Jean Sibelius - 5 Sketches for Piano Op.114

Annet Serwaday - Piano 00:00 Landscape 02:29 Winter Scene 04:53 Forest Lake 07:20 Song in the forest 09:57 Spring Vision Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was a Finnish Composer. After graduating from high school in 1885, Sibelius began to study law at the Imperial Alexander University in Finland but, showing far more interest in music, soon moved to the Helsinki Music Institute (now the Sibelius Academy) where he studied from 1885 to 1889. One of his teachers was its founder, Martin Wegelius, who did much to support the development of education in Finland. It was he who gave the self-taught Sibelius his first formal lessons in composition. Another important influence was his teacher Ferruccio Busoni, a pianist-composer with whom he enjoyed a lifelong friendship. Sibelius continued his studies in Berlin (from 1889 to 1890) with Albert Becker, and in Vienna (from 1890 to 1891) with Robert Fuchs and Hungarian-Jewish Karl Goldmark. In Berlin, he had the opportunity to widen his musical experience by going to a variety of concerts and operas, including the premiere of Richard Strauss&Don Juan. The 5 Sketches Op.114 are the last piano pieces that Sibelius wrote, to be followed in the same year, 1929, by two set of pieces for violin and piano, the last of his numbered works to be published in his lifetime. Maisema (landscape) is thoroughly pianistic in style in its contrast between chordal passages and rapider sections. Talvikuva (winter scene) reflects a snow-covered and hushed...