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	Podcast:		Composers Datebook
	Episode:		The Sibelius Sixth
	Category:		Health
	Duration:		0
	Publish Date:		2018-02-19 00:00:00
	Description:		On today’s date in 1923, the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius conducted the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 6 in Helsinki. He had begun work on it some five years earlier, and at that time described his vision for the symphony as follows: “The Sixth Symphony is wild and passionate in character. Gloomy with pastoral contrasts. Probably in four movements with a finale, which will build to a gloomy, wild romp of the orchestra in which the main theme disappears.” Well, that may have been the composer’s original idea, but the final product turned out quite different, and the late musicologist Michael Steinberg offers a more spot-on description: “The Sibelius Sixth is transparent, pastoral, lyrical, and notably even-tempered—a sanctuary fashioned out of music.” In the pecking order of popularity, the Second and Fifth of Sibelius’s seven symphonies rank at the top, with his First becoming more and more performed these days. The Fourth and Seventh, both very strange, enigmatic works, probably come next in order of popularity, with the genial Third symphony following those two. That leaves the Sibelius Sixth in last place with the public. But let’s close with another comment from the always perceptive Mr. Steinberg, who wrote: “To this day the Sixth remains the least known (or understood) of the seven symphonies, and yet for those who make its full acquaintance, the Sixth may become the most cherished of them all.”
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