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Wihuri Sibelius Prize

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136-479: The Wihuri Sibelius Prize is a music prize awarded by the Wihuri Foundation for International Prizes to prominent composers who have become internationally known and acknowledged. The Wihuri Sibelius Prize is one of the biggest and most prestigious music prizes in the world of classical music. The first Sibelius Prize was awarded to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius , whom the prize was named after, in 1953. By 2021,

272-445: A common gender with the definite suffix -en and the definite article den , in contrast with the neuter gender equivalents -et and det . The verb system was also more complex: it included subjunctive and imperative moods and verbs were conjugated according to person as well as number . By the 16th century, the case and gender systems of the colloquial spoken language and the profane literature had been largely reduced to

408-470: A guttural or "French R" pronunciation in the South Swedish dialects ; consequently, these dialects lack retroflex consonants . Swedish is a stress-timed language, where the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal. However, when casually spoken, it tends to be syllable-timed . Any stressed syllable carries one of two tones , which gives Swedish much of its characteristic sound. Prosody

544-525: A London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron was even advertised to the public. The only concrete evidence of the symphony's existence on paper is a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played in 2011. Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of

680-399: A banker and Heidi Blomstedt was a designer, wife of architect Aulis Blomstedt . Margareta married conductor Jussi Jalas , Aulis Blomstedt's brother. In 1892, Kullervo inaugurated Sibelius's focus on orchestral music. It was described by the composer Aksel Törnudd  [ fi ] as "a volcanic eruption" while Juho Ranta who sang in the choir stated, "It was Finnish music." At

816-522: A change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy diphthong changed into a long, close ø , as in the Old Norse word for "island". By the end of the period, these innovations had affected most of the Runic Swedish-speaking area as well, with the exception of the dialects spoken north and east of Mälardalen where the diphthongs still exist in remote areas. Old Swedish (Swedish: fornsvenska )

952-518: A conversation. Due to the close relation between the Scandinavian languages, a considerable proportion of speakers of Danish and especially Norwegian are able to understand Swedish. There is considerable migration between the Nordic countries , but owing to the similarity between the cultures and languages (with the exception of Finnish ), expatriates generally assimilate quickly and do not stand out as

1088-431: A few major works during the rest of his life. Arguably the two most significant of these were the incidental music for The Tempest and the tone poem Tapiola . For most of the last thirty years of his life, Sibelius even avoided talking publicly about his music. There is substantial evidence that Sibelius worked on an eighth symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky in 1931 and 1932, and

1224-653: A few small pieces, he relied increasingly on alcohol. In May 1925, his Danish publisher Wilhelm Hansen and the Royal Danish Theatre invited him to compose incidental music for a production of Shakespeare 's The Tempest . He completed the work well in advance of its premiere in March 1926. It was well received in Copenhagen although Sibelius was not there himself. The music journalist Vesa Sirén has found evidence that Sibelius perhaps suffered from essential tremor since

1360-727: A group. According to the 2000 United States Census , some 67,000 people over the age of five were reported as Swedish speakers, though without any information on the degree of language proficiency. Similarly, there were 16,915 reported Swedish speakers in Canada from the 2001 census. Although there are no certain numbers, some 40,000 Swedes are estimated to live in the London area in the United Kingdom. Outside Sweden and Finland, there are about 40,000 active learners enrolled in Swedish language courses. In

1496-653: A highly successful trip to England in early 1921—conducting several concerts around the country, including the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, The Oceanides , the ever-popular Finlandia , and Valse triste . Immediately afterwards, he conducted the Second Symphony and Valse triste in Norway. He was beginning to suffer from exhaustion, but the critics remained positive. On his return to Finland in April, he presented Lemminkäinen's Return and

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1632-609: A large proportion of the remaining 100,000 in the Scandinavian countries, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia. Over three million people speak Swedish as a second language, with about 2,410,000 of those in Finland. According to a survey by the European Commission , 44% of respondents from Finland who did not have Swedish as a native language considered themselves to be proficient enough in Swedish to hold

1768-573: A large section of the audience left the hall between the movements while in October, after a concert conducted by Carl Muck , the Boston American labelled it "a sad failure". Sibelius's first significant composition of 1913 was the tone poem The Bard , which he conducted in March to a respectful audience in Helsinki. He went on to compose Luonnotar (Daughter of Nature) for soprano and orchestra. With

1904-425: A more abstract sense, such as that set of fish; while fisken means "the fish". In certain cases, the definite form indicates possession, e. g., jag måste tvätta hår et ("I must wash my hair"). Adjectives are inflected in two declensions – indefinite and definite – and they must match the noun they modify in gender and number. The indefinite neuter and plural forms of an adjective are usually created by adding

2040-524: A native Swedish speaker. In 1876, he continued his education at the Finnish-language Hämeenlinna Normal Lyceum where he was a rather absent-minded pupil, though did quite well in mathematics and botany. Despite having to repeat a year, he passed the school's final examination in 1885, which allowed him to enter a university. As a boy he was known as Janne , a colloquial form of Johan. However, during his student years, he adopted

2176-435: A noun. They can double as demonstrative pronouns or demonstrative determiners when used with adverbs such as här ("here") or där ("there") to form den/det här (can also be "denna/detta") ("this"), de här (can also be "dessa") ("these"), den/det där ("that"), and de där ("those"). For example, den där fisken means "that fish" and refers to a specific fish; den fisken is less definite and means "that fish" in

2312-515: A particularly strong interest in the instrument. Setting his heart on a career as a great violin virtuoso, he soon became an accomplished player, performing David 's Concerto in E minor in 1886 and, the following year, the last two movements of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in Helsinki. Despite such success as an instrumentalist, he ultimately chose to become a composer. In 1874, Sibelius attended Lucina Hagman's Finnish-speaking preparatory school as

