Sibelius, Jean - Tapiola, En Saga & Eight Songs - Lintu, Hannu

The new release by the Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu, is entirely dedicated to Sibelius and features the internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. The album includes two of Jean Sibelius's (1865–1957) great tone poems, Tapiola and Satu, combined with a collection of songs orchestrated by Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) in 2015.

Sibelius's tone poem Tapiola, written shortly after his Seventh Symphony, can be seen as the culmination of a period that began with his Fifth Symphony, during which Sibelius created music that grew organically from small beginnings into vast processes. It was completed in 1926 and remained Sibelius's last major orchestral work. In Tapiola, Sibelius seems to equate the primacy of nature with the intrinsic value of art, whose unattainable truths cannot be eroded by time or humanity's changing ideals. Sibelius told his private secretary: "My inspiration for Tapiola came entirely from nature, or more precisely, from something that cannot be expressed in words."

The origin of Saga, which premiered in 1892, is also shrouded in mystery, and even later in his life Sibelius did not want to reveal any details about its content. It is one of Sibelius's earliest orchestral works, and its original Swedish title, Saga, refers to ancient Nordic tales of heroes and gods.