, but most brightly manifested in the gift of the composer's symphonic music.
Jean Sibelius is one of those composers of our who are the most truthful and effortlessly conveys his music character of the Finnish people
Sibelius is the founder of Finnish music. After World War II became seen more widespread tendency to view Sibelius as a modernist and innovator
Valentina Kilbi: Kalevala
Karelian-Fnnish epos “Kalevala”
Each folk has its own epos. People from all over the world know myths of Ancient Greece. Each Russian knows famous Russian heros: Iliya Muromets,Alesha Popovich and Dobrynia Nikitch. And of course there is no person in heros of Karelian-Finnish epos called “Kalevala”. This year they have celebrated the one hundred and eighty anniversary of the first publication of this epos.
A finnish writer Yuhan Vilgelm Snelman wrote : “If suddendly finnish people disappeared,there would be nothing left except Kalevala”.
The epopee of Kalevala was composed from Karelian-Finnish runes(small songs). The first composition consists of thirthy two runes and the second one consists of fifty runes. Runes sang about wonderful and at the same time accurate pictures of:north nature,delicate features of people's character,amazing scenes of natural force. Elias Lenrot heard it and wrote it down. We can see an unusual world full of primaeval beauty.
Main heros of “Kalevalo” are Vyainyameinen(everlasting singer),Ilmarinen(black smith), Lemminkyainen(merry-maker). They live in the world called Kalevala.
The elegy tells us about a blacksmith Ilmarinen trying to make a magic mill,wonderful Sampo. Sampo was a symbol of happiness and prosperity. But in the and of the elegy Sampo is broken. It didn't gift any happiness of prosperity to anyone. Can you imagine how much happines people could get if Sampo wasn't broken? Karelian-Finnish epos Kalevala amazed me with its significance,kindness and beauty.
Preparing for the trip to Finland, I wanted to learn more about Finnish culture. Reading the reviews about writers and their works, I was very interested with Alexis Kivi.
Alexis Kivi is a Finnish writer, the founder of realistic literature in the Finnish language. As we know from history, to 18-19 centuries almost all Finnish writers wrote in Swedish. But Alexis Kiwi was the first Finnish writer who wrote the best-known novel "Seven Brothers" in the Finnish language; now this novel is considered one of the most important works in Finnish literature. However, immediately after the publication of the novel around it quickly broke out big debate. Critics were divided into two camps - one treated with sympathy and pinned high hopes on the novel, emphasizing that a novel can give a great impetus to the development of Finnish literature; others embraced the novel very skeptical. The well-known critic, scholar of the Finno-Ugric languages and poet August Ahlqvist wrote: "Our nation is not the same, what are the heroes of this book. Quiet and serious people, cultivated fields Finland has nothing to do with the new settlers Impivaara "; He also called the novel "absurd" and "disgrace of Finnish literature." Despite the opinion of critics, is currently a novel translated into 25 languages. In addition to this novel, written in Kiwi many other equally interesting works such as: romantic tragedy "Kullervo", "Kalevala", "Nummi Shoemakers", "Engagement," "The Runaways", "stationery" and many others. Finns revere the memory of Kiwi, even set day of remembrance in his honor. This day is also the day of Finnish culture. Just a monument Alexis Kivi to the National Theatre in Helsinki, Nurmiyavii, Tuusula and Tampere
In conclusion, I want to say that I would like to read more works of Alexis Kivi, because learning about completely different people's lives, their behavior, their thoughts, very exciting.
The wonderful writer, who made my childhood brighten and happier, is Tove Jansson.
Her exciting stories about cute mummies are keeping in my memories so far.
Tove Marika Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. For her contribution as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.
Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and then Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. At the same time, she was writing short stories and articles for publication, as well as creating the graphics for book covers and other purposes. She continued to work as an artist for the rest of her life, alongside her writing.
Jansson is best known as the author of the Moomin books for children. The first such book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945, though it was the next two books, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, that brought her 9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001 fame.Starting with the semi-autobiographical Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter) in 1968, she wrote six novels and five books of short stories for adults.
Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland. Her family, part of the Swedish-speaking (Swedish: finlandssvensk) minority of Finland, was an artistic one: her father Viktor Jansson was a sculptor and her mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson was a graphic designer and illustrator. Tove's siblings also became artists: Per Olov Jansson became a photographer and Lars Jansson an author and cartoonist. Whilst their home was in Helsinki, the family spent many of their summers in a rented cottage on an island near Porvoo, 50 km east of Helsinki.
Jansson studied at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm in 1930–33, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 1933–1937 and finally at L'École d'Adrien Holy and L'École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1938. She displayed a number of artworks in exhibitions during the 30s and early 40s, and her first solo exhibition was held in 1943.
Aged 14, she wrote and illustrated her first picture book "Sara och Pelle och näckens bläckfiskar" ("Sara and Pelle and the Water Sprite's Octopuses") although it was not published until 1933, and had drawings published in magazines in the 1920s. During the 1930s she made several trips to other European countries, and wrote and illustrated short stories and articles which were also published in magazines, periodicals and daily papers. During this period, Jansson designed many book covers, adverts and postcards, and, following her mother, she drew illustrations for Garm, an anti-fascist Finnish-Swedish satirical magazine.
Briefly engaged in the 1940s to Atos Wirtanen, she later during her studies met her future partner Tuulikki Pietilä. The two women collaborated on many works and projects, including a model of the Moominhouse, in collaboration with Pentti Eistola. This is now exhibited at the Moomin museum in Tampere.Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945, during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her and she had wanted to write something naïve and innocent. This first book was hardly noticed, but the next Moomin books, Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), made her famous. She went on to write six more Moomin books, a number of picture books and comic strips. Her fame spread quickly and she became Finland's most widely read author abroad. For her "lasting contribution to children's literature" she received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1966. Jansson continued painting and writing for the rest of her life, although her contributions to the Moomin series became rare after 1970. Her first foray outside children's literature was Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter), a semi-autobiographical book written in 1968. After that, she authored five more novels, including Sommarboken (The Summer Book) and five collections of short stories. Although she had a studio in Helsinki, she lived many summers on a small island called Klovharu, one of the Pellinki Islands near the town of Porvoo. Jansson's and Pietilä's travels and summers spent together on the Klovharu island in Pellinki have been captured on several hours of film, shot by Pietilä. Several documentaries have been made of this footage, the latest being Haru, yksinäinen saari (Haru, the lonely island) (1998) and Tove ja Tooti Euroopassa (Tove and Tooti in Europe) (2004).
A lifelong smoker, Jansson developed lung cancer in early 2000, and died on 27 June 2001. She was 86 years old.
