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Dear Sibelius: Letter from a Junky

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You don't have to be a "Sibelius junky," as author Marshall Walker bills himself, to enjoy "Dear Sibelius, Letters from a Junky," an eloquent tribute to the music of the Finnish composer and to the author's lifelong devotion to it. Inventively, the book takes the form of a bundle of letters to the composer, letters that provide lucid and intelligent commentary on the music (never burdened by ponderous music theory or analysis) and autobiographical reflections, meditations on what Sibelius has meant to him over the years--from the time he first discovered his music during a lonely and troublesome childhood in Glasgow (with, he tells us, vision so poor he had to wear glasses with lenses as thick as Coke bottle bottoms), though the years he spent teaching and writing in Scotland, South Africa and New Zealand. (He has written, among other works, histories of American and Scottish literature and a biography of Robert Penn Warren). He traces his pilgrimages to Finland to visit the places where Sibelius lived and worked and even finds intersections between his own family and the composer. Throughout this handsome paperback volume the letters reveal how the beauty and drama of Sibelius' music has been an inspiration to him, the ways the composer has spoken so powerfully and personally to him across the years--and still speaks to him today.

Dear Sibelius: Letter from a Junky

Marshall Walker describes himself as a Sibelius junky who became
became addicted to the music of Jean Sibelius as a child growing up in
Scotland. This book is a long thank you letter to the Finnish
composer whose music accompanied Walker through his lonely childhood,
troubled adolescence and complex adult life.

The book works on two levels. It's as a sophisticated commentary on
the anguish and achievement of a remarkable composer struggling to
assert a passionately nationalistic music while striking innovative
chords internationally. It also works as an quirky autobiography of
an erudite literary scholar whose work took him from isolated Scotland
to apartheid South Africa to New Zealand struggling valiantly to
maintain its independence from bigger western nations.

This reader enjoyed the game of spotting the many literary allusions
throughout the book and was sore tempted to play the music that Walker
discusses throughout. The book first came to my attention through a
re-broadcast of a series of brilliant radio programs on Radio New
Zealand which combined readings from the text with the wonderful music
of Sibelius. If you can track down the tapes you're in for a rare
treat. You too could become a Sibelius junky! Dear Sibelius: Letter from a Junky