2448-480: A present was about to be confiscated by the bailiffs when the singer Ida Ekman paid off a large proportion of his debt after a successful fund-raising campaign. A year later, on 8 December 1916, Sibelius presented the revised version of his Fifth Symphony in Turku, combining the first two movements and simplifying the finale. When it was performed a week later in Helsinki, Katila was very favourable but Wasenius frowned on

2584-466: A result, his mother—who was again pregnant—had to sell their property and move the family into the home of Katarina Borg, her widowed mother, who also lived in Hämeenlinna. Sibelius was therefore brought up in a decidedly female environment, the only male influence coming from his uncle, Pehr Ferdinand Sibelius, who was interested in music, especially the violin. Pehr Ferdinand gave the boy a violin when he

2720-654: A revised version of his First Symphony) in thirteen cities including Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. The critics were highly favorable, bringing the composer international recognition with their enthusiastic reports in the Berliner Börsen-Courier , the Berliner Fremdenblatt and the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger . During a trip with his family to Rapallo , Italy in 1901, Sibelius began to write his Second Symphony , partly inspired by

2856-409: A sanatorium, suffering from exhaustion. While she was away, Sibelius resolved to give up drinking , concentrating instead on composing his Third Symphony . He completed the work for a performance in Helsinki on 25 September. Although its more classical approach surprised the audience, Flodin commented that it was "internally new and revolutionary". Shortly afterwards Sibelius met Gustav Mahler who

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2992-444: A short pizzicato piece Vattendroppar (Water Drops) for violin, possibly as an etude or musical exercise. The first reference he made to himself composing is in a letter from August 1883 in which he writes that he composed a trio and was working on another: "They are rather poor, but it is nice to have something to do on rainy days." In 1881, he began violin lessons with the local bandmaster, Gustaf Levander, immediately developing

3128-667: A special branch of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland has official status as the regulatory body for Swedish in Finland. Among its highest priorities is to maintain intelligibility with the language spoken in Sweden. It has published Finlandssvensk ordbok , a dictionary about the differences between Swedish in Finland and Sweden. From the 13th to 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia , particularly on

3264-592: A spell in hospital. His smoking and drinking had now become life-threatening. Although he cancelled concerts in Rome, Warsaw and Berlin, he maintained an engagement in London but there too his Third Symphony failed to attract the critics. In May 1908, Sibelius's health deteriorated further. He travelled with his wife to Berlin to have a tumour removed from his throat. After the operation, he vowed to give up smoking and drinking once and for all. The impact of this brush with death has been said to have inspired works that he composed in

3400-442: A suffix ( -t or -a ) to the common form of the adjective, e. g., en grön stol (a green chair), ett grönt hus (a green house), and gröna stolar ("green chairs"). The definite form of an adjective is identical to the indefinite plural form, e. g., den gröna stolen ("the green chair"), det gröna huset ("the green house"), and de gröna stolarna ("the green chairs"). Swedish pronouns are similar to those of English. Besides

3536-704: A text from the Kalevala , it was first performed in Finnish in September 1913 by Aino Ackté (to whom it had been dedicated) at the music festival in Gloucester , England. In early 1914, Sibelius spent a month in Berlin where he was particularly drawn to Arnold Schoenberg . Back in Finland, he began work on The Oceanides , which the American millionaire Carl Stoeckel had commissioned for

3672-470: A time, although also showing interest in the established works of Beethoven and Wagner . He enjoyed his year in Vienna, frequently partying and gambling with his new friends. It was also in Vienna that he turned to orchestral composition, composing an Overture in E major and a Scène de Ballet . While embarking on Kullervo , an orchestral work with chorus and soloists inspired by the Kalevala , he fell ill but

3808-413: A village, Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village"). A few elderly people in the village still speak a Swedish dialect and observe the holidays of the Swedish calendar, although their dialect is most likely facing extinction. From 1918 to 1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as

3944-420: A violinist: My tragedy was that I wanted to be a celebrated violinist at any price. Since the age of 15 I played my violin practically from morning to night. I hated pen and ink—unfortunately I preferred an elegant violin bow. My love for the violin lasted quite long and it was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of a virtuoso too late. In addition to

4080-475: A young age and that he reduced the symptoms by drinking alcohol. This self-medication is common and effective but discouraged by doctors due to the risks outweighing the benefits. Sirén's research is supported by several medical experts. The tremor presumably prevented writing and impaired his social life. The year 1926 saw a sharp and lasting decline in Sibelius's output: after his Seventh Symphony, he produced only

4216-477: Is generally seen as adding specific Central Swedish features to the new Bible. Though it might seem as if the Bible translation set a very powerful precedent for orthographic standards, spelling actually became more inconsistent during the remainder of the century. It was not until the 17th century that spelling began to be discussed, around the time when the first grammars were written. Capitalization during this time

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4352-538: Is marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles . The prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a comparatively large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless dorso-palatal velar fricative , a highly variable consonant phoneme . Swedish nouns and adjectives are declined in genders as well as number . Nouns are of common gender ( en form) or neuter gender ( ett form). The gender determines

4488-563: Is often one of the most noticeable differences between dialects. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages , V2 , which means that the finite verb (V) appears in the second position (2) of a declarative main clause . Swedish morphology is similar to English; that is, words have comparatively few inflections . Swedish has two genders and is generally seen to have two grammatical cases – nominative and genitive (except for pronouns that, as in English, also are inflected in

4624-613: Is one of the official languages of the European Union , and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Swedish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for interpretation or translation costs. The Swedish Language Council ( Språkrådet )