Tove Jansson wrote a lot of books about Moomin.
Such as:
-Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (1945, The Moomins and the Great Flood) (translated into English)
-Kometjakten (1946, Comet in Moominland) (translated into English)
-Kometen kommer (1968; reworked edition of Comet in Moominland)
-Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll; in some editions The Happy Moomins) (translated into English)
-Muminpappans bravader (1950, The Exploits of Moominpappa) (translated into English)
-Muminpappans memoarer (1968, The Memoirs of Moominpappa; reworked edition of The Exploits of
Moominpappa) (translated into English)
-Farlig midsommar (1954, Moominsummer Madness) (translated into English)
-Trollvinter (1957, Moominland Midwinter) (translated into English)
-Pappan och havet (1965, Moominpappa at Sea) (translated into English)
-Sent i November (1970, Moominvalley in November) (translated into English)
But my favorite book is "Moomin and the Comet".
This fantastic story gave me a lot of emotions. Characters, described in this story, are very cute and kind. So, I think, that anyone, who read Tove Jansson’s books, will remember them all life.
And it's my little Moomin-collection: Picture comes later.
I read a biography of Alexis Kivi, who was one of the first professional Finnish writers. I think that writer looks like a closed man. From a his childhood Alexis had big problems in communication with his peers, also he was self-critical and shy. Maybe, like a person he was not such unremarkable, but he has great writers talent.
His family notised this talent, and helped him with education. Learning was difficult, in school and at the university. Most of his life Alexis was in the care of his parents, then in the care of his friends and for the end his mistress Sharlotta Lennkvist.
The fact of the choice writers profession as main in the years of lack of readerships on Finnish, lack of reliance on previous experience, admiration.
Bad, that for the end of his life, Alexis was sick, and felt strong heartache.
Jean Sibelius; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic period. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity.
The core of Sibelius' oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies. Like Beethoven, Sibelius used each successive work to further develop his own personal compositional style. His works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and are often recorded.
In addition to the symphonies, Sibelius' best-known compositions include Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto in D minor, Kullervo, and The Swan of Tuonela (one of the four movements of the Lemminkäinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala; over 100 songs for voice and piano; incidental music for 13 plays; the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower); chamber music; piano music; Masonic ritual music; and 21 separate publications of choral music.
Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s. However, after completing his Seventh Symphony (1924), the incidental music to The Tempest (1926), and the tone poem Tapiola (1926), he produced no large scale works for the remaining thirty years of his life. Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he in fact attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts to compose an eighth symphony. He wrote some Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works during this last period of his life, and retained an active interest in new developments in music, although he did not always view modern music favorably.
The Finnish 100 mark bill featured his image until it was taken out of circulation in 2002 when the euro was adopted as a cash currency. Since 2011, Finland has celebrated a Flag Day on 8 December, the composer's birthday, also known as the 'Day of Finnish Music'.
11-year-old Sibelius in 1876
Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna in Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, the son of Swedish-speaking doctor Christian Gustaf Sibelius and Maria Charlotta Sibelius née Borg. As a boy he was nicknamed Janne, as is common in Finland. However, during his student years, he began preferring the French form Jean, inspired by the business card of his seafaring uncle. He therefore became known as Jean Sibelius.
Sibelius' younger brother Christian Sibelius (1869–1922), MD, university professor and head of Lapinlahti Asylum, was a psychiatrist and founder of modern psychiatry in Finland.
The rapid rise of Romantic Nationalism in Europe was inspired by the philosophy of Hegel and had a profound effect on educational systems in Europe. The gradual demise of Latin was accompanied by opportunities to study more native languages. In Finland this meant either Finnish or Swedish, which became part of the syllabus, from elementary school up to university. Young Janne Sibelius went to the Finnish-speaking Hämeenlinna Normal-Lycee secondary school which he attended from 1876 to 1885, but his first language was Swedish. Romantic Nationalism was to become a crucial element in Sibelius' artistic output and his political leanings. From around the age of 15, he set his heart on becoming a great violin virtuoso, and he did become quite an accomplished player of the instrument, even publicly performing the last two movements of the Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in Helsinki.
After Sibelius graduated from high school in 1885, he began to study law at the Imperial Alexander University in Finland (from 1919 the University of Helsinki). However, he was more interested in music than in law, and he soon quit his studies. From 1885 to 1889 Sibelius studied music in the Helsinki Music Institute (now the Sibelius Academy). One of his teachers there was the founder Martin Wegelius. Sibelius continued studying in Berlin (from 1889 to 1890 with Albert Becker) and in Vienna (from 1890 to 1891 with Karl Goldmark). It was around this time that he finally abandoned his cherished violin playing aspirations: "It was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of a virtuoso too late".
According to Sibelius' biographer Erik Tawaststjerna, he was an enthusiastic Wagnerian at the beginning of the 1890s but then began to feel disgust for his music, calling it pompous and vulgar.
On 10 June 1892, Jean Sibelius married Aino Järnefelt (1871–1969) at Maxmo. Their home, called Ainola, was completed at Lake Tuusula, Järvenpää, in 1903. They had six daughters: Eva, Ruth, Kirsti (who died at a very young age from typhoid), Katarina, Margareta and Heidi. Eva married an industrial heir Arvi Paloheimo and later herself became the CEO of the Paloheimo Corporation. Ruth Snellman was a prominent actress, Katarina Ilves the wife of a banker, and Heidi Blomstedt a designer, her husband Aulis Blomstedt being an architect. Margareta married the conductor Jussi Jalas, previously Blomstedt, Aulis Blomstedt's brother.
In 1907, Sibelius underwent a serious operation for suspected throat cancer. The impact of this brush with death has been said to have inspired works that he composed in the following years, including Luonnotar and the Fourth Symphony.
Blue plaque, 15 Gloucester Walk, Kensington, London, his home in 1909
Sibelius spent long periods abroad studying in Vienna and Berlin 1889–1891 and 1900–1901 with family in Italy. He composed, conducted and socialized actively in Scandinavian countries, the UK, France and Germany. In 1914 he was the composer of the year at the Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut, USA, premiering his symphonic poem The Oceanides commissioned by the millionaire Carl Stoeckel.
When freemasonry was revived in Finland, having been forbidden during the Russian sovereignty, Sibelius was one of the founding members of Suomi Lodge Nr 1 in 1922 and later the Grand Organist of the Grand Lodge of Finland. He composed the ritual music used in Finland (op 113) in 1927 and added two new pieces composed 1946. The new revision of the ritual music of 1948 is one of his last works.
