Esa-Pekka Salonen on Sibelius & Finland’s Independence Movement

Art and music were central to the development of Finnish national identity and helped to bring together different cultures under a single Finnish flag. Philharmonia Orchestra Principal Conductor & Esa-Pekka Salonen shares composer Jean Sibelius's role in Finnish nation building in this film shot on location in Finland in the summer of 2017.
Finland turned 100 on 6 December 2017. The Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen celebratd in a special, all-Sibelius concert at London's Southbank Centre on Thursday 7 December, 7:30pm.
You can watch our Sibelius playlist here: • Sibelius (Philharmonia...

[@DavidJGillCA]

Fascinating remarks. I was expecting Salonen to talk about Finlandia and the role of that work in Finland's struggle for independence. For Sibelius, being unknown was liberating but later in life being the most famous Finn in the world became debilitating.

[@mariastoltz-wahlforss4029]

Superintressant!

[@timmellin2815]

I just discovered that a nun at my high school (Union Cath. HS in N. Jersey) composed the lyrics to the school's alma mater theme, which is from Finlandia.) I posted a note for our FB alumni page to do a search on You Tube for a video of Salonen conducting Finlandia, since I mentioned that EPS was in L..A. the last 3 weeks, conducting Strauss and Sibelius. I guess I assumed YT would be swimming in EPS Finlandia videos....but...no find um, as I did my own search therein. Audio CD of Salonen conducting it, but I couldn't find a video of same. Anybody have one ? If so, please post it on You Tube. Thanks...

[@lovettboston]

I had heard of Busoni's having been in Finland before, but I never realized this had much significance on Sibelius's development.
My impression of the language dichotomy has long been that much of Sibelius's music for stage and some of his salon pieces sound Swedish (e.g., like Stenhammar), while much of the major works (symphonies, tone poems) seem more Finnish. I don't see much mention of systemic immersion in folk music per se, so I don't know how to account for this impression. If there is some validity in it, could it be mainly be about the compositions absorbing the musical elements (especially rhythms) of a given language? Janacek, for example, was very purposeful in this regard, actually doing musical notation of spoken language, so he could think (or create) musically in Czech instead of German. Since Finnish is not an Indo-European language, the dichotomy with Swedish must have been even more striking.

[@ToastedCigar]

Nice video! Haha I can really hear he has lived a long time in the UK since he sounds so British