4760-475: Is termed nusvenska (lit., "Now-Swedish") in linguistics, and started in the last decades of the 19th century. It saw a democratization of the language with a less formal written form that approached the spoken one. The growth of a public school system also led to the evolution of so-called boksvenska (literally, "book Swedish"), especially among the working classes, where spelling to some extent influenced pronunciation, particularly in official contexts. With

4896-517: Is the predominant language; in 19 municipalities , 16 of which are located in Åland , Swedish is the sole official language. Åland county is an autonomous region of Finland. According to a rough estimation, as of 2010 there were up to 300,000 Swedish-speakers living outside Sweden and Finland. The largest populations were in the United States (up to 100,000), the UK, Spain and Germany (c. 30,000 each) and

5032-450: Is the regulator of Swedish in Sweden but does not attempt to enforce control of the language, as for instance the Académie française does for French . However, many organizations and agencies require the use of the council's publication Svenska skrivregler in official contexts, with it otherwise being regarded as a de facto orthographic standard. Among the many organizations that make up

5168-407: Is the sole official language of Åland (an autonomous province under the sovereignty of Finland), where the vast majority of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Swedish as a first language. In Finland as a whole, Swedish is one of the two "national" languages, with the same official status as Finnish (spoken by the majority) at the state level and an official language in some municipalities . Swedish

5304-621: Is the term used for the medieval Swedish language. The start date is usually set to 1225 since this is the year that Västgötalagen ("the Västgöta Law") is believed to have been compiled for the first time. It is among the most important documents of the period written in Latin script and the oldest Swedish law codes . Old Swedish is divided into äldre fornsvenska (1225–1375) and yngre fornsvenska (1375–1526), "older" and "younger" Old Swedish. Important outside influences during this time came with

5440-457: The Gustav Vasa Bible , a translation deemed so successful and influential that, with revisions incorporated in successive editions, it remained the most common Bible translation until 1917. The main translators were Laurentius Andreæ and the brothers Laurentius and Olaus Petri . The Vasa Bible is often considered to be a reasonable compromise between old and new; while not adhering to

5576-723: The Estonian Swedish speakers is almost extinct. It is also used in the Swedish diaspora , most notably in Oslo , Norway, with more than 50,000 Swedish residents. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages . In the established classification, it belongs to the East Scandinavian languages , together with Danish , separating it from

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5712-463: The French vous (see T-V distinction ). Ni wound up being used as a slightly less familiar form of du , the singular second person pronoun, used to address people of lower social status. With the liberalization and radicalization of Swedish society in the 1950s and 1960s, these class distinctions became less important, and du became the standard, even in formal and official contexts. Though

5848-749: The Helsinki City Orchestra with soloist Anja Ignatius originated a broadcast of Sibelius compositions to 14 countries in coordination with the International Broadcasting Union . The program included the tone poem The Oceanides , followed by his Fifth Symphony , and the Violin Concerto. In 1935 The New York Philharmonic surveyed the preferences of music listeners around the United States. When asked who their favourite composer was, Sibelius came first among all of them, living or dead. This degree of recognition during his own lifetime

5984-574: The Karelia Suite . Their home, Ainola , was completed near Lake Tuusula , Järvenpää, in 1904. During the years at Ainola, they had six daughters: Eva, Ruth, Kirsti (who died aged one from typhoid ), Katarina, Margareta and Heidi. Eva married an industrial heir, Arvi Paloheimo, and later became the CEO of the Paloheimo Corporation. Ruth Snellman (fi) was a prominent actress, Katarina Ilves married

6120-609: The Norfolk Music Festival . After first composing the work in D-flat major, Sibelius undertook substantive revisions, presenting a D major version in Norfolk, which was well received, as were Finlandia and the Valse triste . Henry Krehbiel considered The Oceanides one of the most beautiful pieces of sea music ever composed, while The New York Times commented that Sibelius's music was

6256-511: The United States , particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a significant Swedish-speaking immigrant population. This was notably true in states like Minnesota , where many Swedish immigrants settled. By 1940, approximately 6% of Minnesota's population spoke Swedish. Although the use of Swedish has significantly declined, it is not uncommon to find older generations and communities that still retain some use and knowledge of

6392-519: The West Scandinavian languages , consisting of Faroese , Icelandic , and Norwegian . However, more recent analyses divide the North Germanic languages into two groups: Insular Scandinavian (Faroese and Icelandic), and Continental Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish), based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of East Scandinavian (particularly Danish) on Norwegian during

6528-581: The nationalist ideas that emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages have separate orthographies , dictionaries, grammars, and regulatory bodies. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are thus from a linguistic perspective more accurately described as a dialect continuum of Scandinavian (North Germanic), and some of the dialects, such as those on the border between Norway and Sweden, especially parts of Bohuslän , Dalsland , western Värmland , western Dalarna , Härjedalen , Jämtland , and Scania , could be described as intermediate dialects of

6664-410: The object form) – although it is debated if the genitive in Swedish should be seen as a genitive case or just the nominative plus the so-called genitive s , then seen as a clitic . Swedish has two grammatical numbers – plural and singular . Adjectives have discrete comparative and superlative forms and are also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness . The definiteness of nouns

6800-432: The "silence of Järvenpää " (the location of his home). Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts on an eighth symphony . In later life, he wrote Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works, while retaining an active but not always favourable interest in new developments in music. Although this 'silence' has often perplexed scholars, in reality, Sibelius

6936-498: The 1894–95 season, works such as En saga , Karelia and Vårsång (composed in 1894) were included in at least 16 concerts in the capital, not to mention those in Turku . When performed in a revised version on 17 April 1895, the composer Oskar Merikanto welcomed Vårsång (Spring Song) as "the fairest flower among Sibelius's orchestral pieces". For a considerable period, Sibelius worked on an opera, Veneen luominen (The Building of

