Jean Sibelius Born Dec 1865-Sept 1957, Finnish composer. Sibelius studied in Helsinki from 1886 In 1889 he went to Berlin to continue his composition studies and returned to Helsinki in 1891 and made a mark with his choral symphony Kullervo, though it took him another 10 years to establish his own style. and gain his own distinctive style from the strong influence of Tchaikovsky.

Four works which mark the continuing success of Sibelius are the Karelia suite, the set of four tone poems on a legendary hero (including The Swan of Tuonela), the grandiose Finlandia and the first two symphonies.

The Violin Concerto of 1903 was the end of his Romantic period. This was also a period of change in his personal life. In 1904 he moved to a plot of land outside Helsinki and built a house where he spent the rest of his life with his wife and daughters, removed from the city where he had been prone to bouts of heavy drinking. Also, Sibelius' music gained a large international following, and he visited England (four times in 1905-12) and the USA (1914). Symphony no.4, with its conspicuous use of the tritone and its austere textures, took his music into its darkest areas; no.5 brought a return to the heroic mould, developing the process of continuous change to the extent that the first movement evolves into the scherzo.

Sibelius was a writer of powerful orchestral music. His great themes lunge from rich an strident harmony and there is often an undercurrent of ostnati effect. The most important stimulus would seem to have been purely musical: a drive towards continuous growth achieved by means of steady thematic transformation, and facilitated by supporting the main line very often with highly diversified ostinato textures instead of counterpoints

After World War I Sibelius produced only four major works: the brilliant and elusive Symphony no.6; no.7, which takes continuity to the ultimate in its unbroken unfolding of symphonic development; the incidental music for The Tempest. His reputation, however, continued to grow, and his influence has been profound, especially on Scandinavian, English and American composers, reflecting both the traditionalism and the radical elements in his symphonic thinking.

Sibelius Software