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10 unusual facts about Jean Sibelius


Ahmed Adnan Saygun

The Times called him "the grand old man of Turkish music, who was to his country what Jean Sibelius is to Finland, what Manuel de Falla is to Spain, and what Béla Bartók is to Hungary".

Drumma Boy

Citing Dr. Dre, Quincy Jones, Raphael Saadiq and The Funk Brothers as his signature production inspirations his musical influences range from German composers Ludwig van Beethoven, Jean Sibelius, and Johann Sebastian Bach to Jazz icons Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis all the way to Academy Award winning hip hop group Three 6 Mafia and Houston rapper, Scarface.

Heikki Nurmio

He is remembered for writing the lyrics for "Jääkärien marssi" (March of the jägers) composed by Jean Sibelius in 1917.

Helsinki Festival

The Helsinki Festival was established in its present form in 1968 by the City of Helsinki to follow up and to broaden the supply of culture in the mainly classical music festival then called "Sibelius viikot" ("Sibelius weeks").

Ilmari Kianto

Jean Sibelius used Kianto's poem 'Lastu lainehilla' (Driftwood) as the lyric for the beautiful last of his Seven Songs, Op.17 (1902).

Lauri Porra

Lauri Porra is a fourth generation musician, He is the great grandson of the famous Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

Lewis Valentine

Valentine is also famed as the writer of the hymn Gweddi dros Gymru ("A prayer for Wales"), usually sung to the tune of Jean Sibelius's Finlandia Hymn.

Lucina Hagman

She became a teacher and Jean Sibelius might be the most famous individuals to study at her school.

Romantic music

For example, Jean Sibelius' Finlandia has been interpreted to represent the rising nation of Finland, which would someday gain independence from Russian control (Child 2006).

William R. Trotter

He is an acknowledged expert on the works of Jean Sibelius, the subject of his "Winter Fire" novel, and Leopold Stokowski, whose Trotter-penned biography has gone as yet unpublished but has made the rounds of the Leopold Stokowski Society for many years.


Berta Rosenbaum Golahny

She explored both in many works, including a series of portraits of accomplished people: Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Jean Sibelius, Louis Armstrong, and Aaron Copland.

Herbert Brewer

In 1913, at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester, Brewer was entrusted with conducting the premiere of Sibelius's tone-poem for soprano and orchestra, Luonnotar, Op. 70.

Hillsboro Symphony Orchestra

Their winter concert in March 2005 mainly used work by Jean Sibelius, a Finish composer, and featured an owl from the Oregon Zoo for a Harry Potter-themed piece.

Kauppakorkeakoulun Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat

The choir's artistic range spans classical Finnish (e.g. by Jean Sibelius, Leevi Madetoja, Toivo Kuula, Selim Palmgren, and Armas Järnefelt) and international male choir music, modern compositions (e.g. by Einojuhani Rautavaara and Jaakko Mäntyjärvi), barbershop, as well as pop music arrangements.

Pekka Kuusisto

In 1995, Pekka Kuusisto became the first Finn to win the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition and was also awarded a special prize for the best performance of Jean Sibelius' violin concerto.

Pelléas and Mélisande

Jean Sibelius also wrote incidental music for it in 1905; the section, "At the castle gate," has found fame as the signature music of the BBC The Sky at Night programme.

Remington Records

They included Dvořák's Symphony No. 8 (then No. 4) and symphonic and choral works by Sibelius.

Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji wrote of this piece in 1932 that it was familiar ... — too familiar one is tempted to say, for most people think of Alkan, indeed only know him, as the composer of ‘Le Vent’, as they know only the Sibelius of the ‘Valse Triste’ or ‘Finlandia’; the great master of ‘Le festin d'Ésope’ and the Fourth Symphony respectively being completely a terra incognita.