Jean Sibelius (1865 — 1957)

Piano Music Volume 3

Ten Piano Pieces, Op.58 * Three Sonatinas, Op.67 * Two Rondinos, Op.68

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was born in 1865, the son of a doctor, in a small town in the south of Finland. The language and culture of his family, as with others of their class and background at the time, was Swedish. It was at school that Sibelius was to learn Finnish and acquire his first real interest in the early legends of his own country. In this society, linguistically, socially and historically divided, Sibelius was deeply influenced by his association with the family of the Finnish nationalist General Järnefelt, whose daughter Aino became his wife. Nevertheless Swedish remained his mother tongue, in which he expressed himself with greater fluency than in Finnish.

The musical abilities of Sibelius were soon realised, although he had entered university in Helsinki as a law student. His first ambition had bee