Nielsen and Sibelius
This course involved comparing and contrasting the careers and music of two great Scandinavian contemporaries. Both were born in 1865, Sibelius gave up composing in 1931, the year of Nielsen’s death. The course was based round their magnificent symphonies but explored their whole contribution to C20th music.
I ran this course at Crayford Manor (Bexley College) October-December 1999.
Sibelius – Finlandia and Much More
The composer himself may have grown to hate it, but Sibelius’s Finlandia is in many ways a potent symbol of much of his output, for with its sweeping grandeur and chilly interludes his music often seems to be “about” Finland, even if this is not obvious from the title. Find out more about the music and the composer himself that seems to have been fashioned straight form this rugged windswept landscape.
I gave this talk to the DfE Music Society in May 2001.
Below is a simple spreadsheet of Sibelius’s works I created for the course.