The threat of night has now been driven away. Want to know the words? Here you go! (And if auto-correct made a mess of the Finnish spelling, apologies to all my Finnish readers out there! Let me know and I’ll fix.)įinland, behold, thy daylight now is dawning, Fifth: the best front row seat for viewing the Northern Lights.) Fourth: one of the highest functioning welfare systems and lowest infant mortality rates in the world. Third: most engaged, informed, prolific classical music audience in the world. (Second: tied for highest literacy rate in the world at 100%. That nationalism can be expressed with such beautiful song, is just one more reason why Finland impresses me to no end. It makes tears rise in my throat every time I watch it (and I’m going on a dozen times at this point). I can think of no better way to honor such an event than to share Finlandia with the world.įollowing is a link to my favorite version of the choral hymn. It is second in importance in Finland only to the country’s national anthem, “Maamme.” (Some still would like to see it become the national anthem.)ĭecemmarks Finland’s centennial. It defined the voice of Finland that emerged in December, 1917, when the Finnish parliament finally declared independence from Russia. Sibelius had taken the piece’s slower melody and made it a choral hymn - although the more popular words were written in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi. Story has it, the Finns got sneaky and gave the piece alternative names at future performances, like, “Happy Feelings at the Awakening of Finnish Spring,” and “A Scandinavian Choral March.' The correlating hymn, too, had become a big deal. The Russians, of course, hated this, and did their best to censor performances of Finlandia. Suddenly the world knew about Sibelius, Finlandia, and Finnish national pride. Its popularity grew in leaps and bounds, particularly when the fledgling Helsinki Philharmonic, eighteen months old, took it with them on their first European tour. In 1900 he revised, making the seventh piece stand alone and renaming it Finlandia. Sibelius had written the piece, initially entitled “Finland Awakes,” part of his Press Celebration Music suite, for an event, a covert political rally of sorts to protest Russia’s increasing censorship and other punitive measures against Finland, an “autonomous” region of the Empire. Coming in at eight-ish minutes (can be up to nine), it’s short, but amazingly effective. And no piece conjures a sense of Finnish national pride more so than Sibelius’ Finlandia, a patriotic tone-poem, the seventh of seven tableaux written in 1899 and revised a year later. No surprise, perhaps, as both hail from Finland and both have captured, in the music, the nuance, proud spirit and dignity of this Nordic country.

Particularly impressive are Vänskä’s Sibelius interpretations. Vänskä, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra-they of the Great Lockout of 2012-14 infamy-literally staked his position on turning said orchestra into one of the country’s finest, resigning in protest in the later months of the lockout, only to be rehired the following April (good call), where he now continues, with the Minnesota Orchestra, to excel and produce world-class music. The main draw was the Sibelius Violin Concerto, gracefully and sensitively rendered by Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, with Finnish guest conductor Osmö Vänskä leading the orchestra. Jean Sibelius’ tone-poem, Finlandia, wasn’t supposed to be the program headliner last Saturday night at the San Francisco Symphony.Terez Mertes Sibelius, Finlandia & the cry of freedom

Sibelius finlandia