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7072-399: The 1950s, when their use was removed from all official recommendations. A very significant change in Swedish occurred in the late 1960s, with the so-called du-reformen . Previously, the proper way to address people of the same or higher social status had been by title and surname. The use of herr ("Mr." or "Sir"), fru ("Mrs." or "Ma'am") or fröken ("Miss") was considered

7208-478: The 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , evolved into Old Norse. This language underwent more changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects: Old West Norse (Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). The dialects of Old East Norse spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish , while

7344-487: The Boat), again based on the Kalevala . To some extent, he had come under the influence of Wagner, but subsequently turned to Liszt 's tone poems as a source of compositional inspiration. Adapted from material for the opera, which he never completed, his Lemminkäinen Suite consisted of four legends in the form of tone poems. They were premiered in Helsinki on 13 April 1896 to a full house. In contrast to Merikanto's enthusiasm for

7480-477: The Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century, and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties and rural dialects still exist, the written language is uniform and standardized . Swedish is the most widely spoken second language in Finland where its status is co- official language . Swedish was long spoken in parts of Estonia , although the current status of

7616-607: The Fifth Symphony at the Nordic Music Days. Early in 1922, after suffering from headaches Sibelius decided to acquire spectacles although he never wore them for photographs. In July, he was saddened by the death of his brother Christian. In August, he joined the Finnish Freemasons and composed ritual music for them. In February 1923, he premiered his Sixth Symphony . Evert Katila highly praised it as "pure idyll." Before

7752-874: The Finnish capital. Sibelius was born on 8 December 1865 in Hämeenlinna ( Swedish : Tavastehus ) in the Grand Duchy of Finland , an autonomous state within the Russian Empire . He was the son of the Swedish-speaking medical doctor Christian Gustaf Sibelius and Maria Charlotta Sibelius (née Borg). The family name stems from the Sibbe estate in Eastern Uusimaa , which his paternal great-grandfather owned. Sibelius's father died of typhoid in July 1868, leaving substantial debts. As

7888-472: The Finnish composer Robert Kajanus conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a program that included his symphonic poem Aino , a patriotic piece that may have inspired Sibelius's later interest in using the epic poem Kalevala as a basis for his own compositions. While in Vienna, he became particularly interested in the music of Anton Bruckner whom he regarded as "the greatest living composer" for

8024-729: The Finnish quality of the work, the critic Karl Flodin found the cor anglais solo in The Swan of Tuonela "stupendously long and boring", although he considered the first legend, Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island , as representing the peak of Sibelius's achievement to date. To pay his way, from 1892 Sibelius had taken on teaching assignments at the Music Institute and at Kajanus's conducting school but this left him insufficient time for composing. The situation improved considerably when in 1898 he

8160-636: The First Symphony and Finlandia , writing to Aino that the concert had been a great success and widely acclaimed. In 1906, after a short, rather uneventful stay in Paris at the beginning of the year, Sibelius spent several months composing in Ainola, his major work of the period being Pohjola's Daughter , yet another piece based on the Kalevala . Later in the year he composed incidental music for Belshazzar's Feast , also adapting it as an orchestral suite. He ended

8296-671: The French form Jean , inspired by the business card of his deceased seafaring uncle. Thereafter he became known as Jean Sibelius. 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

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8432-407: The Modern Swedish period were the gradual assimilation of several different consonant clusters into the fricative [ʃ] and later into [ɧ] . There was also the gradual softening of [ɡ] and [k] into [j] and the fricative [ɕ] before front vowels . The velar fricative [ɣ] was also transformed into the corresponding plosive [ɡ] . The period that includes Swedish as it is spoken today

8568-443: The Red Guard commander-in-chief Eero Haapalainen , who guaranteed Sibelius a safe journey from Ainola to the capital. On 20 February, a group of Red Guard fighters escorted the family to Helsinki. Finally, from 12 to 13 April, the German troops occupied the city and the Red period was over. A week later, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra gave a concert in homage to the German commander Rüdiger von der Goltz . Sibelius finished off

8704-403: The Senate's declaration of independence from Russia in December 1917. The Jäger March , first played on 19 January 1918, delighted the Helsinki elite for a short time until the start of the Finnish Civil War on 27 January. Sibelius naturally supported the Whites , but as a Tolstoyan , Aino Sibelius had some sympathies for the Reds too. In February, his house (Ainola) was searched twice by

8840-460: The Swedish Language Council, the Swedish Academy (established 1786) is arguably the most influential. Its primary instruments are the spelling dictionary Svenska Akademiens ordlista ( SAOL , currently in its 14th edition) and the dictionary Svenska Akademiens Ordbok , in addition to various books on grammar, spelling and manuals of style. Although the dictionaries have a prescriptive element, they mainly describe current usage. In Finland,

8976-637: The Wihuri Foundation for International Prizes has awarded altogether 19 Wihuri Sibelius Prizes, the latest award climbing up to €150,000 and awarded to Finnish composer Jukka Tiensuu . The Wihuri Sibelius Prize winner is selected by a five-member committee that consists of experts from Finnish music institutions. The prize may be awarded to private individuals or organizations regardless of nationality. Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( / s ɪ ˈ b eɪ l i ə s / ; Finland Swedish: [siˈbeːliʉs] ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius ; 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957)

9112-449: The administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II , that is, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of speakers remain. Swedish dialects have either 17 or 18 vowel phonemes , 9 long and 9 short. As in the other Germanic languages, including English, most long vowels are phonetically paired with one of

9248-502: The audience. By the end of the year, he was already working on the Sixth. In 1920, despite a growing tremor in his hands, Sibelius composed the Hymn of the Earth to a text by the poet Eino Leino for the Suomen Laulu Choir and orchestrated his Valse lyrique , helped along by drinking wine. On his birthday in December 1920, Sibelius received a donation of 63,000 marks, a substantial sum the tenor Wäinö Sola  [ fi ] had raised from Finnish businesses. Although he used some of

