Conducted by Mikko Franck, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France performs the "Violin Concerto in d minor" op.47 by Jean Sibelius with Hilary Hahn. Concert recorded live on 2 May at the Radio France Auditorium in Paris.
Four years before the death of the violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who inspired a great number of 19th-century musical compositions, Jean Sibelius began writing his own Violin Concerto, composed between his second and third symphonies. However, as contrary to Brahms for example, the concerto was not written with Joachim in mind, or even performed by the famous violinist. The concerto was first heard in 1903, then premiered in its final version on 19 October 1905 in Berlin, performed by Karl Halir and conducted by Richard Strauss. The work bears witness to Sibelius's desire to add a sense of vigour to his musical expression, a density far from the sentimentality, for example, of Glazounov (whose Violin Concerto also dates from 1903). Sibelius, himself a talented violinist, tackled one of the most traditional forms, respecting the tripartite progression (a rhapsodic first movement, a sublime cantilena, a joyful rondo), imbued with a unique and foreign inspiration. Eight years later, Nielsen also attempted to renew the concerto form (divided in two parts, each with two movements), but his attempt did not have the same impact. At the heart of Sibelius's creation we find a musical universe both changing and maturing. In 1904, Sibelius moved to Järvenpää, his final home thirty kilometers north of Helsinki, as if in search of a new environment, one of solitude and exigency.
Sibelius never sought modernity at all costs. He was of his time, and not one imposed by the day of his birth. When asked, in 1914 which composer of his time was the greatest, he answered without hesitation: "Schoenberg. But I also enjoy my own music". Little concerned by the musical fashions and current trends, Sibelius was nonetheless a victim of those, though well-intentioned, who saw him as the composer of rising Finnish nationalism.
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