Sibelius loved nature, and the Finnish landscape often served as material for his music. He once said of his Sixth Symphony, "[It] always reminds me of the scent of the first snow." The forests surrounding Ainola are often said to have inspired his composition of Tapiola. On the subject of Sibelius' ties to nature, one biographer of the composer, Erik W. Tawaststjerna, wrote the following:
"Even by Nordic standards, Sibelius responded with exceptional intensity to the moods of nature and the changes in the seasons: he scanned the skies with his binoculars for the geese flying over the lake ice, listened to the screech of the cranes, and heard the cries of the curlew echo over the marshy grounds just below Ainola. He savoured the spring blossoms every bit as much as he did autumnal scents and colours".
The year 1926 saw a sharp and lasting decline in Sibelius' output: after his Seventh Symphony he only produced a few major works in the rest of his life. Arguably the two most significant were incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest and the tone poem Tapiola. For most of the last thirty years of his life, Sibelius even avoided talking about his music publicly.
There is substantial evidence that Sibelius worked on an eighth symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron was even advertised to the public. However, the only concrete evidence for the symphony's existence on paper are a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played in 2011. Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of the score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames. His wife Aino recalled,
"In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé at Ainola. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the Karelia Suite were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood.
On 1 January 1939, Sibelius participated in an international radio broadcast which included the composer conducting his Andante Festivo. The performance was preserved on transcription discs and later issued on CD. This is probably the only surviving example of Sibelius interpreting his own music.
Since 1903 Sibelius had lived in the country, but from 1939–1944 Jean and Aino again held a residence in Helsinki. After the war he came to the city only a couple of times. The so-called "Silence of Ainola" appears a myth, knowing that in addition to countless official visitors and visiting colleagues also his grandchildren and great grandchildren spent their holidays in Ainola.
Sibelius avoided public statements about other composers, but Erik W. Tawaststjerna and Sibelius' secretary Santeri Levas have documented his private conversations in which he considered Bartók and Shostakovich the most talented composers of the younger generations. In the 1950s he actively promoted the young Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.
His 90th birthday, in 1955, was widely celebrated and both the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham gave special performances of his music in Finland. The orchestras and their conductors also met the composer at his home; a series of memorable photographs were taken to commemorate the occasions. Both Columbia Records and EMI released some of the pictures with albums of Sibelius' music. Beecham was honored by the Finnish government for his efforts to promote Sibelius both in the United Kingdom and in the United States.
Erik W. Tawaststjerna also related an endearing anecdote regarding Sibelius' death:
[He] was returning from his customary morning walk. Exhilarated, he told his wife Aino that he had seen a flock of cranes approaching. "There they come, the birds of my youth," he exclaimed. Suddenly, one of the birds broke away from the formation and circled once above Ainola. It then rejoined the flock to continue its journey.
Two days afterwards Sibelius died of a brain hemorrhage, at age 91 (on 20 September 1957), in Ainola, where he is buried in the garden. Another well-known Finnish composer, Heino Kaski, died that same day. Aino lived there for the next twelve years until she died on 8 June 1969; she is buried with her husband.
Heritage[edit]
In 1972, Sibelius' surviving daughters sold Ainola to the State of Finland. The Ministry of Education and the Sibelius Society of Finland opened it as a museum in 1974.
Musical style[edit]
Like many of his contemporaries, Sibelius was initially enamored of the music of Wagner. A performance of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival had a strong effect on him, inspiring him to write to his wife shortly thereafter, "Nothing in the world has made such an impression on me, it moves the very strings of my heart." He studied the scores of Wagner's operas Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Die Walküre intently. With this music in mind, Sibelius began work on an opera of his own, entitled Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat). However, his appreciation for Wagner waned and Sibelius ultimately rejected Wagner's Leitmotif compositional technique, considering it to be too deliberate and calculated. Departing from opera, he later used the musical material from the incomplete Veneen luominen in his Lemminkäinen Suite (1893). He did, however, compose a considerable number of songs for voice and piano, whose early interpreters included Aino Ackté and particularly Ida Ekman.
More lasting influences included Ferruccio Busoni, Anton Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. Hints of Tchaikovsky's music are particularly evident in works such as Sibelius' First Symphony (1899) and his Violin Concerto (1905). Similarities to Bruckner are most strongly felt in the 'unmixed' timbral palette and sombre brass chorales of Sibelius' orchestration, a fondness for pedal points, and in the underlying slow pace of the music.
Sibelius progressively stripped away formal markers of sonata form in his work and, instead of contrasting multiple themes, he focused on the idea of continuously evolving cells and fragments culminating in a grand statement. His later works are remarkable for their sense of unbroken development, progressing by means of thematic permutations and derivations. The completeness and organic feel of this synthesis has prompted some to suggest that Sibelius began his works with a finished statement and worked backwards, although analyses showing these predominantly three- and four-note cells and melodic fragments as they are developed and expanded into the larger "themes" effectively prove the opposite.
Portrait of Sibelius from 1894 by his brother-in-law Eero Järnefelt
This self-contained structure stood in stark contrast to the symphonic style of Gustav Mahler, Sibelius' primary rival in symphonic composition. While thematic variation played a major role in the works of both composers, Mahler's style made use of disjunct, abruptly changing and contrasting themes, while Sibelius sought to slowly transform thematic elements. In November 1907 Mahler undertook a conducting tour of Finland, and the two composers had occasion to go have a lengthy bath together. Sibelius later reported that during the bath:
I said that I admired [the symphony's] severity of style and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motifs... Mahler's opinion was just the reverse. 'No, a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.
However, the two rivals did find common ground in their music. Like Mahler, Sibelius made frequent use both of folk music and of literature in the composition of his works. The Second Symphony's slow movement was sketched from the motif of Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni, while the stark Fourth Symphony combined work for a planned "Mountain" symphony with a tone poem based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". Sibelius also wrote several tone poems based on Finnish poetry, beginning with the early En Saga and culminating in the late Tapiola (1926), his last major composition.
Over time, he sought to use new chord patterns, including naked tritones (for example in the Fourth Symphony), and bare melodic structures to build long movements of music, in a manner similar to Joseph Haydn's use of built-in dissonances. Sibelius would often alternate melodic sections with noble brass chords that would swell and fade away, or he would underpin his music with repeating figures which push against the melody and counter-melody.
