The following quote is from the pianist Ronald Brautigam, referring to Beethoven:–

‘The more time you spend with the work of a particular composer, the clearer his musical language becomes, and in the end speaking his language is what it’s all about. I would say that through the long process of preparing for the solo record­ings, I have become far more fluent in speaking ”Beethoven”.’

And so the most fluent speakers of Sibelius are...? (Let's confine it to living musicians, otherwise the list will be unmanageable!)

I will refrain from listing my favourite Finns, it would simply be much too obvious. And quite honestly, I don't have enough listening experience with non-Finnish performers to make a good call...

So instead, I will comment on the seminal idea that Andrew B has raised in this post, and how it relates to me. Because it's all about me, as my wife is ever-quick to point out.

To my inner ear and to the heart of my musical feeling, my entire being resonates to Sibelius' musical idiom, it has always seemed right to me, ever since I heard the first theme of the first symphony so many years ago (a truly Sibelian theme, I mean the one played by the strings after the clarinet solo). What some of my classmates at University called "awkward", "unmusical" and "invented", I have always heard as a deep expression of a natural well of special musicality. So you could say that my ear and my heart are in tune with Sibelius, that they are able to hear and appreciate "Fluent Speakers of Sibelius". (FSS: Andrew B, you've coined a new acronym).

As for my own diction, pronounciation and fluency, I speak Sibelius with a pronounced Eastern European accent. I have a long, long way to go. As a conductor, I am sensitive to the different nuances between various composers' idioms, and somehow my hands and body language are able to quickly and naturally feel comfortable within many different musical languages. But with Sibelius, I am always very conscious of the fact that there is a wide gap between what my mind knows about this music and what my body is able to show in a natural and unforced way.

This is partly due to the fact that I feel an immense responsibility when condcuting his music, I am very conscious of "getting it right" to the point where I don't want to "let go" and use the music as some vehical for my own personal expression.

Secondly, his idiom is so unique, that I find that no amount of conducting the music of other composers can prepare one for the conducting of Sibelius. With other composers, I have a distinct if perhaps artificial feeling that Mozart helps me with Beethoven helps me with Schubert helps me with Dvorak helps me with Bruckner helps me with Mahler... But Sibelius, while intellectually heeding to this line of composers, is a world apart in terms of the expression and technique required to show his music.

A third point, I work with a small provincial orchestra who is at home with Strauss walzes on the promenade and Beethoven and Dvorak in the conert hall. When I began to inject some Sibelius into our seasons 3 years ago, it was an experiment and except for Finlandia and the Concerto, everybody there was playing Sibelius for the first time... and as far as the concerto is concerned, it might as well have been for the first time, we reworked the whole thing with regards to how they used to play it.

Let me interrupt this thought with a list of pieces I've done with the orchestra to date:

Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 7
Violin Concerto
Finlandia
En Saga
The Swan of Tuonela
Valse Triste
Kurkikohtaus
Romance for strings...

Next season we play Luonnotar and Rakastava

To continue the thought above, because basically all of these pieces were being played for the first time, the orchestra needs special care on a beat-to-beat level, because they simply don't take it upon themselves to "make things happen" in this alien music that is so different from their standard diet of late-classical early-romantic fare. So this process is also adding to the time that it is taking for me to discover my Sibelian voice, but perhaps in the end, this will be a sort of paying-of-dues that will serve me well.

With all of this said, I can only stand back with admiration and when I see or listen to non-Finns at home and comfortable with Sibelius, and hope that someday I will join their ranks.

______________________________________

As a conclusion to this post, I ask that you all send me a thought tonight on Friday February 15th 2008, as Kurkikohtaus conducts Kurkikohtaus...

I would certainly include Osmo Vanska and Sir Colin Davies in any list of the most fluent speakers of Sibelius alive today.
Reading Kurki's comments I am reminded of another interesting remark by Ralph Wood 'It is paradoxical but true that a work by Brahms or Dvorak or Tchaikovsky is a good deal easier to follow than one by Sibelius, not because there is more connectedness in any of the former but because there is less.'
After almost a lifetime listening to Sibelius's music I would like to think that I too have Sibelius fluency. Wereas I can claim a great admiration for the works of Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and many more, I love Sibelius at a fundamental level. If I listen to say a Mahler symphony, I feel as a stranger looking at some alien vision. But when I hear Sibelius's Kullervo I have the wonderful feeling that I have somehow 'come home,' that this musical landscape is were I ultimately belong. The music seems to mirror the thoughts and feelings of my own inner being.--kullervopete.

kullervopete wrote:

'It is paradoxical but true that a work by Brahms or Dvorak or Tchaikovsky is a good deal easier to follow than one by Sibelius, not because there is more connectedness in any of the former but because there is less.'

That's fantastic, QotM.

I think Vanska... Berglund also? I don't know, I've heard that his interpretations are quite high amongst Sibelians... But certainly Vanska.

This is a bit of an older thread, but interesting commentary, nevertheless.

Interesting no one mentioned Karajan. He most certainly spoke "Sibelius" very fluently. Sibelius once remarked that Karajan was the only one who understood his music. So, I'd think good ol' closed eyes Herbie should be included in this discussion.

I'd like to think that I speak "Sibelius" fluently, myself. At least, I am more fluent than the average classical music fan.

I like Pete's comment about "feeling at home" while listening to a work like Kullervo. I know the feeling...

One of the first recordings I ever had is a rare two CD set called The Best of Sibelius (Sibeliuksen kauneimmat) on the Finlandia label. It's a "best of" compilation that has a pretty good sampling of Sibbe's various works. Since this was one of the first recordings I owned of this great composer, I can listen to just about anything in this set and I feel like I have been whisked away to a very compfy place during my high school days.

