Jean Sibelius: The Early Years (Part 1)

This film is not a documentary account of events of Sibelius's life. It is an attempt to use film and Sibelius's music and words to try and convey to the viewer something of his artistic intentions and of his extraordinarily creative and poetic spirit. It sets out also to try and free Sibelius's reputation from some of the unnecessary incrustations of history which have done so much to cloud appreciation and understanding of his music in the past hundred years. At the peak of his career Sibelius was hailed by almost every leading critic and composer in England as the greatest symphonist of the twentieth century. In the United States, a survey by the New York Philharmonic Society in 1935 showed his music to be more popular with their concert-goers than that of any other composer in the entire history of the art; a degree of recognition in his own lifetime unequaled in Western music. But fashion can be very dangerous in musical appreciation. By the mid-1950s critics in England, and to a lesser extent in the United States, had reacted against the effusions of their forebears and relegated Sibelius to a position of minor importance. Views are changing again and the time is right for a reassessment of Sibelius's work. 

Our film is made in the belief that if the music of Jean Sibelius is approached with a gesture of commitment and a measure of understanding it offers rewards on the level of the greatest Masters in Western music and it is made in the hope of contributing something towards that understanding.