Sibelius' melodies often feature powerful modal implications: for example much of the Sixth Symphony is in the (modern) Dorian mode. Sibelius studied Renaissance polyphony, as did his contemporary, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, and Sibelius' music often reflects the influence of this early music. He often varied his movements in a piece by changing the note values of melodies, rather than the conventional change of tempi. He would often draw out one melody over a number of notes, while playing a different melody in shorter rhythm. For example, his Seventh Symphony comprises four originally sketched movements fused into telescopical and partly parallel functions without pause, where every important theme is in C major or C minor; the variation comes from the time and rhythm. His harmonic language was often restrained, even iconoclastic, compared to many of his contemporaries who were already experimenting with musical Modernism. As reported by Neville Cardus in the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1958:
Sibelius justified the austerity of his old age by saying that while other composers were engaged in manufacturing cocktails he offered the public pure cold water.[22]
Reception[edit]
Sibelius exerted considerable influence on symphonic composers and musical life, at least in English-speaking and Nordic countries. The Finnish symphonist Leevi Madetoja was a pupil of Sibelius. In Britain, Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax both dedicated their fifth symphonies to Sibelius. Furthermore, Tapiola is prominently echoed in both Bax's Sixth Symphony and Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. The influence of Sibelius' compositional procedures is also strongly felt in the First Symphony of William Walton.[23] When these and several other major British symphonic essays were being written in and around the 1930s, Sibelius' music was very much in vogue, with conductors like Beecham and Barbirolli championing its cause both in the concert hall and on record. Walton's composer friend Constant Lambert even claimed that Sibelius was "the first great composer since Beethoven whose mind thinks naturally in terms of symphonic form".[24] Earlier, Granville Bantock had championed Sibelius (the esteem was mutual: Sibelius dedicated his Third Symphony to the English composer, and in 1946 he became the first President of the Bantock Society). More recently, Sibelius was also one of the composers championed by Robert Simpson. Malcolm Arnold acknowledged his influence, and Arthur Butterworth continues to see Sibelius' music as a source of inspiration in his own work.[25]
Eugene Ormandy and to a lesser extent, his predecessor Leopold Stokowski, were instrumental in bringing Sibelius' music to American audiences by programming his works often; the former developed a friendly relationship with Sibelius throughout his life. Later in life he was championed by critic Olin Downes, who wrote a biography of the composer.[26]
In 1938 Theodor Adorno wrote a critical essay about the composer, notoriously charging that "If Sibelius is good, this invalidates the standards of musical quality that have persisted from Bach to Schoenberg: the richness of inter-connectedness, articulation, unity in diversity, the 'multi-faceted' in 'the one'."[27] Adorno sent his essay to Virgil Thomson, then music critic of the New York Herald Tribune, who was also critical of Sibelius; Thomson, while agreeing with the essay's sentiment, declared to Adorno that "the tone of it [was] more apt to create antagonism toward [Adorno] than toward Sibelius".[17] Later, the composer, theorist and conductor René Leibowitz went so far as to describe Sibelius as "the worst composer in the world" in the title of a 1955 pamphlet.[28]
Perhaps one reason Sibelius has attracted both the praise and the ire of critics is that in each of his seven symphonies he approached the basic problems of form, tonality, and architecture in unique, individual ways. On the one hand, his symphonic (and tonal) creativity was novel, but others thought that music should be taking a different route. Sibelius' response to criticism was dismissive: "Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic."
Sibelius' birthplace in Hämeenlinna
In the latter decades of the twentieth century, Sibelius began to be re-assessed more favourably: Milan Kundera dubbed the composer's approach to be that of "antimodern modernism", standing outside the perpetual progression of the status quo.[17] In 1990, the composer Thea Musgrave was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra to write a piece in honour of the 125th anniversary of Sibelius' birth: Song of the Enchanter was premiered on 14 February 1991.[29] In 1984, American avant-garde composer Morton Feldman gave a lecture in Darmstadt, Germany, wherein he stated that "the people you think are radicals might really be conservatives – the people you think are conservatives might really be radical," whereupon he began to hum Sibelius' Fifth Symphony.[17]
Sibelius has fallen in and out of fashion, but remains one of the most popular 20th century symphonists, both in the concert hall and on record. Sibelius had spent much time producing profitable chamber music for home use, salon music, occasional works for the stage and other incidental music, all of which has now been systematically recorded on BIS Records' complete Sibelius Edition. This major editorial project to record every note Sibelius left us also encompasses surviving sketches and early versions of the major works.
A finnish writer Yuhan Vilgelm Snelman wrote : “If suddendly finnish people disappeared,there would be nothing left except Kalevala”.
The epopee of Kalevala was composed from Karelian-Finnish runes(small songs). The first composition consists of thirthy two runes and the second one consists of fifty runes. Runes sang about wonderful and at the same time accurate pictures of:north nature,delicate features of people's character,amazing scenes of natural force. Elias Lenrot heard it and wrote it down. We can see an unusual world full of primaeval beauty.
Main heros of “Kalevalo” are Vyainyameinen(everlasting singer),Ilmarinen(black smith), Lemminkyainen(merry-maker). They live in the world called Kalevala.
The elegy tells us about a blacksmith Ilmarinen trying to make a magic mill,wonderful Sampo. Sampo was a symbol of happiness and prosperity. But in the and of the elegy Sampo is broken. It didn't gift any happiness of prosperity to anyone. Can you imagine how much happines people could get if Sampo wasn't broken? Karelian-Finnish epos Kalevala amazed me with its significance,kindness and beauty.
Valeriia Kondratskaia: Aleksis Kivi
Preparing for the trip to Finland, I wanted to learn more about Finnish culture. Reading the reviews about writers and their works, I was very interested with Alexis Kivi.
Alexis Kivi is a Finnish writer, the founder of realistic literature in the Finnish language. As we know from history, to 18-19 centuries almost all Finnish writers wrote in Swedish. But Alexis Kiwi was the first Finnish writer who wrote the best-known novel "Seven Brothers" in the Finnish language; now this novel is considered one of the most important works in Finnish literature. However, immediately after the publication of the novel around it quickly broke out big debate. Critics were divided into two camps - one treated with sympathy and pinned high hopes on the novel, emphasizing that a novel can give a great impetus to the development of Finnish literature; others embraced the novel very skeptical. The well-known critic, scholar of the Finno-Ugric languages and poet August Ahlqvist wrote: "Our nation is not the same, what are the heroes of this book. Quiet and serious people, cultivated fields Finland has nothing to do with the new settlers Impivaara "; He also called the novel "absurd" and "disgrace of Finnish literature." Despite the opinion of critics, is currently a novel translated into 25 languages. In addition to this novel, written in Kiwi many other equally interesting works such as: romantic tragedy "Kullervo", "Kalevala", "Nummi Shoemakers", "Engagement," "The Runaways", "stationery" and many others. Finns revere the memory of Kiwi, even set day of remembrance in his honor. This day is also the day of Finnish culture. Just a monument Alexis Kivi to the National Theatre in Helsinki, Nurmiyavii, Tuusula and Tampere
In conclusion, I want to say that I would like to read more works of Alexis Kivi, because learning about completely different people's lives, their behavior, their thoughts, very exciting.