9384-418: The birth of Sibelius's first child Eva, in April the premiere of his choral work Väinämöinen's Boat Ride was a considerable success, receiving the support of the press. On 13 November 1893, the full version of Karelia was premiered at a student association gala at the Seurahuone in Viipuri with the collaboration of the artist Axel Gallén and the sculptor Emil Wikström who had been brought in to design

9520-425: The cello. ( Christian Sibelius was to become an eminent psychiatrist , still remembered for his contributions to modern psychiatry in Finland.) Sibelius soon began playing in quartets with neighboring families, furthering his experience performing chamber music. Fragments survive of his early compositions of the period, a trio, a piano quartet and a Suite in D Minor for violin and piano. Around 1881, he transcribed

9656-400: The changes, leading the composer to rewrite it once again. From the beginning of 1917, Sibelius started drinking again, triggering arguments with Aino. Their relationship improved with the excitement resulting from the start of the Russian Revolution . By the end of the year, Sibelius had composed his Jäger March . The piece proved particularly popular after the Finnish parliament accepted

9792-498: The colloquial spoken language of its day, it was not overly conservative in its use of archaic forms. It was a major step towards a more consistent Swedish orthography . It established the use of the vowels "å", "ä", and "ö", and the spelling "ck" in place of "kk", distinguishing it clearly from the Danish Bible, perhaps intentionally, given the ongoing rivalry between the countries. All three translators came from central Sweden, which

9928-524: The concert itself was successful, it received mixed reviews, some very positive while those in the Allgemeine Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt were less enthusiastic. Back in Finland, he rewrote the increasingly popular Pelléas and Mélisande as an orchestral suite. In November, visiting Britain for the first time, he went to Liverpool where he met Henry Wood . On 2 December, he conducted

10064-563: The construction costs, he gave concerts in Helsinki, Turku and Vaasa in early 1904 as well as in Tallinn, Estonia, and in Latvia during the summer. The family were finally able to move into the new property on 24 September 1904, making friends with the local artistic community, including the painters Eero Järnefelt and Pekka Halonen and the novelist Juhani Aho . In January 1905, Sibelius returned to Berlin where he conducted his Second Symphony. While

10200-403: The declension of the adjectives . For example, the word fisk ("fish") is a noun of common gender ( en fisk ) and can have the following forms: The definite singular form of a noun is created by adding a suffix ( -en , -n , -et or -t ), depending on its gender and if the noun ends in a vowel or not. The definite articles den , det , and de are used for variations to the definitiveness of

10336-527: The dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish . The dialects are described as "runic" because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet . Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which had only 16 letters. Because the number of runes was limited, some runes were used for a range of phonemes , such as

10472-559: The end of that year the composer's grandmother, Katarina Borg died. Sibelius went to her funeral, visiting his Hämeenlinna home one last time before the house was sold. On 16 February 1893, the first (extended) version of En saga was presented in Helsinki although it was not too well received, the critics suggesting that superfluous sections should be eliminated (as they were in Sibelius's 1902 version). Even less successful were three more performances of Kullervo in March, which one critic found incomprehensible and lacking in vitality. Following

10608-457: The event by conducting the Jäger March . In early 1919, Sibelius enthusiastically decided to change his image, shaving off what remained of his thinning hair. In June, together with Aino, he visited Copenhagen on his first trip outside Finland since 1915, successfully presenting his Second Symphony. In November he conducted the final version of his Fifth Symphony, receiving repeated ovations from

10744-531: The family home. There he met and immediately fell in love with Aino , the 17-year-old daughter of General Alexander Järnefelt , the governor of Vaasa , and Elisabeth Clodt von Jürgensburg , a Baltic aristocrat. The wedding was held on 10 June 1892 at Maxmo . They spent their honeymoon in Karelia , the home of the Kalevala . It served as an inspiration for Sibelius's tone poem En saga , the Lemminkäinen legends and

10880-539: The fate of Don Juan in Mozart's Don Giovanni . It was completed in early 1902 with its premiere in Helsinki on 8 March. The work was received with tremendous enthusiasm by the Finns. Merikanto felt it exceeded "even the boldest expectations," while Evert Katila qualified it as "an absolute masterpiece". Flodin, too, wrote of a symphonic composition "the likes of which we have never had occasion to listen to before". Sibelius spent

11016-431: The fighting, his royalties from abroad were interrupted. To make ends meet, he composed smaller works for publication in Finland. In March 1915, he was able to travel to Gothenburg in Sweden, where his work The Oceanides was widely appreciated. While working on his Fifth Symphony in April, he saw 16 swans flying by, inspiring him to write the finale. "One of the great experiences of my life!" he commented. Although there

11152-489: The finale after returning to Järvenpää. Sibelius conducted his first concerts in Sweden in early 1911 when even his Third Symphony was welcomed by the critics. He completed the Fourth Symphony in April but, as he expected, with its introspective style it was not very warmly received when first performed in Helsinki with mixed reviews. Apart from a trip to Paris where he enjoyed a performance of Richard Strauss's Salome ,

11288-540: The firm establishment of the Christian church and various monastic orders, introducing many Greek and Latin loanwords. With the rise of Hanseatic power in the late 13th and early 14th century, Middle Low German became very influential. The Hanseatic league provided Swedish commerce and administration with a large number of Low German -speaking immigrants. Many became quite influential members of Swedish medieval society, and brought terms from their native languages into

