FRSO & John Storgårds

Sebastian Fagerlund’s Helena’s Song is based on Helena’s aria in the opera Autumn Sonata. It is like an abstract still life without any humans. The moods of the story and Helena still hover over it, but only as shadows and memories. Bruckner’s third symphony is so indebted to Wagner that it is sometimes known as his Wagner Symphony. Nor was Sibelius entirely immune to Wagner’s spell, though En Saga was still more strongly inspired by Finland’s national epic, The Kalevala.