Aleksandra Kuzmina: Tove Jansson
The wonderful writer, who made my childhood brighten and happier, is Tove Jansson.
Her exciting stories about cute mummies are keeping in my memories so far.
Tove Marika Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. For her contribution as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.
Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and then Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. At the same time, she was writing short stories and articles for publication, as well as creating the graphics for book covers and other purposes. She continued to work as an artist for the rest of her life, alongside her writing.
Jansson is best known as the author of the Moomin books for children. The first such book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945, though it was the next two books, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll, published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, that brought her 9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001 fame.Starting with the semi-autobiographical Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter) in 1968, she wrote six novels and five books of short stories for adults.
Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland. Her family, part of the Swedish-speaking (Swedish: finlandssvensk) minority of Finland, was an artistic one: her father Viktor Jansson was a sculptor and her mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson was a graphic designer and illustrator. Tove's siblings also became artists: Per Olov Jansson became a photographer and Lars Jansson an author and cartoonist. Whilst their home was in Helsinki, the family spent many of their summers in a rented cottage on an island near Porvoo, 50 km east of Helsinki.
Jansson studied at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm in 1930–33, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 1933–1937 and finally at L'École d'Adrien Holy and L'École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1938. She displayed a number of artworks in exhibitions during the 30s and early 40s, and her first solo exhibition was held in 1943.
Aged 14, she wrote and illustrated her first picture book "Sara och Pelle och näckens bläckfiskar" ("Sara and Pelle and the Water Sprite's Octopuses") although it was not published until 1933, and had drawings published in magazines in the 1920s. During the 1930s she made several trips to other European countries, and wrote and illustrated short stories and articles which were also published in magazines, periodicals and daily papers. During this period, Jansson designed many book covers, adverts and postcards, and, following her mother, she drew illustrations for Garm, an anti-fascist Finnish-Swedish satirical magazine.
Briefly engaged in the 1940s to Atos Wirtanen, she later during her studies met her future partner Tuulikki Pietilä. The two women collaborated on many works and projects, including a model of the Moominhouse, in collaboration with Pentti Eistola. This is now exhibited at the Moomin museum in Tampere.Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, in 1945, during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her and she had wanted to write something naïve and innocent. This first book was hardly noticed, but the next Moomin books, Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), made her famous. She went on to write six more Moomin books, a number of picture books and comic strips. Her fame spread quickly and she became Finland's most widely read author abroad. For her "lasting contribution to children's literature" she received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1966. Jansson continued painting and writing for the rest of her life, although her contributions to the Moomin series became rare after 1970. Her first foray outside children's literature was Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter), a semi-autobiographical book written in 1968. After that, she authored five more novels, including Sommarboken (The Summer Book) and five collections of short stories. Although she had a studio in Helsinki, she lived many summers on a small island called Klovharu, one of the Pellinki Islands near the town of Porvoo. Jansson's and Pietilä's travels and summers spent together on the Klovharu island in Pellinki have been captured on several hours of film, shot by Pietilä. Several documentaries have been made of this footage, the latest being Haru, yksinäinen saari (Haru, the lonely island) (1998) and Tove ja Tooti Euroopassa (Tove and Tooti in Europe) (2004).
A lifelong smoker, Jansson developed lung cancer in early 2000, and died on 27 June 2001. She was 86 years old.
Tove Jansson wrote a lot of books about Moomin.
Such as:
-Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (1945, The Moomins and the Great Flood) (translated into English)
-Kometjakten (1946, Comet in Moominland) (translated into English)
-Kometen kommer (1968; reworked edition of Comet in Moominland)
-Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll; in some editions The Happy Moomins) (translated into English)
-Muminpappans bravader (1950, The Exploits of Moominpappa) (translated into English)
-Muminpappans memoarer (1968, The Memoirs of Moominpappa; reworked edition of The Exploits of
Moominpappa) (translated into English)
-Farlig midsommar (1954, Moominsummer Madness) (translated into English)
-Trollvinter (1957, Moominland Midwinter) (translated into English)
-Pappan och havet (1965, Moominpappa at Sea) (translated into English)
-Sent i November (1970, Moominvalley in November) (translated into English)
But my favorite book is "Moomin and the Comet".
This fantastic story gave me a lot of emotions. Characters, described in this story, are very cute and kind. So, I think, that anyone, who read Tove Jansson’s books, will remember them all life.
And it's my little Moomin-collection: Picture comes later.
Aleksandr Logachev: Aleksis kivi
I read a biography of Alexis Kivi, who was one of the first professional Finnish writers. I think that writer looks like a closed man. From a his childhood Alexis had big problems in communication with his peers, also he was self-critical and shy. Maybe, like a person he was not such unremarkable, but he has great writers talent.
His family notised this talent, and helped him with education. Learning was difficult, in school and at the university. Most of his life Alexis was in the care of his parents, then in the care of his friends and for the end his mistress Sharlotta Lennkvist.
The fact of the choice writers profession as main in the years of lack of readerships on Finnish, lack of reliance on previous experience, admiration.
Bad, that for the end of his life, Alexis was sick, and felt strong heartache.
Nikita Ovchinnikov: Jean Sibelius
Jean SibeliusJean Sibelius; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic period. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity.
The core of Sibelius' oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies. Like Beethoven, Sibelius used each successive work to further develop his own personal compositional style. His works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and are often recorded.
In addition to the symphonies, Sibelius' best-known compositions include Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto in D minor, Kullervo, and The Swan of Tuonela (one of the four movements of the Lemminkäinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala; over 100 songs for voice and piano; incidental music for 13 plays; the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower); chamber music; piano music; Masonic ritual music; and 21 separate publications of choral music.
Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s. However, after completing his Seventh Symphony (1924), the incidental music to The Tempest (1926), and the tone poem Tapiola (1926), he produced no large scale works for the remaining thirty years of his life. Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he in fact attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts to compose an eighth symphony. He wrote some Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works during this last period of his life, and retained an active interest in new developments in music, although he did not always view modern music favorably.
The Finnish 100 mark bill featured his image until it was taken out of circulation in 2002 when the euro was adopted as a cash currency. Since 2011, Finland has celebrated a Flag Day on 8 December, the composer's birthday, also known as the 'Day of Finnish Music'.
