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Published: Wednesday, 31 July 2024 at 15:53 PM


‘The English like vogues for this and that. Now it’s Sibelius, and when they’re tired of him they’ll boost up Bruckner and Mahler.’ Frederick Delius’s remark, made in the early 1930s, turned out to be prophetic. Sibelius’s music was then at the zenith of its fame and popularity, and his status as one of the great composers seemingly beyond contradiction.

Sure enough, one of those Anglo-Saxon weathervane-like swings of fashion set in with a vengeance. Three decades later, Bruckner’s and Mahler’s symphonies, relative rarities before, had become the standard box-office material they remain today. And Sibelius? His music’s situation is strange indeed.

Top five Sibelius works

Why isn’t there more Sibelius in the concert repertoire?

There is a huge recorded legacy, crowned by BIS’s monumental complete Sibelius Edition. But performances today tend to focus on a small core of works. The Second and Fifth Symphonies, with their expansive manner and rousing perorations, seem to fit the bill. The same goes for Finlandia; and the Violin Concerto’s post-Romantic virtuosity ensures its appeal to leading soloists. Yet outside specially presented Sibelius cycles, of the kind occurring during his 150th anniversary year, most of his large output remains quite hard to come across in the concert hall.