Talk:Jean Sibelius

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Jean Sibelius has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

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Date	Process	Result
December 6, 2015	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on December 27, 2015.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that by composing music such as Finlandia, Jean Sibelius boosted Finnish patriotism in the face of Russian oppression?

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 8, 2021, December 8, 2022, and December 8, 2024.

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"Violinist" in lead

Hi all, would there be any objection to me removing him labeled as a "violinist" in the first sentence? Considering that he gave it up before age 30 (and then proceeded to live 60 more years!) and is not known for his violin playing, the inclusion seems WP:UNDUE and non-defining. Aza24 (talk) 07:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I also wonder if such categories on him being a violinist should be included, but they seem less in need of removal than the characterization in the first sentence. Aza24 (talk) 08:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Aza24 I agree completely and have always found this claim an annoyance. It certainly disappointed and haunted him, as Sibelius himself conceded to various early biographers, but he was no virtuoso. And I don't think playing some chamber music in the 1890s as a student really counts. Fact of the matter is, the violin wasn't his career. I'd support removal of the claim. Silence of Järvenpää (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree; I removed it. While he played the violin, it's non-defining, and undue, as Aza says. Antandrus (talk) 17:58, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to you both, I've removed the corresponding categories as well. This just happened at the Schoenberg talk page ([1]) recently, making our decision stronger, I think. Aza24 (talk)

Infobox image

Gerda Arendt and Aza24: I agree that a short description under the photo is appropriate. However, there's just no way that's Sibelius in 1890 (in comparison to other photos and paintings from that period that show him looking much younger)! Rather, this looks to be Sibelius in, I estimate 1901–1905, around the time of the Second Symphony and the Violin Concerto. I did a bit of digging and found a link to the U.S.'s Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/99403967/. Seems they give the date as about what I suspected: "Portrait photographs and engravings of musical personalities. Illus. from: Die Musik, 1902-1903, supplement." I don't know if this is conclusive evidence, but at a minimum we should probably change the description to be "The composer in the early 1900s." Silence of Järvenpää (talk) 16:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think that may be as conclusive as we're going to get; photograph dates are notoriously tricky to pinpoint, so at least we have some rationale for the caption. The only other solution I can see is maybe some Sibelius biographies have the picture and include a date? Aza24 (talk) 23:25, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Syphilis

Glenda Dawn Goss's biography mentions Sibelius reporting to his friends during his student days in Berlin and Vienna that he had contracted syphilis. Aino knew his reputation and Sibelius assured her he had been innoculated before they married. 2406:5A00:888D:4D00:21F1:487D:D7E:8D (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]