11-year-old Sibelius in 1876
Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna in Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, the son of Swedish-speaking doctor Christian Gustaf Sibelius and Maria Charlotta Sibelius née Borg. As a boy he was nicknamed Janne, as is common in Finland. However, during his student years, he began preferring the French form Jean, inspired by the business card of his seafaring uncle. He therefore became known as Jean Sibelius.
Sibelius' younger brother Christian Sibelius (1869–1922), MD, university professor and head of Lapinlahti Asylum, was a psychiatrist and founder of modern psychiatry in Finland.
The rapid rise of Romantic Nationalism in Europe was inspired by the philosophy of Hegel and had a profound effect on educational systems in Europe. The gradual demise of Latin was accompanied by opportunities to study more native languages. In Finland this meant either Finnish or Swedish, which became part of the syllabus, from elementary school up to university. Young Janne Sibelius went to the Finnish-speaking Hämeenlinna Normal-Lycee secondary school which he attended from 1876 to 1885, but his first language was Swedish. Romantic Nationalism was to become a crucial element in Sibelius' artistic output and his political leanings. From around the age of 15, he set his heart on becoming a great violin virtuoso, and he did become quite an accomplished player of the instrument, even publicly performing the last two movements of the Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in Helsinki.
After Sibelius graduated from high school in 1885, he began to study law at the Imperial Alexander University in Finland (from 1919 the University of Helsinki). However, he was more interested in music than in law, and he soon quit his studies. From 1885 to 1889 Sibelius studied music in the Helsinki Music Institute (now the Sibelius Academy). One of his teachers there was the founder Martin Wegelius. Sibelius continued studying in Berlin (from 1889 to 1890 with Albert Becker) and in Vienna (from 1890 to 1891 with Karl Goldmark). It was around this time that he finally abandoned his cherished violin playing aspirations: "It was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of a virtuoso too late".
According to Sibelius' biographer Erik Tawaststjerna, he was an enthusiastic Wagnerian at the beginning of the 1890s but then began to feel disgust for his music, calling it pompous and vulgar.
On 10 June 1892, Jean Sibelius married Aino Järnefelt (1871–1969) at Maxmo. Their home, called Ainola, was completed at Lake Tuusula, Järvenpää, in 1903. They had six daughters: Eva, Ruth, Kirsti (who died at a very young age from typhoid), Katarina, Margareta and Heidi. Eva married an industrial heir Arvi Paloheimo and later herself became the CEO of the Paloheimo Corporation. Ruth Snellman was a prominent actress, Katarina Ilves the wife of a banker, and Heidi Blomstedt a designer, her husband Aulis Blomstedt being an architect. Margareta married the conductor Jussi Jalas, previously Blomstedt, Aulis Blomstedt's brother.
In 1907, Sibelius underwent a serious operation for suspected throat cancer. The impact of this brush with death has been said to have inspired works that he composed in the following years, including Luonnotar and the Fourth Symphony.
Blue plaque, 15 Gloucester Walk, Kensington, London, his home in 1909
Sibelius spent long periods abroad studying in Vienna and Berlin 1889–1891 and 1900–1901 with family in Italy. He composed, conducted and socialized actively in Scandinavian countries, the UK, France and Germany. In 1914 he was the composer of the year at the Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut, USA, premiering his symphonic poem The Oceanides commissioned by the millionaire Carl Stoeckel.
When freemasonry was revived in Finland, having been forbidden during the Russian sovereignty, Sibelius was one of the founding members of Suomi Lodge Nr 1 in 1922 and later the Grand Organist of the Grand Lodge of Finland. He composed the ritual music used in Finland (op 113) in 1927 and added two new pieces composed 1946. The new revision of the ritual music of 1948 is one of his last works.
Sibelius loved nature, and the Finnish landscape often served as material for his music. He once said of his Sixth Symphony, "[It] always reminds me of the scent of the first snow." The forests surrounding Ainola are often said to have inspired his composition of Tapiola. On the subject of Sibelius' ties to nature, one biographer of the composer, Erik W. Tawaststjerna, wrote the following:
"Even by Nordic standards, Sibelius responded with exceptional intensity to the moods of nature and the changes in the seasons: he scanned the skies with his binoculars for the geese flying over the lake ice, listened to the screech of the cranes, and heard the cries of the curlew echo over the marshy grounds just below Ainola. He savoured the spring blossoms every bit as much as he did autumnal scents and colours".
The year 1926 saw a sharp and lasting decline in Sibelius' output: after his Seventh Symphony he only produced a few major works in the rest of his life. Arguably the two most significant were incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest and the tone poem Tapiola. For most of the last thirty years of his life, Sibelius even avoided talking about his music publicly.
There is substantial evidence that Sibelius worked on an eighth symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron was even advertised to the public. However, the only concrete evidence for the symphony's existence on paper are a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played in 2011. Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of the score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames. His wife Aino recalled,
"In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé at Ainola. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the Karelia Suite were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood.
On 1 January 1939, Sibelius participated in an international radio broadcast which included the composer conducting his Andante Festivo. The performance was preserved on transcription discs and later issued on CD. This is probably the only surviving example of Sibelius interpreting his own music.
Since 1903 Sibelius had lived in the country, but from 1939–1944 Jean and Aino again held a residence in Helsinki. After the war he came to the city only a couple of times. The so-called "Silence of Ainola" appears a myth, knowing that in addition to countless official visitors and visiting colleagues also his grandchildren and great grandchildren spent their holidays in Ainola.
Sibelius avoided public statements about other composers, but Erik W. Tawaststjerna and Sibelius' secretary Santeri Levas have documented his private conversations in which he considered Bartók and Shostakovich the most talented composers of the younger generations. In the 1950s he actively promoted the young Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.
His 90th birthday, in 1955, was widely celebrated and both the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham gave special performances of his music in Finland. The orchestras and their conductors also met the composer at his home; a series of memorable photographs were taken to commemorate the occasions. Both Columbia Records and EMI released some of the pictures with albums of Sibelius' music. Beecham was honored by the Finnish government for his efforts to promote Sibelius both in the United Kingdom and in the United States.
Erik W. Tawaststjerna also related an endearing anecdote regarding Sibelius' death:
[He] was returning from his customary morning walk. Exhilarated, he told his wife Aino that he had seen a flock of cranes approaching. "There they come, the birds of my youth," he exclaimed. Suddenly, one of the birds broke away from the formation and circled once above Ainola. It then rejoined the flock to continue its journey.
Two days afterwards Sibelius died of a brain hemorrhage, at age 91 (on 20 September 1957), in Ainola, where he is buried in the garden. Another well-known Finnish composer, Heino Kaski, died that same day. Aino lived there for the next twelve years until she died on 8 June 1969; she is buried with her husband.
