Sibelius & Sohy: music around WWI

Lili Boulanger - D'un matin de printemps, Charlotte Sohy - First Symphony 'The Great War' (Dutch premiere), Jean Sibelius - Fifth Symphony. Programme Lili Boulanger D'un matin de printemps Charlotte Sohy First Symphony 'The Great War' (Dutch premiere) Jean Sibelius Fifth Symphony In the Parisian salons, Ravel, Dukas and Fauré played her music, but her impressive Symphony in C sharp, nicknamed 'Grande Guerre' Charlotte Sohy herself never heard. Charlotte Sohy and Lili Boulanger A programme with music composed during the First World War. Central to this is the Symphony in C sharp, 'Grande Guerre' by French composer Charlotte Sohy, written between 1914 and 1917 and only rediscovered in 2019. Melancholic and somber, but also grand and energetic, this symphony testifies to the hardships of war. The work is stylistically related to music by César Franck. Charlotte Sohy received her first musical education from Nadia Boulanger, also born in 1887 in Paris. Her younger sister Lili Boulanger, at nineteen the first female composer to win the Prix de Rome, writes in 1918 with D'un matin de printemps a remarkably light-footed work for someone who feels her early death approaching. Heavenly Mosaic On his fiftieth birthday, 8 December 1915, Jean Sibelius conducts his Fifth Symphony, which he has written at the commission of the Finnish government especially for that occasion. Until 1919 Sibelius continues to refine this work. Only then is he satisfied with the ordering of the themes. 'It is as if God the Father has thrown down mosaic pieces from the floor of heaven and asked me to place them in the right spot.' This puzzle has cost him years, but ultimately yields 'a vital climax, triumphant', as he himself states.