Alas. We’ve had no luck finding a Jean Sibelius Action Figure, and here it is, less than a month away from his 150th Birthday. We will have to find other ways to acquaint you with dear Jean, the Swedish Finn, or the Finnish Swede. I never can remember.
Anyway, news flash. Sibelius is one of my all time favorite composers. A song writer par excellence. His songs crack my heart open until all the pieces fall out on the floor. I am too shattered to even think about gathering them up. I must have been Finnish in a previous life.
But I don’t want to shatter you right away. You need to work up to it. So here you go: just a tender little Ode to Evening with Anne Sophie von Otter.
Ahhhhh…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3FjRNlrpGE
To Evening
Welcome, dark, mild and starry evening!
Your gentle fervour I adore and caress the dark tresses that flutter round your brow.
If only you were the magic bridge that would rap my soul away to the land of idylls
(though I waver and my wings are earthbound)!
And if I myself were the happy day that, overcome with weariness,
might join you when work is over and duty done,
when night unfolds its black wings and a grey curtain falls over hill and dale,
O evening, how I would hurry to you!