11424-521: The following years, including Luonnotar and the Fourth Symphony . In 1909, the successful throat operation resulted in renewed happiness between Sibelius and Aino in the family home. In Britain too, his condition was well received as he conducted En saga , Finlandia , Valse Triste and Spring Song to enthusiastic audiences. A meeting with Claude Debussy produced further support. After another uneventful trip to Paris, he went to Berlin where he

11560-430: The industrialization and urbanization of Sweden well under way by the last decades of the 19th century, a new breed of authors made their mark on Swedish literature . Many scholars, politicians and other public figures had a great influence on the emerging national language, among them prolific authors like the poet Gustaf Fröding , Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf and radical writer and playwright August Strindberg . It

11696-547: The islands (e. g., Hiiumaa , Vormsi , Ruhnu ; in Swedish, known as Dagö , Ormsö , Runö , respectively) along the coast of the Baltic , communities that today have all disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament , and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates. After the loss of Estonia to the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, around 1,000 Estonian Swedish speakers were forced to march to southern Ukraine , where they founded

11832-484: The language, particularly in rural communities like Lindström and Scandia . Swedish is the official main language of Sweden. Swedish is also one of two official languages of Finland. In Sweden, it has long been used in local and state government, and most of the educational system, but remained only a de facto primary language with no official status in law until 2009. A bill was proposed in 2005 that would have made Swedish an official language, but failed to pass by

11968-480: The last millennium and divergence from both Faroese and Icelandic. By many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. However, because of several hundred years of sometimes quite intense rivalry between Denmark and Sweden, including a long series of wars from the 16th to 18th centuries, and

12104-452: The local Red Guard looking for weapons. During the first weeks of the war, some of his acquaintances were killed in the violence, and his brother, the psychiatrist Christian Sibelius, was arrested because he refused to reserve beds for the Red soldiers who had suffered shell shock at the front. Sibelius's friends in Helsinki were now worried about his safety. The composer Robert Kajanus negotiated with

12240-413: The long periods he spent studying in Vienna and Berlin, in 1900 he travelled to Italy, where he spent a year with his family. He composed, conducted and socialized actively in the Scandinavian countries, Britain, France and Germany and later travelled to the United States. While Sibelius was studying music in Helsinki in the autumn of 1888, Armas Järnefelt, a friend from the Music Institute, invited him to

12376-672: The money to reduce his debts, he also spent a week celebrating to excess in Helsinki. At this time, Sibelius held detailed negotiations with George Eastman , inventor of the Kodak camera and founder of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Eastman offered $ 20,000 salary to teach for a single year, and before Sibelius declined, negotiations were so firm that the New York Times published Sibelius's arrival as fact. Sibelius enjoyed

12512-618: The most notable contribution to the music festival. While in America, Sibelius received an honorary doctorate from Yale University and, almost simultaneously, one from the University of Helsinki where he was represented by Aino. While travelling back from the United States, Sibelius heard about the events in Sarajevo that led to the beginning of the First World War . Although he was far away from

12648-512: The narrowest possible margin (145–147) due to a pairing-off failure. A proposal for a broader language law, designating Swedish as the main language of the country and bolstering the status of the minority languages, was submitted by an expert committee to the Swedish Ministry of Culture in March 2008. It was subsequently enacted by the Riksdag , and entered into effect on 1 July 2009. Swedish

12784-421: The national standard languages. Swedish pronunciations also vary greatly from one region to another, a legacy of the vast geographic distances and historical isolation. Even so, the vocabulary is standardized to a level that make dialects within Sweden virtually fully mutually intelligible. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish In

12920-424: The north. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the other dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é , as in stæinn to sténn "stone". This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . There was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr "dead". This change is shown in runic inscriptions as

13056-474: The one-act opera The Maiden in the Tower ; chamber music , piano music, Masonic ritual music, and 21 publications of choral music . Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s, but after completing his Seventh Symphony (1924), the incidental music for The Tempest (1926), and the tone poem Tapiola (1926), he stopped producing major works in his last 30 years—a retirement commonly referred to as

13192-441: The only acceptable way to begin conversation with strangers of unknown occupation, academic title or military rank. The fact that the listener should preferably be referred to in the third person tended to further complicate spoken communication between members of society. In the early 20th century, an unsuccessful attempt was made to replace the insistence on titles with ni —the standard second person plural pronoun)—analogous to

13328-402: The original Germanic three- gender system. Nouns , adjectives , pronouns and certain numerals were inflected in four cases; besides the extant nominative , there were also the genitive (later possessive ), dative and accusative . The gender system resembled that of modern German , having masculine, feminine and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine genders were later merged into

13464-523: The other Nordic languages , is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish , although the degree of mutual intelligibility is dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker. Standard Swedish , spoken by most Swedes , is the national language that evolved from

13600-480: The reform was not an act of any centralized political decree, but rather the result of sweeping change in social attitudes, it was completed in just a few years, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The use of ni as a polite form of address is sometimes encountered today in both the written and spoken language, particularly among older speakers. Swedish is the sole official national language of Sweden , and one of two in Finland (alongside Finnish ). As of 2006, it

13736-502: The rest of the year was fairly uneventful. In 1912, he completed his short orchestral work Scènes historiques II . It was first performed in March together with the Fourth Symphony. The concert was repeated twice to enthusiastic audiences and critics including Robert Kajanus. The Fourth Symphony was also well received in Birmingham in September. In March 1913, it was performed in New York but

13872-520: The restaurants. But he continued to compose, one of his major successes being Valse triste , one of six pieces of incidental music he composed for his brother-in-law Arvid Järnefelt 's play Kuolema (Death). Short of money, he sold the piece at a low price but it quickly gained considerable popularity not only in Finland but internationally. During his long stays in Helsinki, Sibelius's wife Aino frequently wrote to him, imploring him to return home but to no avail. Even after their fourth daughter, Katarina,

