Want to share a quote from Sibelius I was just reminded of. When asked about his inspiration for the fifth.....It was like God threw down these broken pieces for me to make whole again... He took his job very seriously to the delight of the world!
I had this recording on an LP which I damaged many years ago and could not find another copy to replace it. It's such a fine performance! I'm glad to find here so I can enjoy it again.
There's some truth in what you say. Everywhere in life, in every field of human endeavour, you find the control group who decides who's in and who's out.
The horns, the horns 3rd movement the intervals the key change early 60's played horn in the band omg my soul soars with those intervals. Still after all these years it sings my song!!!
I just first heard of sebelius this morning on gb news Michael portillo his parents and Julian Lloyd webber grand parents were fans of sebelius, it peaked by curiosity to check RU-vid I am not disappointed ❤
I've just been reading a book about 20th century classical music. Apparently, all of the leading 'modern' composers hated Sibelius' music - because it was popular with audiences. Yeah - that's a real crime.
@@brunodelconte it is almost like we live in the same headspace. My interpretation was pretty much the same. Someone in their collapsing stages of life dying and then being resurrected. I would like to be hopeful of such an event, but since I stopped being religious I probably wouldn't be in the good books (;
@@dialecticsjunkie7653 that is quite beautiful. It reminds me of Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant. It is a 1 or 2 page writing; it is very short and quite beautiful. I will admit though that my vascillation on religion has not ended yet; I am too indecisive (:
Astonishing performance. I remember when it was released and was largely ignored. Now it's getting the recognition it deserves. I've never heard a more powerful ending to the First Movement.
I've never listened to this piece before. "Why?" I... don't... know. I've been a musician for over 76 years... a pianist and classically trained organist, composer, and teacher. Bunch of degrees. Yes. I even have a medical degree as a licenced Music Therapist. Worked in hospitals and rest homes for 20 years. But at the moment, I'm seeing and hearing... certain themes... sound patterns... that rise from 'above' the Arctic Circle. I think Grieg must have heard it as well... and knew how to evoke it, as well. I suspect these... unique qualities... rise form the very land in which they lived. Bravo... old friends and teachers and heroes. (Charles Ives must have been exposed to these works. I love him, too.) Thanks for the heads up.
It's powerful to some ears perhaps because he allowed the brass to drown out the strings there, which is one valid way to do it but not necessarily how Sibelius imagined it. This is actually quite interesting because Karajan is usually and justifiably famous for his strings.
It must be 55 years ago I first heard Sibelius' 5th and 2nd symphonies on a borrowed long playing record from my local library. I fell in love with his music the instant I heard these two pieces. I still get goose bumps.
This may be the greatest piece of music ever written. The optimism and grandeur of the piece are compelling; whilst evoking the stark beauty of the northern countryside. And von Karajan conducts the pants off of it!
@@laurencegallagher5599 I love Sibelius 2nd, but like the 1st it's unabashedly Romantic. The 5th is Sibelius' mature style, a take off from Romanticism but more adventurous harmonically than his first three symphonies and here he uses his huge orchestra to great effect. Von Karajan does this one justice.
I believe I first heard the 5th on the radio back in the 00s or 10s. I borrowed a CD from my local library back in 2016 that had this piece and the 6th. I remember finding this to be the more accessible of the two compositions. This is my first listen since then. The structure feels amorphous. The ending to the First Movement is epic.
No all conductors are Sibelians. Some are not but think they are. Bernstein and Maazel were not. Colin Davis, HVK and Barbirolli were. Barbirolli's interpretation of the sixth is unlike any other. It is the only performance of that symphony I listen to.
His love of nature sure was especial. The third movement, inspired by something so primal as swan-calls, displays unreachable emotional scope and vigorous inventiveness. Those six staggered chords at the end, an idea as original as it gets. Thanks, Jean.
