Jean Sibelius - The Early Years

In the first of two films exploring the life and music of Jean Sibelius, celebrated filmmaker Christopher Nupen looks at the Finnish composer's development from his beginnings to the time of his third symphony. At the peak of his career Sibelius was hailed by almost every leading critic and composer in England as the greatest symphonist of the twentieth century. The Americans went even further, with a survey by the New York Philharmonic Society in 1935 showing his music to be more popular with their concert-goers than that of any other composer in the history of music - a degree of recognition in his own lifetime unequalled in Western music. The film offers an intimate account, using archive footage and Sibelius's music and words, of a great artist's struggle with his medium, with the world and with himself.