Stories, Quests, and Secret Sagas by Sibelius, Från (2022/2022), Dirigent Sakari Oramo, Barbican Centre, London, Storbritannien

On top of a rainbow beyond the northern edge of the world sits Pohjola’s daughter, her fingers weaving golden threads on a magic loom. For Sibelius, Finnish mythology opened new worlds of creative possibility, and in this afternoon’s concert Sakari Oramo conducts four of Sibelius’s most colourful orchestral works, alongside readings of stories from Finland’s national epic, the Kalevala. But Sibelius was master of his own imagination, and the results are not always what you might expect. Heroic myths reveal their darker sides, poets weave quiet mysteries, and patriotic pageants suddenly break into irreverent laughter. Sakari Oramo understands this music like few living conductors, and from the epic struggles of En Saga to the quiet enigma of The Bard, it’ll acquire new dimensions when heard alongside the words that fired Sibelius’s imagination, read by Icelandic-American actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.