@james karkas I always thought Sibelius was making sure we knew it was the end, as in his Fourth's premier the audience didn't realise it had ended and didn't clap lol.
I agree. It must be because Karajan had the privilege of actually working with Sibelius before he (Sibelius) died. So he has an inside knowledge of the composer's works that many others didn't.
My community orchestra worked on this symphony several years ago (unfortunately the concert was snowed out and couldn’t be rescheduled) and I always got goosebumps at this exact spot. It’s beyond words to describe how great is this music.
I absolutely lovely the way Karajan et co. do the ending of the first movement. This recording is as good as Bernstein and New York Philharmonic. Great stuff
Starts slow but really picks up around nine minutes. The ending of the first movement, one of my favorite parts, is really fast. I like this performance. I like the images from nature but I don't think the pictures of nuclear power plants belong. I don't see this piece as representing man against nature.
Un canto meraviglioso che evoca la sublime natura soccombente alla COSCIENTE E INTENZIONALE criminalità politico-economico-militare umana che ci sta annientando inesorabilmente. E' il canto sublime che annuncia la fine. L'interpretazione Karajan del 1976 è inarrivabile. Aveva ragione Glenn Gould.
Sibelius è come Bruckner: Karajan lo toccava e ne dava l'Interpretazione indiscutibile, la più alta, la più profonda. La V, assieme alla VI , al Valse Triste e soprattutto alla IV Sinfonia (pur per me meno profonda della V) sono la dimostrazione di una affinità che appunto, per me, solo nel Bruckner estremo (nelle ultime 7ma e soprattutto 8va, per non parlare della 9na con i Berliner in cui orchestra e direttore si odiano palesemente eppure producono un risultato immane) trovano un paragone. E forse in certo Strauss, in certo Beethoven e in certo Mozart, per non parlare di Brahms e Tschaikowsky. Ma questa V resta un'oasi di strepitosa, profonda, inarrivata ed inarrivabile bellezza, già "ombrata" dall'ultima struggente malinconia del Maestro, l'Unico Maestro.
The interesting thing about this composer is how he divided the House of Received & Accepted Western Music Making of the 20th century. For that alone his contribution to it is worth a look. Anything that upsets the intellectual establishment is a justifiable focus years after its event. Of course, it can be argued, the thinking composers of the head won and Sibelius shut up. And popular music (of the heart) occupied the ground evacuated by Big music. Result: we got Holly, the Beatles, Rice & Weber etc. So who's complaining? Head music is alive and well on life support provided by arts councils and folks like music.
you get a sense of how difficult this music is by listening to the premiere recording from 1932 (Kajanus conducting the LSO) where the strings finish in the wrong place in the 1st mvt. No such accidents here!
I'm giving this my 4th listen right now. It's like an amorphous cloud. 2% of it is fortefortissimo. The rest is hushed. The second movement is a pool of beauty in A Flat major inspired by Mahler's 2nd. I hear Bruckner's influence. It's hard to make out a real symphonic structure. I hear motivs, but I don't feel the entire composition as a whole yet.
Sibelius could have done a lot more with a brief but wondrous passage about 9 minutes into mvnt 1. Sounded to me like a majestic wave hitting the shore.
At the start of the first movement, the music reminds me of Richard Wagner's overtures. I can't identify one at this moment. It sounds like it for a certain time. Sibelius perhaps had heard of Wagner or was it quite obvious he was influenced by the latter.
@@jamisondavid100 Maybe you're right. But it's my impression that at 13:26 below the trumpet's theme, the French horn section is "hammering" so much :)
Gee, another disliker who wonders why Sib isn't Mahler or Korngold, One who berates an apple for not being a pear or an orange. He is Sibelius who builds by fragment. If you don't rate it go elsewhere. Andrea Rieu makes nice tunes.
I believe you can find the recording of an earlier version from 1915 of this symphony, and in that sense you might get the impression of "connecting various pieces". But other than that, I disagree with your comment.