So, I've also been speaking Sibelius from a fairly early age...I must have been 16.

I think in his original post Andrew asked that we limit the list to living musicians, otherwise I would certainly have included maestro Karajan.

Its great to know that Tapkaara also feels that he has 'come home' while listening to Sibelius--its a very special feeling. I too feel that I speak Sibelius fluently. This man and his music have long held a special place in my heart.--kp

I've been listening to Sibelius since about my 16th birthday (not so long ago - about 9-10 months - but I think I've come a reasonably long way).

What about Petri Sakari and Leif Segerstam?

And since Andrew didn't seem to single out conductors, what about the Kuusisto brothers, Folke Grasbeck, the great Finnish singers... the list does expand quite nicely once you let the list include non-conductors.

I guess I failed to see the part explaining that this thread is for LIVING conductors. Otherwise, it would be another "Greatest Sibelian" thread.

Among living composers, the most fluent Sibelius-speaker is, undoubtedly, Osmo Vanska. Such clear and precise diction.

Lorin Maazel is still with us, and I enjoy his symphony cycle with the Wiener Philharmoniker, so I will count him, too. Yes, he speaks Sibelius, but with a very thick, almost Russian accent. (Many find this accent overblown and oppressive. I could listen to it all day...quite sexy, really.)

I suppose Colin Davis speaks Sibelius, but with a lisp. (Sorry, Sir Colin...I still don't understand you when you speak Sibelius. I need a translator.)

Sibelius is still a hard language for some people to learn. It's too bad. Sibelius is much easier to speak than, for example, Schonberg. Have you ever heard someone speak Schonberg? I'm not sure it's a real language. It's a bunch of babbling that sounds like Pig Latin. And every sentence contains exactly 12 syllables. Truly bizarre.

You're right - please excuse the irony if I mention that it does, however, take great skill (of a sort) not only to speak that language but to be offensive in it. Many dodecaphonic composers have achieved this most effectively.

But you are surely on slightly thin ice? I mean, haiku poetry has pretty strict rules too, doesn't it? I came across some rather entertaining examples a while ago, in English with a modern twist. I quote:

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft
error messages with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules - each poem has only 17 syllables: 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third... used to communicate a pithy, timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.

Haiku poetry has strict construction rules - each poem has only 17
syllables: 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the
second, 5 in the third... used to communicate a pithy, timeless message,
often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme
brevity. The essence of zen..
>
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
------------------------
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
------------------------
Windows NT crash'd.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No-one hears your screams.
------------------------
Yesterday it work'd.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
------------------------
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
------------------------
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
------------------------
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao--until
You bring fresh toner.
------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Hahaha...that actually made me laugh out loud. VERY funny!

Nothing wrong for having struct rules in poetry, or in music. OK, so serialist music deals with those tone rows. It's all part of a "controlled chaos," yes? But the rules of 12-tone music produces something that sounds like it hasn't any rules...

At least, within haiku, there is poetry. In 12-tone music, there is poop.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

Brilliant.

While my favourite poet is

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, where there are no rules, I must say that I do enjoy poetry with structure, when written well. The

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is such structured poem, the most famous one is probably

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Do not go Gentle into that Good Night, which most everybody has heard at one time or another. Interestingly, the first Villanelle that I came across was in

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Portrait, where the young artist writes quite a clever Villanelle for a young lady... ironically, Joyce's point of introducing this poem in the book was to show the artist's immaturity, but his literary genius still manages to come through.

Wikipedia offers the following short definition:

A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 1800s from the imitation of French models. A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.

The scheme is as follows, where the letters represent the two basic rhyme sounds:

Refrain 1 (A1)
Line 2 (b)
Refrain 2 (A2)

Line 4 (a)
Line 5 (b)
Refrain 1 (A1)

Line 7 (a)
Line 8 (b)
Refrain 2 (A2)

Line 10 (a)
Line 11 (b)
Refrain 1 (A1)

Line 13 (a)
Line 14 (b)
Refrain 2 (A2)

Line 16 (a)
Line 17 (b)
Refrain 1 (A1)
Refrain 2 (A2)

... SO ...

About 2 months back I tried my hand at my first Villanelle. The results are highly amateur but I present it here nevertheless, because I know you'll all be gentle with me. It was obviously written for somebody, with the desired result upon presentation...

Resting in stillness and reflecting upon you,
The quiet core of my mind begins to sway
I dare to wonder how do you do?

The dawn awakens with a bluish hue,
The young morning threatens my thoughts to betray
Resting in stillness and reflecting upon you.

Morning light flickers off the morning dew,
Reminding me of then and yesterday
And I dare to wonder how do you do?

Nature begins to move, as if on cue,
Though there is no time I long to stay
Resting in stillness and reflecting upon you.

Living shadows dance, but only a few
Strange in my heart is a sense of dismay
While I dare to wonder how do you do?

Stopping to look while passing through
A part of me longs to turn away,
But resting in stillness and reflecting upon you,
I dare to wonder how do you do?

I don't think I've ever heard of this type of poetry. Very interesting structure.

Your poem is actually VERY GOOD Kurki, and I'm not just blowing smoke; I reall mean int. You are a multifaceted artist, to be sure...conductor, poet...and what else, I wonder?

I think all good art requires some form of structure and discipline. Although serial music has strict rules, it still produces something that sounds like it hasn't any rules.

This is why I can enjoy looking at a beautifully composed painting (which has stgructural soundness) versus a canvas that just has "random" splashes of color. To my humble eyes, in such painting, there is no structure...no rhyme or reason.

Art should be appreciated because it means something, represents something. Squaky, jarring serial music and color splash paintings mean nothing to me, I'm afraid, because of their in born "randomness," even if there is a (dubious) structure controlling it all.

I guess I'm just old-fashioned.