A couple of Sibelius pieces to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 28-4-09, times BST.

Op.56 is a string quartet " Voces Intimae", so presumably Op.56b is the second movement.

I know nothing about Op.40.


4.04am
Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957): Kallion kirkon kellosavelma (The Bells of Kallio Church), Op 56b
Finnish Radio Chamber Choir
Eric-Olof Soderstrom (conductor)


6.25am
Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957): 10 pensees lyriques for piano, Op 40
Eero Heinonen (piano)


Ciarain.

Rather cruel broadcast times ...

Ah, the BBC has messed up the opus numbering as well as the spelling (as any fule kno*, ä is by no means the same letter as a!).

Kallion kirkon kellosävelmä (The Bells of Kallio Church) is Op. 65b, not 56b - nothing to do with Voces intimae!.

The Op. 40 pieces are pleasant, tuneful, colourful and enjoyable. Sadly most critics won't listen because, hey, it 's Sibelius piano music so it can't be any good, right?



* for non-Brits: 'as any fule kno' is a phrase regularly used in Private Eye magazine (of Lookalikes fame). The meaning is, I believe, self-evident.

Thank you Andrew, you are right about Op.65.

[Op. 65b] The bell tune of Kallio church
Arrangement: see op. 65b below.

Op. 65b The Bell Melody of Kallio Church
Arrangement for mixed-voice choir of the Bell Melody of Kallio Church (1912), completed in 1912. Words by Julius Engström; also with other words (Päättyy työ, joutuu yö) by Heikki Klemetti. Piano arrangement (The Bell Melody of Kallio Church) in 1912.

Ciarain.

I think that Andrew has sorted out the confusion!

Its interesting that Ciarain mentioned the Bell melody of Kallio Church. This was a new church in Helsinki designed by Lars Sonck who had also been resposible for Villa Ainola. Finnish scholar Timo Virtanen has recently told me that Sibelius had been asked to supply a melody for the church bells and that according to the composers diary, Sibb wanted to have a certain special kind of instrument [to be built in Germany] to play the tune--not usual church bells. Virtanen told me that Sibelius's mind was occupied with 'Glocken' sounds at this time [1910] with work on the great Fourth Symphony in progress.--kp

Hmmmm.... though it's purely coincidental that the church was built at that specific time so I wouldn't overstate any link with the Fourth Symphony.
(And of course it's the wrong sort of bells but let's not open that one up again.)

Did I just hear a can opener? Or was that the lid coming off Pandora's Box?

Now what's that over there...it looks like a sack of manure in a catapult right underneath a ceiling fan...and it looks ready to launch!

What happens if the worms, having secured egress from the newly opened can, chance upon the catapult-load of manure just as it is about to be propelled sky- and fanwards?
No doubt some animal rights would complain

Hmmm, looks like we better get an animal rights detail in the Sibelius forum right away...lest those poor worms be injured as they burst into the whirling blades of a cruel ceiling fan.