14008-463: The rune for the vowel u , which was also used for the vowels o , ø and y , and the rune for i , also used for e . From 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. The innovations spread unevenly from Denmark, creating a series of minor dialectal boundaries, or isoglosses , ranging from Zealand in the south to Norrland , Österbotten and northwestern Finland in

14144-461: The score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames. His wife Aino recalled, In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé at Ainola. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the Karelia Suite were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have

14280-444: The short /e/ (transcribed ⟨ ɛ ⟩ in the chart below). There are 18 consonant phonemes, two of which, / ɧ / and /r/ , vary considerably in pronunciation depending on the dialect and social status of the speaker. In many dialects, sequences of /r/ (pronounced alveolarly) with a dental consonant result in retroflex consonants ; alveolarity of the pronunciation of /r/ is a precondition for this retroflexion. /r/ has

14416-428: The short vowels, and the pairs are such that the two vowels are of similar quality , but with the short vowel being slightly lower and slightly centralized. In contrast to e.g. Danish, which has only tense vowels, the short vowels are slightly more lax, but the tense vs. lax contrast is not nearly as pronounced as in English, German or Dutch. In many dialects, the short vowel sound pronounced [ɛ] or [æ] has merged with

14552-505: The staff of the Päivälehti newspaper, which had been suspended for a period after editorially criticizing Russian rule. The last tableau, Finland Awakens , was particularly popular; after minor revisions, it became the well-known Finlandia . In February 1900, the Sibelius' youngest daughter, Kirsti, died. Nevertheless, in the summer Sibelius went on an international tour with Kajanus and his orchestra, presenting his recent works (including

14688-471: The stage sets. While the first performance was difficult to appreciate over the background noise of the talkative audience, a second performance on 18 November was more successful. Furthermore, on the 19th and 23rd Sibelius presented an extended suite of the work in Helsinki, conducting the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society. Sibelius's music was increasingly presented in Helsinki's concert halls. In

14824-497: The strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood. Despite his withdrawing from the public eye, Sibelius's work gained substantial attention in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s thanks to the newly established Finnish broadcaster YLE . Broadcasting on AM wavebands , YLE's signals brought Sibelius's music to listeners beyond Finland's borders, too. In 1933, YLE and

14960-714: The summer in Tvärminne near Hanko , where he worked on the song Var det en dröm (Was it a Dream) as well as on a new version of En saga . When it was performed in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic in November 1902, it served to firmly establish the composer's reputation in Germany, leading shortly afterwards to the publication of his First Symphony. In 1903, Sibelius spent much of his time in Helsinki where he indulged excessively in wining and dining, running up considerable bills in

15096-580: The tempi seem to be right. I think this is the first time that I have managed to make something complete." The work was also performed in Stockholm and Leipzig. In January 1899, Sibelius embarked on his First Symphony at a time when his patriotic feelings were being enhanced by the Russian emperor Nicholas II 's attempt to restrict the powers of the Grand Duchy of Finland . The symphony was well received when it

15232-578: The title of Fantasia sinfonica it received its first public performance in Stockholm where it was a success. It was even more highly appreciated at a series of concerts in Copenhagen in late September. Sibelius was honoured with the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog . He spent most of the rest of the year resting as his recent spate of activity was straining his heart and nerves. Composing

15368-526: The two cases and two genders of modern Swedish. A transitional change of the Latin script in the Nordic countries was to spell the letter combination "ae" as æ – and sometimes as a' – though it varied between persons and regions. The combination "ao" was similarly rendered a , and "oe" became o . These three were later to evolve into the separate letters ä , å and ö . The first time the new letters were used in print

15504-517: The two natural genders han and hon ("he" and "she"), there are also the two grammatical genders den and det , usually termed common and neuter . In recent years, a gender-neutral pronoun hen has been introduced, particularly in literary Swedish. Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form. Hon , for example, has the following nominative, possessive, and object forms: Swedish also uses third-person possessive reflexive pronouns that refer to

15640-439: The vocabulary. Besides a great number of loanwords for such areas as warfare, trade and administration, general grammatical suffixes and even conjunctions were imported. The League also brought a certain measure of influence from Danish (at the time Swedish and Danish were much more similar than today). Early Old Swedish was markedly different from the modern language in that it had a more complex case structure and also retained

15776-644: The world. His other best-known compositions are Finlandia , the Karelia Suite , Valse triste , the Violin Concerto , the choral symphony Kullervo , and The Swan of Tuonela (from the Lemminkäinen Suite ). His other works include pieces inspired by nature, Nordic mythology, and the Finnish national epic , the Kalevala ; over a hundred songs for voice and piano; incidental music for numerous plays;

15912-521: The year conducting a series of concerts, the most successful being the first public performance of Pohjola's Daughter at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. From the beginning of 1907, Sibelius again indulged in excessive wining and dining in Helsinki, spending exorbitant amounts on champagne and lobster. His lifestyle had a disastrous effect on the health of Aino who was driven to retire to

16048-408: The year ended he had also conducted concerts in Stockholm and Rome, the first to considerable acclaim, the second to mixed reviews. He then proceeded to Gothenburg where he enjoyed an ecstatic reception despite arriving at the concert hall suffering from over-indulgence in food and drink. Despite continuing to drink, to Aino's dismay, Sibelius managed to complete his Seventh Symphony in March 1924. Under

16184-493: Was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often credited with having helped Finland develop a stronger national identity when the country was struggling from several attempts at Russification in the late 19th century. The core of his oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies , which, like his other major works, are regularly performed and recorded in Finland and countries around

