Sibelius and his most popular pieces

This took place in November, 2015, but was left a draft, and was saved in the wrong place.


Friday was the day for concert number 2 in the Sibelius Festival. There were even more people than on Thursday, even the seats behind the orchestra were almost full. I had seat 4 of the 5th row on the left. I should have bought one on the right, that would have been closer to the conductor and the soloist, Karita Mattila.
The concert started with "Finlandia". The hymn in the middle was tenderly played and the end was rousing as always. Next music from "Death" (Kuolema). The middle part, " Scene with  Cranes" I do not remember ever to have heard. I fell in love with that, it is quiet and beautiful.
Karita is especially natural and spontaneous. A couple of times she stopped singing after she had finished a piece and started explaining what happened in the next one, there was also some humour. People of course wanted more and I think she sang something. Her voice is not quite as bright as years ago but she is a great performer. After the performance she hugged and kissed the conductor and even the concertmaster. She knew Saraste of course very well. When you watch her concerts (isn't YouTube wonderful how much classical music you can hear?), she mostly kisses the conductor but not always the concertmaster. The whole audience of course got to their feet.