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About other people's music Sibelius talks a great deal. But he was embarrassed by the wide publicity given his disparagement of Wagner, and has begun to hedge a little in his public statements. "Wagner, a genius . . . yo, yo, a great genius," he conceded airily to a recent interviewer. Earlier he had made no bones about his private estimate of the Pride of Bayreuth: "Wagner is rude, brutal, vulgar and completely lacking in delicacy! . . . For instance he shouts T love you, I love you.' To my mind that is something that you should whisper. . . . Look at his orchestration, that mass of different instruments in unison!" Wagner "suggests a butler who has been created a baron." About the music of Stravinsky he is unenthusiastic, finds extreme Modernist Schonberg "unsympathetic."
But he is fond of Italian opera, particularly of Verdi, whom he considers one of the greatest figures in music. For him Mozart and Mendelssohn "are the two greatest geniuses of the orchestra," and Beethoven, "the master above all others." However, in a recent interview he remarked with a twinkle: "All good composers lived in Egypt 5,000 years ago."
Whatever the rating he gives him, there can be no doubt that his favorite musician is Jean Sibelius. He owns three radios and never misses a broadcast of his own compositions, tuning in inaccurately and listening intently to the resultant howling mixture of music and static. "You must be a good, very good musician to listen to radio," he says, "to get details."
Not entirely confident of his position as a great musician, he is very appreciative of appreciation, collects, reads and rereads every small item that is written about him in the most provincial newspapers. On the subject of his interpreters he is diplomatic, has indiscriminately praised Conductors Koussevitzky, Beecham, Werner Janssen and his countryman Robert Kajanus. He has a comforting motto: "Better have it played badly or wrong than not at all."
Sibelius has conceived much of his music wandering through the forests surrounding his house. When engrossed in his work he keeps irregular hours, prefers to compose late at night. He proudly remembers that in his younger days he often worked three nights and two days at a stretch. Seldom does he use the piano when composing. He conceives and elaborates his ideas in his mind and puts pen to paper only when every detail of the score has been thought out. Once his notes are down on paper, he seldom makes alterations, and has often sent scores to publishers without bothering to try them out on any instrument.
His admiring wife says: "Sibelius continues to live at a tremendous pace, with great intensity and energy. He is still like a young man full of dreams and hopes." He stands erect as a general, his ivory- colored dome rising from strong heavily-built shoulders; he still clothes himself with meticulous care, favors a double-breasted blue or grey lounge suit, a broad-brimmed felt hat; he wears specially built, handmade German shoes; on his numerous walks he stalks through the country swinging a heavy stick. And 72 or not, like all true Finns he takes his sauna (Finnish steam bath) once a week in the bathhouse that stands on the grounds near his house.