16320-479: Was awarded a substantial annual grant, initially for ten years and later extended for life. He was able to complete the music for Adolf Paul's play King Christian II . Performed on 24 February 1898, its catchy tunes appealed to the public. The scores of four popular pieces from the play were published in Germany and sold well in Finland. When the orchestral suite was successfully performed in Helsinki in November 1898, Sibelius commented: "The music sounded excellent and

16456-406: Was born, he continued to work away from home. Early in 1904, he finished his Violin Concerto but its first public performance on 8 February was not a success. It led to a revised, condensed version that was performed in Berlin the following year. In November 1903, Sibelius began to build his new home Ainola (Aino's Place) near Lake Tuusula some 45 km (30 miles) north of Helsinki. To cover

16592-511: Was clear: he felt he had written enough. The Finnish 100 mark note featured his image until 2002, when the euro was adopted. Since 2011, Finland has celebrated a flag flying day on 8 December, the composer's birthday, also known as the Day of Finnish Music. In 2015, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Sibelius's birth, a number of special concerts and events were held, especially in Helsinki ,

16728-484: Was during the 20th century that a common, standardized national language became available to all Swedes. The orthography finally stabilized and became almost completely uniform, with some minor deviations, by the time of the spelling reform of 1906. With the exception of plural forms of verbs and a slightly different syntax, particularly in the written language, the language was the same as the Swedish of today. The plural verb forms appeared decreasingly in formal writing into

16864-636: Was in Aff dyäffwlsens frästilse ("By the Devil's temptation") published by Johan Gerson in 1495. Modern Swedish (Swedish: nysvenska ) begins with the advent of the printing press and the European Reformation . After assuming power, the new monarch Gustav Vasa ordered a Swedish translation of the Bible . The New Testament was published in 1526, followed by a full Bible translation in 1541, usually referred to as

17000-518: Was in Helsinki. The two agreed that with each new symphony, they lost those who had been attracted to their earlier works. This was demonstrated above all in St Petersburg where the Third Symphony was performed in November 1907 to dismissive reviews. Its reception in Moscow was rather more positive. In 1907, Sibelius underwent a serious operation for suspected throat cancer. Early in 1908, he had to spend

17136-635: Was its founder, Martin Wegelius, who did much to support the development of education in Finland. Wegelius 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. His close circle of friends included the pianist and writer Adolf Paul and the conductor-to-be Armas Järnefelt (who introduced him to his influential family including his sister Aino who would become Sibelius's wife). The most remarkable of his works during this period

17272-522: Was little progress on the symphony during the summer, he was able to complete it by his 50th birthday on 8 December. On the evening of his birthday, Sibelius conducted the premiere of the Fifth Symphony in the hall of the Helsinki Stock Exchange . Despite high praise from Kajanus, the composer was not satisfied with his work and soon began to revise it. Around this time, Sibelius was running ever deeper into debt. The grand piano he had received as

17408-519: Was not standardized. It depended on the authors and their background. Those influenced by German capitalized all nouns, while others capitalized more sparsely. It is also not always apparent which letters are capitalized owing to the Gothic or blackletter typeface that was used to print the Bible. This typeface was in use until the mid-18th century, when it was gradually replaced with a Latin typeface (often Antiqua ). Some important changes in sound during

17544-550: Was premiered in Helsinki on 26 April 1899. But the program also premiered the even more compelling, blatantly patriotic Song of the Athenians for boys' and men's choirs. The song immediately brought Sibelius the status of a national hero. Another patriotic work followed on 4 November in the form of eight tableaux depicting episodes from Finnish history known as the Press Celebration Music . It had been written in support of

17680-552: Was relieved to learn that his throat operation had been entirely successful. Sibelius started work on his Fourth Symphony in early 1910 but his dwindling funds also required him to write a number of smaller pieces and songs. In October, he conducted concerts in Kristiania (now Oslo) where The Dryad and In Memoriam were first performed. His Valse triste and Second Symphony were particularly well received. He then travelled to Berlin to continue work on his Fourth Symphony, writing

17816-516: Was restored to good health after gallstone-excision surgery. Shortly after returning to Helsinki, Sibelius conducted his Overture and the Scène de Ballet at a popular concert. He was also able to continue working on Kullervo , now that he was increasingly developing an interest in all things Finnish. Premiered in Helsinki on 28 April 1892, the work was an enormous success. It was around this time that Sibelius finally abandoned his cherished aspirations as

17952-436: Was ten years old and later encouraged him to maintain his interest in composition. For Sibelius, Uncle Pehr not only took the place of a father but acted as a musical adviser. From an early age, Sibelius showed a strong interest in nature, frequently walking around the countryside when the family moved to Loviisa on the coast for the summer months. In his own words: "For me, Loviisa represented sun and happiness. Hämeenlinna

18088-587: Was the Violin Sonata in F, rather reminiscent of Grieg . 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 composer 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 's Don Juan . He also heard

18224-476: Was the sole native language of 83% of Swedish residents. In 2007, around 5.5% (c. 290,000) of the population of Finland were native speakers of Swedish, partially due to a decline following the Russian annexation of Finland after the Finnish War 1808–1809. The Fenno-Swedish - speaking minority is concentrated in the coastal areas and archipelagos of southern and western Finland. In some of these areas, Swedish

18360-600: Was unequalled in Western music. Swedish language Swedish ( endonym : svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family , spoken predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland . It has at least 10 million native speakers, making it the fourth most spoken Germanic language , and the first among its type in the Nordic countries overall. Swedish, like

18496-469: Was where I went to school; Loviisa was freedom." In Hämeenlinna, when he was seven, Sibelius' aunt Julia was brought in to give him piano lessons on the family's upright instrument, rapping him on the knuckles whenever he played a wrong note. He progressed by improvising on his own, but still learned to read music. He later turned to the violin, which he preferred. He participated in trios with his elder sister Linda on piano, and his younger brother Christian on

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