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The Sibelius Forum

27K views 30 replies 16 participants last post by  peter knight 
#1 ·
A discussion forum about the life and works of Jean Sibelius:

Click here!
 
#3 ·
Dear friends,

Today, June 1st 2007, The Sibelius Forum celebrates it's one-year anniversary!

Thanks to those of you at Talk Classical who spend some time at TSF, and thanks to the rest of you here for putting up with my occaisonal Sibelius talk and my annoying signature.

Long live the Music-Forum concept!
 
#4 ·
Kurkikohtaus,

It appears that The Sibelius Forum did a bit too much partying on its birthday. ;) Thankfully I was able to post my birthday wishes before it crashed from the flood of well-wishers. :D
 
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#9 ·
Dear friends, today on June 1st 2008 the Sibelius Forum celebrates its 2 year anniversary! I posted the following message over there, and I hope some of you will be happy to read this here as well.
___________________________________________
Why I created the Sibelius Forum

By Michael Roháč aka "Kurkikohtaus"

On June 1st 2008 the Sibelius Forum at www.sibelius.forumup.com celebrates the second anniversary of its launch. After a slow start, largely due to the fact that popular search-engines don't seem to list up forumup forums with any consistency, the forum has grown to 70 members, about 10 of which actively contribute on a regular basis.

Due to the forum's specific focus, the membership will never grow into the hundreds of members boasted by other, more general Classical music forums. Nor will the forum's post-count, which is now approaching 2000, ever climb into the tens of thousands regularly seen elsewhere. But quantity is not the focus at the Sibelius forum, as even a casual browser of any given discussion thread is soon to learn. Thanks to the high level of expertise and interest of the forum's members, discussions are on-topic, informative and highly professional, as opposed to the monotonous "opinion-fests" that weigh down the content of most other sites.

When creating the forum two years ago, this is exactly what I had hoped for, but the decision to launch this project was not an easy one, as I was burdened with much self-doubt and apprehension. To explain this, I must recount the way I came to know and love Jean Sibelius and the difficulties that I faced in wanting desperately to express this with honesty and integrity.

My time at the University of Toronto happened to happily coincide with Jukka-Pekka Saraste's tenure as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1994-2001). Saraste came to Toronto with a very strong Sibelian mandate, and I was privileged to be able to attend many Sibelius rehearsals and concerts over the years. I don't think I need to explain how or why this experience during my formative University years shaped the musician that I am today. Suffice it to say that the influence was profound and lasting. The issue then is in what context this exposure to Sibelius through Saraste's work with the Toronto Symphony took place.

At the beginning of his time with the TSO, Saraste was "the rage" among subscribers and music students alike. Sibelius, known previously in Toronto through the first two Symphonies, the Concerto and Finlandia, was suddenly working his way into the collective subconscious through works like the 4th, the 7th and the mature tone-poems like Pohjola's Daughter and Tapiola. And then Sibelius became "the rage", to the point where perhaps he even became a fad. It became very fashionable to say that one understood Sibelius. To have one's musical tastes associated with Sibelius was a status symbol among concert-goers and music lovers.

In this somewhat superficial environment, I developed an intense jealousy towards Sibelius' music, where I wanted to keep what I thought of as my special understanding and special relationship with his work very private and secret. I didn't want to be associated with the fashionably affected "connoisseurs", I didn't want to compete with them as to who knew more pieces, owned more recordings, and loved Sibelius more. In short, I wanted to keep Sibelius all to myself. I suppose as a listener, one can do this. But as a musician who wanted more than anything to experience Sibelius first-hand, from the creative side, my adopted philosophy was at odds with my deepest desire: to conduct the works of Jean Sibelius.

Upon leaving Toronto and moving to the Czech Republic, my situation did not become much easier. In this country, Sibelius is known almost exclusively through the Concerto, and otherwise he is seen as difficult and complicated by musicians and audiences alike. Programming Sibelius at every opportunity and forcing his music down the throats of all present was not the way to go, I sensed that a more careful approach would be necessary… but how? The solution came rather unexpectedly, and as is often the case, was a product of necessity rather than inspiration.

In 2004 I was named Music Director of the West-Bohemian Symphony Orchestra (Západočeský symfonický orchestr - www.zso.cz), the oldest orchestra in the Czech Republic, founded in 1821. Needless to say that Sibelius was not on the daily menu here, but as I had complete control over programming, I committed myself to slowly but surely exposing our audience (and orchestra) to Sibelius. After a few smaller pieces, I sensed before the 2005-06 season that it was time to present a Symphony… but which one? While the first or second would have been logical choices, our orchestra is simply too small to handle those large Romantic works, so necessity dictated the Third. As this was a rather ambitious choice for an orchestra and audience that was about to experience a Sibelius Symphony for the first time, I realized that the work would be better received if it were framed around an event rather than presented as a "normal" concert. Thus began a fantastic relationship with the Finnish Embassy in Prague, and His Excellency Ambassador Jorma Inki and his Deputy Frank Hellstén. They were invited to the concert, which was preceded by a pre-concert lecture on the music, and the rest was history. Since then, the Embassy has supported a Sibelius concert in every season, with pre-planned projects already taking shape through 2009-10.

Most importantly for my inner struggle and thereby for the creation of the Sibelius Forum, I realized through the very positive reception of my lecture and performance of the Third (and the 7th in the following year) that there are people out there who really want to talk about and experience Sibelius. Not because it is a fad or snobbish fashion, but because his music communicates something to them, something profound, something stirring, something that moves the liquid-core of their being. I found that through the sharing of Sibelius' music with others, the joy and profundity of my own Sibelius experience was deeper and much more meaningful than all those years of secretive jealousy. And I realized that there were probably many more people out there like me.

So I created the Sibelius Forum.

A place where people who really love Sibelius can enthusiastically exchange ideas about Sibelius and his music, help each other, encourage each other and first and foremost express their love and admiration for this great composer with honesty and integrity.
 
#10 ·
Congratulations on the 2-year mark, Maestro! It is wonderful to see such a forum with "a specific focus" flourish. I hope the trend continues. I'm not yet "into" Sibelius (maybe it would do me well to listen to one of your pre-concert lectures. :) ), but when I do want to learn more about the man and his music, I know where to go.
 
#14 ·
Sibelius, Shostakovich, Mahler, Bartok, Nielsen, Bruckner, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky are my favorite composers. Glad to see there's a thread about Sibelius.

Sibelius's 4th symphony is probably one of the best symphonies ever written, but I liked all of his symphonies, so I guess that was a biased opinion.
 
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