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Donald Macleod explores the end of Sibelius’s seven teetotal years in the context of the Finnish Civil War.

The 1910s were a crucial decade in Sibelius’s life. He would write some of his greatest works during these ten years, including his fourth and fifth symphonies and the beginnings of his sixth. Sibelius’s meditations on the symphony and its role in his creative life are a recurring theme in the week’s programmes. This period also reflects Sibelius’s life in microcosm, including his battles with alcohol and indebtedness; his need for the stimulus of foreign travel, and the periods of creative inertia, which would decisively return during his later years. We travel around the world with Sibelius, returning to Finland at the outbreak of the First World War, which would have a major impact on his life and work, not least with the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and Finland’s subsequent independence: these were formative events for Sibelius.

In this programme Donald Macleod hears how Sibelius’s seven years of abstinence from alcohol were regarded by his wife Aino as the happiest of her married life. But now, feeling ignored and neglected by the music-going public during the war, and missing his foreign travels, Sibelius hit the bottle again, fracturing his domestic and professional relationships. External events were overtaking Finland’s isolation from the war. Civil war followed Germany’s defeat. Now his own home was intruded on and searched by the Red Guards, whilst Sibelius and his family were forbidden from leaving it.

Jaakarien marssi (Jager March), Op. 91a (version for orchestra)
Kuopio Symphony Orchestra
Atso Almila, conductor

Humoresques for Violin and Orchestra, Op.87
Tapiola Sinfonietta
Pekka Kuusisto,violin, conductor

Oma maa (Our Native Land), Op. 92
Helsinki University Chorus
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Paavo Berglund, conductor

Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Op. 104
London Symphony Orchestra
Colin Davis, conductor