A Performance Guide to the Songs of Jean Sibelius is a first-of-its-kind resource created specifically for English-speaking performers and teachers, containing a wealth of information about this composer's unique and beautiful songs, many of which have been unjustly neglected. These songs demonstrate a genre of art song very different from the lieder and mélodie of Sibelius's contemporaries, with influences stemming from the Nordic romans, expressionism, impressionism, and the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. This book is designed to support performers seeking to add these works to their repertoire. In addition to the standard three-line translations (original text, word-for-word English, and phonetic translations), poetic translations, and guides to lyric diction (in Finland-Swedish and in Finnish), this book includes biographical information about the composer, his poets, notable singers of this repertoire, and links to audio recordings of the poetry, spoken by native speakers of Finnish and Finland-Swedish. Every chapter contains background and historical context for each song and song opus, with helpful information regarding performance, interpretation, and range, and the aforementioned translations. It is an important complement to Breitkopf & Härtel's critical edition of all of Sibelius's songs, for both piano and orchestra (Series XIII, volumes 1-4). The book is an invaluable resource for English-speaking singers, collaborative pianists, and teachers of voice and vocal literature who are interested in performing and knowing more about these beautiful songs, in their original languages (Swedish, Finnish, and German), by one of the most important Nordic composers of the late-Romantic period.
