I was listening to SHIFT With Tom Allen earlier today on CBC Radio 2, and always the master storyteller, Tom shared the true story behind the inspiration for Jean Sibelius‘s Symphony No. 5 which was written in 1915 (the Finnish government commissioned Sibelius to compose it for his very own 50th birthday celebrations which were being deemed a national holiday). Sibelius was the kind of guy who loved the outdoors, and his number one cure for a blocked mind was a walk through the forest. One day, while working on the symphony, Sibelius (1865-1957) was overcome with reverie as a flock of swans flew past overhead. The collective sound of that flock inspired elements of the third movement of his Symphony No. 5 which you can hear in the video below when the swan-esque moment begins at the 1:14 moment. To learn more about Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 CLICK HERE, and to learn more about Jean Sibelius himself be sure to visit Wikipedia.
