LSO/Half Six Fix: Sibelius Fifth Symphony

If music could sound like a Scandinavian sunrise, it would sound like Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony. So skip the rush hour: Michael Tilson-Thomas is serving up refreshment for the spirit.

Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is one of those pieces that you already know without realising it, crowned with a tune so simple, and so good, that when you hear it for the first time, you feel like you’ve known it your whole life. And you certainly never forget it. 

The story goes that it came to Sibelius when he looked at the skies above his home in Finland, and saw a flight of swans. ‘God, what beauty!’ he commented, but the power and elemental strength of this majestic symphony is a natural wonder in its own right. Michael Tilson Thomas is an old friend of the LSO, and the Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate: today he introduces and conducts a symphony that blows fresh Nordic air through a London rush hour.