Vänskä Conducts Sibelius and Beethoven

Osmo Vänskä, conductor
Paavali Jumppanen, piano
San Diego Symphony Orchestra

SIBELIUS: Tapiola, Op. 112
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op.73, Emperor
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82

Jean Sibelius once said of a summer sailing trip in the Baltic Sea: “If only foreigners could see the granite rocks emerging from the water here, they would understand why I write for orchestra as I do!”

Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä is a leading authority on the music of Jean Sibelius, having recorded all seven of the composer’s symphonies. On this program, he leads the Symphony first in Sibelius’ dark and brooding tone poem Tapiola. One of this composer’s final works before he ceased writing in the late 1920s, this music evoking Tapio, the forest spirit from ancient pre-Christian Finnish mythology, was written to a commission from the New York Philharmonic. Sibelius’s much loved Fifth Symphony was also inspired by the natural landscape of his home country, and especially by his intense response to the beautiful flight of whooper swans, returning in the spring to breed on the lakes and waters of Finland. Rounding out the program is Beethoven’s Emperor piano concerto performed by Finnish pianist and Beethoven expert Paavali Jumppanen, praised for the “overflowing energy of his musicianship” by The New York Times.