Radio 3 in Concert: Sibelius the Storyteller

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Radio 3 in Concert

Music: Classical

The best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Experience the best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Radio 3 in Concert: Sibelius the Storyteller (3/4)

Sibelius the Storyteller (3/4)

BBC Radio 3 - Radio 3 in Concert, Sibelius the Storyteller (3/4)

Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in four vivid musical mini-epics.

Stories, Quests and Secret Sagas. Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in four vivid musical mini-epics with readings from the stories and poetry that inspired them.

Last month the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Total Immersion day "Sibelius the Storyteller" ventured into the literary and cultural hinterland of one of the 20th century’s great symphonists. No genius creates in a vacuum, and while Sibelius’s seven symphonies are landmarks of 20th-century orchestral music, they have deep roots. Today, over four concerts, we venture into the forests (both real and legendary) that nourished Sibelius’s imagination: the words, the landscapes, the colleagues and the traditions that formed the bedrock on which he built his distinctive musical vision.

In this third concert, "Stories, Quests and Secret Sagas", Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in four vivid musical mini-epics, accompanied by readings from stories that inspired them. On top of a rainbow beyond the northern edge of the world sits Pohjola’s daughter, her fingers weaving golden threads on a magic loom. Finnish mythology opened new worlds of creative possibility for Sibelius, but he was master of his own imagination, and the results are not always what you might expect. Heroic myths reveal their darker sides, poets weave quiet mysteries, and patriotic pageants suddenly break into irreverent laughter. Sakari Oramo understands this music like few living conductors, and the epic struggles of En Saga to the quiet enigma of The Bard acquire new dimensions when heard alongside the words that fired Sibelius’s imagination - read by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.

Jean Sibelius 
All’Overtura' from Scènes Historiques
En Saga
The Bard
Pohjola’s Daughter

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo conductor
Ólafur Darri Ólafsson narrator

Recorded at the Barbican Concert Hall on 9 October.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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Sibelius the Storyteller (3/4)

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