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RLPO play Jean Sibelius masterpiece Finlandia

JEAN SIBELIUS Finlandia

Vasily Petrenko conductor

One of the great late-Romantic composers, who single handedly placed Finland on the musical map. And theres nothing more Finnish than Sibeliuss Finlandia.

Watch the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra tackle this Finnish masterpiece, performed at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in November 2009. Sibelius originally wrote this for a scenic piece called Finland Awakes, which was presented at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki in protest against the drastic suppression of political freedom by Finlands Russian masters in the February Manifesto of 1899. The atmosphere of oppression would have been palpable enough for those who heard the piece, if not, the allusion to Emil Genetzs well-known song Herää Suomi! (Arise, Finland!) and the increasingly triumphant mood of the work can have left no doubt in the Finnish mind as to what the message was meant to be.

If youve seen The Hunt for Red October or Die Hard 2 youll know to get the big guns primed when Finlandia pops up; this thing could go nuclear