Heritage[edit]
In 1972, Sibelius' surviving daughters sold Ainola to the State of Finland. The Ministry of Education and the Sibelius Society of Finland opened it as a museum in 1974.
Musical style[edit]
Like many of his contemporaries, Sibelius was initially enamored of the music of Wagner. A performance of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival had a strong effect on him, inspiring him to write to his wife shortly thereafter, "Nothing in the world has made such an impression on me, it moves the very strings of my heart." He studied the scores of Wagner's operas Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Die Walküre intently. With this music in mind, Sibelius began work on an opera of his own, entitled Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat). However, his appreciation for Wagner waned and Sibelius ultimately rejected Wagner's Leitmotif compositional technique, considering it to be too deliberate and calculated. Departing from opera, he later used the musical material from the incomplete Veneen luominen in his Lemminkäinen Suite (1893). He did, however, compose a considerable number of songs for voice and piano, whose early interpreters included Aino Ackté and particularly Ida Ekman.
More lasting influences included Ferruccio Busoni, Anton Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. Hints of Tchaikovsky's music are particularly evident in works such as Sibelius' First Symphony (1899) and his Violin Concerto (1905). Similarities to Bruckner are most strongly felt in the 'unmixed' timbral palette and sombre brass chorales of Sibelius' orchestration, a fondness for pedal points, and in the underlying slow pace of the music.
Sibelius progressively stripped away formal markers of sonata form in his work and, instead of contrasting multiple themes, he focused on the idea of continuously evolving cells and fragments culminating in a grand statement. His later works are remarkable for their sense of unbroken development, progressing by means of thematic permutations and derivations. The completeness and organic feel of this synthesis has prompted some to suggest that Sibelius began his works with a finished statement and worked backwards, although analyses showing these predominantly three- and four-note cells and melodic fragments as they are developed and expanded into the larger "themes" effectively prove the opposite.
Portrait of Sibelius from 1894 by his brother-in-law Eero Järnefelt
This self-contained structure stood in stark contrast to the symphonic style of Gustav Mahler, Sibelius' primary rival in symphonic composition. While thematic variation played a major role in the works of both composers, Mahler's style made use of disjunct, abruptly changing and contrasting themes, while Sibelius sought to slowly transform thematic elements. In November 1907 Mahler undertook a conducting tour of Finland, and the two composers had occasion to go have a lengthy bath together. Sibelius later reported that during the bath:
I said that I admired [the symphony's] severity of style and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motifs... Mahler's opinion was just the reverse. 'No, a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.
However, the two rivals did find common ground in their music. Like Mahler, Sibelius made frequent use both of folk music and of literature in the composition of his works. The Second Symphony's slow movement was sketched from the motif of Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni, while the stark Fourth Symphony combined work for a planned "Mountain" symphony with a tone poem based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". Sibelius also wrote several tone poems based on Finnish poetry, beginning with the early En Saga and culminating in the late Tapiola (1926), his last major composition.
Over time, he sought to use new chord patterns, including naked tritones (for example in the Fourth Symphony), and bare melodic structures to build long movements of music, in a manner similar to Joseph Haydn's use of built-in dissonances. Sibelius would often alternate melodic sections with noble brass chords that would swell and fade away, or he would underpin his music with repeating figures which push against the melody and counter-melody.
Sibelius' melodies often feature powerful modal implications: for example much of the Sixth Symphony is in the (modern) Dorian mode. Sibelius studied Renaissance polyphony, as did his contemporary, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, and Sibelius' music often reflects the influence of this early music. He often varied his movements in a piece by changing the note values of melodies, rather than the conventional change of tempi. He would often draw out one melody over a number of notes, while playing a different melody in shorter rhythm. For example, his Seventh Symphony comprises four originally sketched movements fused into telescopical and partly parallel functions without pause, where every important theme is in C major or C minor; the variation comes from the time and rhythm. His harmonic language was often restrained, even iconoclastic, compared to many of his contemporaries who were already experimenting with musical Modernism. As reported by Neville Cardus in the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1958:
Sibelius justified the austerity of his old age by saying that while other composers were engaged in manufacturing cocktails he offered the public pure cold water.[22]
Reception[edit]
Sibelius exerted considerable influence on symphonic composers and musical life, at least in English-speaking and Nordic countries. The Finnish symphonist Leevi Madetoja was a pupil of Sibelius. In Britain, Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax both dedicated their fifth symphonies to Sibelius. Furthermore, Tapiola is prominently echoed in both Bax's Sixth Symphony and Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. The influence of Sibelius' compositional procedures is also strongly felt in the First Symphony of William Walton.[23] When these and several other major British symphonic essays were being written in and around the 1930s, Sibelius' music was very much in vogue, with conductors like Beecham and Barbirolli championing its cause both in the concert hall and on record. Walton's composer friend Constant Lambert even claimed that Sibelius was "the first great composer since Beethoven whose mind thinks naturally in terms of symphonic form".[24] Earlier, Granville Bantock had championed Sibelius (the esteem was mutual: Sibelius dedicated his Third Symphony to the English composer, and in 1946 he became the first President of the Bantock Society). More recently, Sibelius was also one of the composers championed by Robert Simpson. Malcolm Arnold acknowledged his influence, and Arthur Butterworth continues to see Sibelius' music as a source of inspiration in his own work.[25]
Eugene Ormandy and to a lesser extent, his predecessor Leopold Stokowski, were instrumental in bringing Sibelius' music to American audiences by programming his works often; the former developed a friendly relationship with Sibelius throughout his life. Later in life he was championed by critic Olin Downes, who wrote a biography of the composer.[26]
In 1938 Theodor Adorno wrote a critical essay about the composer, notoriously charging that "If Sibelius is good, this invalidates the standards of musical quality that have persisted from Bach to Schoenberg: the richness of inter-connectedness, articulation, unity in diversity, the 'multi-faceted' in 'the one'."[27] Adorno sent his essay to Virgil Thomson, then music critic of the New York Herald Tribune, who was also critical of Sibelius; Thomson, while agreeing with the essay's sentiment, declared to Adorno that "the tone of it [was] more apt to create antagonism toward [Adorno] than toward Sibelius".[17] Later, the composer, theorist and conductor René Leibowitz went so far as to describe Sibelius as "the worst composer in the world" in the title of a 1955 pamphlet.[28]
Perhaps one reason Sibelius has attracted both the praise and the ire of critics is that in each of his seven symphonies he approached the basic problems of form, tonality, and architecture in unique, individual ways. On the one hand, his symphonic (and tonal) creativity was novel, but others thought that music should be taking a different route. Sibelius' response to criticism was dismissive: "Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic."
