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| Sibelius with his piano. Photo: sibelius.fi |
I'm off to Birmingham tomorrow to give a pre-concert talk about Sibelius for the CBSO (though unfortunately am fighting a lurgy and need to get my voice back pronto - please forgive me if I sound a little croaky). https://cbso.co.uk/event/sibelius-fifth
The concert, at Symphony Hall, concludes with the Symphony No.5 and it's good to see that it's being broadcast live on Radio 3 so we will all be able to enjoy Ed Gardner's conducting of this utterly scrumptious, inspired, original, glorious symphony for a little while thereafter. In the first half there's the Mendelssohn 'Hebrides' Overture and Lars Vogt is the soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto in E flat, K271. The first of the two performances is tonight.
As for Sibelius - there is too much to say and squeezing everything into 25-30 minutes is no easy task, so I'm going to focus on the question of why, when we had a composer of such genius who was once voted the most popular classical composer ever, even ahead of Beethoven, and he lived to be 91, there wasn't more of his music. There's much to explore and chew over. Do come along if you're in town. Booking here: https://cbso.co.uk
