Classical Music Is Flourishing In The Small And Remote Nation Of Finland
Finland is a small but very interesting country of only about five million people, tucked away in the far north of Europe between Sweden and Russia. The Finns are somewhat isolated by their strange and difficult language, which distantly related to Hungarian, but more similar to the language of Estonia, directly to its south on the Baltic in what used to be the Soviet Union , but utterly incomprehensible to other Europeans.
The country is known for Saunas and its thousands of lakes, and its vast forests; it's a prosperous and advanced, if very expensive to live in country, but it's also an important center for classical music,too, and thanks to generous government subsuidies and its music -loving people, classical music is doing amazingly well there.
The great composer Jean Sibelius (1865 -1957) is probably the most famous Finn of all time, but he actually came from the Swedish-soeaking minority which still lives there,although he spoke Finnish. Finland was for a very long time ruled either by Sweden or Russia. To this day, Swedish is an official language of Finland along with Finnish.
Sibelius put Finland on the musical map with his brooding and highly atmospheric music, which is rooted in the ancient history and geography of the country. But Finland has produced a copnsiderable number of distinguished composers since Sibelius, including living figues such as Einojuhani Rautavaara, Magnus Lindberg, Esa-Pekka Salonen (better-known as a conductor), Aulis Sallinen, Kalevi Aho, and no longer living ones such as Joonas Kokkonen, Yrjo Kilpinen, Unno Klami, and Leevi Madetoja, to name only a handful.
Finland has also produced distinguished conductors such as Salonen, who recently stepped down as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Leif Segerstam, Osmo Vanska, Paavo Berglund, and Jussi Jalas, who was married to a daughter of Sibelius. And leading opera singers such as Karita Mattila, Soile Isokoski, Jorma Hynninen, Matti Salminen and Martti Talvela, to name only a few.
The Helsinki Philharmonic and Finnish Radio Symphony orchestra are world-class, as well as the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, and there are several excellent orchestras and opera companies in other Finnish cities such as Lahti and Turku. There is an annual Summer opera Festival at the town of Savonlinna , and numerous other music festivals.
The Sibelius Academy in Helsinki is considered one of the world's top music schools, and attracts promising young classical musicians from all over the world. There are also numerous choirs and other groups.
It's been estimated that this small but prosperous nation has one opera house per 250,000 people . If the US had this many, there would be nearly 1500 opera companies here ! But none of this would be true without the generous help of the Finnish government.