Sibelius' birthplace in Hämeenlinna
In the latter decades of the twentieth century, Sibelius began to be re-assessed more favourably: Milan Kundera dubbed the composer's approach to be that of "antimodern modernism", standing outside the perpetual progression of the status quo.[17] In 1990, the composer Thea Musgrave was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra to write a piece in honour of the 125th anniversary of Sibelius' birth: Song of the Enchanter was premiered on 14 February 1991.[29] In 1984, American avant-garde composer Morton Feldman gave a lecture in Darmstadt, Germany, wherein he stated that "the people you think are radicals might really be conservatives – the people you think are conservatives might really be radical," whereupon he began to hum Sibelius' Fifth Symphony.[17]
Sibelius has fallen in and out of fashion, but remains one of the most popular 20th century symphonists, both in the concert hall and on record. Sibelius had spent much time producing profitable chamber music for home use, salon music, occasional works for the stage and other incidental music, all of which has now been systematically recorded on BIS Records' complete Sibelius Edition. This major editorial project to record every note Sibelius left us also encompasses surviving sketches and early versions of the major works.
Vladislav Osokin: Tarja Turunen
Tarja Turunen.Nice voice ,beautiful vocal have been interesting to me for many years.
My family and me often visit concerts of classical music and opera.Best vocals its from Italy ,Russia and other countries are presented by such distinguished names as Cecilia Bartoli ,Julia lezneva ,Olga Borodina ,Sara Brightman and others .They are presented by voices of classical music and opera: Beyonce ,Whithey Houston have reputation of voices of pop-music .Now much I was amused when I got the information about the great voice of Finland- Tarja Turunen sopranos of Tarja Turunen was a real discovery to me. She has beautiful strong voice .She signs wide range of music from pop-music to complicated classical music .She has a lot of concerts worldwide including Russia .Once my aunt visited of her concerts and told me that Tarja sopranos was great.
Her vocal talent was observed very early .Now she is 36 years old ,she has been singing from age of 3 years old.
I love Finland very much. There I have a lot of friends .I am very interested in the history of Finland .I can mentioned such names as General Mannerheim ,composer Sibelius ,and famous sportsmen .Tarja Turunen has own special place a more these distinguished names. She has proved that not only in such countries as Italy or Russia, but in Finland as well the great classical voices could be born.
Tatiana Ostras: Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Take this particular composer, I decided because I liked his songs. I came across them by chance on the internet. Listen to the first song that I came across and liked (it was "sad waltz"), I decided to listen to a few songs, which I also liked. And I decided to explore the biography of Jean Sibelius. It turned out to Finnish composer of Swedish origin. Yang was born December eighth thousand eight hundred sixty-five. Following family tradition, children were taught to play musical instruments. He played the piano since the beginning, but then chose the violin. Already in the decade Yang wrote a little play. In consequence of his attraction to music increased.
In one thousand eight hundred and eighty-fifth year he entered the Faculty of Law in Helsinki, but it did not attract the legal profession, and soon he moved to the Institute of Music, where he became the most brilliant student. Four years later, Sibelius received a government scholarship to study music theory and composition in Berlin.
On his return to Finland, he made his official debut as a composer.
Soon he married Aino Järnefelt. Most works of Sibelius for dramatic theater - a testament to his strong preference for the theatrical music: in particular, it's symphonic poem "Valse Triste".
With nineteen forties interest in music of Sibelius drops significantly, but it was withdrawn in Finland and assign a much more important role: it is recognized as a great national composer, a symbol of the greatness of the country.
During the life of Sibelius was awarded honors, which were built only a few artists. Suffice it to mention the numerous streets Sibelius, Sibelius Park, an annual festival "Week of Sibelius."
Sibelius died in Yarvempyaya, September twentieth nineteen fifty-seventh year.
Having studied in detail the biography of Jean Sibelius, I decided to participate in the project.
Iuliana Poliakova: Frans Emil Sillanpää
Getting ready for my trip to Finland, I made up my mind to bind out more about Finnish literature. That is why I decided to read comments on different works by Finnish writers. Frans Eemil Sillanpää interested me most of all.
Frans Eemil Sillanpää is the first only Finnish writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Sillanpää was the master of describing nature, he felt the style perfectly, and he could notice the most delicate movements of human soul. Sillanpää brought a new under vision of connections between a human and nature. He perceived a human being as a pent of the universe, as an equal to all its other elements. He started writing in 1916. Part of his works are devoted to the wars. Is interesting that the writer in his works backed up neither one nor the other side of the confrontations between countries. He was the first man to estimate the Civic war. We can see it in the novel «The righteous proverb». In his short stories and great novels of 1920s and 1930s he was struggling for the national reconciliation. All those works are about peasants’ life.
Sillanpää was recognized more than any other Finnish writer before him. He was definitely the popular author In his fatherland. Although, he circulation of Sillanpää’s works is not very large, the writer has his faithful admirers. Sillanpää is in the same row with the other world recognized writers like Ivan Bunin, Marcel Prust and others.
Daria Spirina: Akseli Gallen-Kallela
Akseli Gallen-Kallela
Akseli Gallen-Kallela one of the most famous artists in Finland. He was born 26 May 1865 in Pori. Besides painting he studied architecture, sculpture, design, illustrated books. Early paintings such as "The boy and the raven," "The First Lesson" is the image of Finnish folk life and nature. However, Gallen-Kallela became famous for his illustrations of the Kalevala. Triptych "Aino" based on the story "Kalevala" is one of the most famous Akseli’s works. Triptych tells a legend about a girl named Aino, who met in the forest wise old Vyaynemyaynen-one of the main characters of "Kalevala". She didn’t want to get married with the elder .She drowned in the lake and turned into a mermaid. The last meeting Väinämöinen and Aino is shown in the center of the picture. The old man caught a mermaid in the network, but didn’t recognize Aino and lost her forever.
Gallen- Kallela participated in art exhibitions in Russia many times. He first showed his famous series of paintings of the Kalevala in Nizhny Novgorod. There were triptych "Aino", "Protection of Sampo", "Forging the Sampo", a portrait of Sibelius and other works. In the spring of 1897 Sergei Diaghilev arranged an exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists, which marked the beginning of a new society "World of Art". Exhibition has attracted great interest in St. Petersburg to the Finnish artists and joined the Artists of Russia and Finland. It is known that Gallen-Kallela was a friend of Nicholas Roerich and M.Gorky.
The artist's work can be seen in the house-museum Gallen-Kallela in Helsinki.
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