There's more, of course, but the subject line only gives you so much space...

Aside from the not at all serious question "Has any piece of great music ever had such an unpropitious title as Press Celebrations Music?" I wonder what in what kind of esteem these works are held by serious Sibelius nuts. Belshazzar's Feast, Kuolema, Pelleas et Melisande, Swanwhite... and what fit in the subject line, of course.

I expected to see these names all over this forum, but just because I don't doesn't mean I conclude that y'all don't thoroughly enjoy them. They're certainly enjoyable. That brass fanfarish thing with the long build up to it that's in both the Press Celebrations Music and Scenes Historiques (where I first heard it) is pretty magical, though the magic does fade rather quickly. Still, while it lasts....

My vote falls squarely on Kuolema, and not because of Valse Triste... There's another little piece in that suite that happens to be my favourite "miniature" of all time.

A little note, some guy, you have spelled "Kuolema" incorrectly in your poll options but correctly later on... please DO NOT edit and correct the poll options, this often throws off the poll entirely, this is a problem with the ForumUp software. Thanx.

Please forgive me for not voting, as I love 'em all! People who don't look beyond the symphonies and violin concerto are missing out on an awful lot of pleasure. Of course some of these scores are uneven (Karelia for instance), but then it was written in a tearing hurry. Others don't really work as concert pieces without some hint of the stage action (Everyman, Scaramouche - we'll see how the latter goes down in Lahti in a few weeks).

Good point about the titles. (Similarly, if the Moderato – Allegro appassionato in C sharp minor for string quartet, JS 131, had a name like Kullervo, which in my view it deserves, ensembles would be queuing up to play it.) But then in Helsinki in the 1890s there really wasn't any need to use catchy titles, so I suppose nobody thought of inventing them…

Ack. I left off King Christian II.

Pffft. Let's just forget the whole thing, shall we? I just wanted to know if serious Sibelius aficionados liked the incidental music pieces and so forth, too, that's all. And so far that seems to be "yes."

Anyway, King Christian II.

Now if only someone would replace the tepid Vanska recording of the complete Swanwhite with something like what Jussi Jalas brought to his recording of the suite...

The Vanska folk play as if surrounded by fragile (and expensive) glass objet d'art. As if any volume, any articulation, any accents would break everything in the room. Or maybe it was their instruments. The new all glass flutes and violins and such. Don't actually strike the timpani for chrissake!