Aside from his Valse Triste and his ringing tone-poem Finlandia, Jean Sibelius' most popular composition is a little descriptive piece called The Swan of Tuonela. Written in 1893, The Swan of Tuonela was originally part of a suite of four tone-poems illustrating the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, on which U. S. word-poet Longfellow modeled his Hiawatha. Of this suite only The Swan of Tuonela, and another, noisier fragment called Lemminkäinen's Homecoming have been published and performed. The manuscripts of the other two fragments were lost.
But six years ago, when Sibelius' close friend, aged Finnish Conductor Robert Kajanus, died, another prominent...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
