His discovery of the “Kalevala” (a 19th-century work of epic poetry based on Finnish oral folklore and mythology) was the inspiration for Kullervo, premiered in 1892 in Helsinki. While in Vienna, he unsuccessfully attempted to meet Brahms, and attended a performance of Bruckner’s Third Symphony. With the help of Wegelius and Busoni, Sibelius obtained a grant allowing him to take private composition lessons with Albert Becker in Berlin (from September 1889 to late June 1890) and to study at the Vienna Conservatory (from October 1890 to early June 1891) with Karl Goldmark and Robert Fuchs. He became acquainted with Aino, the daughter of composer Armas Järnefelt, whom he later married.

Sibelius’ first significant work, the Quartet in A Minor, was warmly received at its premiere. In the Autumn of 1887, he took classes in music theory, and private lessons in composition with Martin Wegelius, a devotee of Wagner and Liszt. Soon afterwards, he dropped out of his law degree at the Imperial Alexander University, opting instead to study violin with Mitrofan Vassiliev and Hermann Csillag at the newly-opened Martin Wegelius Institute of Music (renamed the Sibelius Academy in 1939). A meeting with Busoni led him to temporarily abandon his ambition to become a virtuoso violinist. He composed a String Quartet in E Major before moving from Hämeenlinna to Helsinki. On the basis of a musical exercise he had developed as a game to stave off boredom came a Trio comprising three movements, a Minuet in F Major and a handful of chamber works written in the Viennese classical style. In 1882, Sibelius turned more seriously to composing, having received guidance from a theory treatise he had obtained. An amateur musician, Jean’s uncle closely followed the musical development of his nephew, who was then playing in a string quartet and a trio with his sister Linda (piano) and brother Christian (cello). Showing obvious musical talent, he received a violin on his tenth birthday as a gift from his uncle and composed his first work, Vattendroppar (“Water Drops”). As a result, Jean’s mother, Maria Charlotta Sibelius (née Borg), was obliged to sell most of the family’s possessions in order to pay off the debts of her deceased husband, and the family moved in with her mother.Īt the age of five, Jean Sibelius took his first piano lessons with his aunt. In 1868, when Jean was not yet three years old, his father, Christian Gustaf Sibelius, a military surgeon and town doctor, died of typhus. As with much of the Finnish population living in the border region, Jean was raised speaking Swedish. Born Johan Julius Christian, his friends affectionately referred to him as Janne the composer then adopted the Gallicised version “Jean,” feeling it to be more appropriate for an artist. From his birth on 8 December 1865 in Hämeenlinna ( Tavastehus in Swedish), at that time a Russian province of the Grand Duchy of Finland, Jean Sibelius was confronted with questions of national identity.

Sibelius making a string quartet