Aquileja

I wrote about the Finnish national anthem before. Since that I've been interested in Finnish classical music. Speaking of Finnish classical composers, you might think about only one person, Jean Sibelius(1865-1957). He is known as a great composer of symphonic music.

Everybody knows his symphonic poem 'Finlandia'. He also composed about 150 works for solo piano. Most his works for piano are unknown at the moment. Few pianists play his works and you can hardly get the CDs. But if you listen to his works for piano once, you will soon find out many of those works are unforgettable. The feature of his piano works is its simplicity. In early 20 century, pianists liked to study virtuoso pieces like Rachmaninov's and Liszt's. And at the same time, people liked to watch their virtuoso performances and listen to those pieces like that. That's why Sibelius's piano works didn't attract a lot of people at that time. Actually, he was not a virtuoso type pianist. According to his biography, he got his first piano in his fifties. But I don't think he was a bad pianist. His fingering style is justified and natural at least.

Tonight, I will introduce his adorable piano piece, Aquileja Op 85-4. This is a only two minutes, small piece. First, cadgy melody with simple beat is coming. This melody sounds like a folksong of countryside and makes you relax. You might imagine beautiful forest of northern Europe from this melody. After that, the melody repeats with colorful arpeggio and the scenery becomes more colorful and expanding. After the third repeat, the melody turns a little sentimental with descending scale and goes back to the beginning style as if you returned home after the long journey. If you would like to listen to this piece, I would be happy to play it for you.