The new album by the Aizuri Quartet offers musical contemplations of earth and sky by four disparate composers. Shervin Lainez/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius artist page: interviews, features and/or performances archived at NPR Music
Jean Sibelius
Osmo Vänskä conducts the Minnesota Orchestra in Havana, Cuba in May 2015. Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, photographed at Ainola, his home outside Helsinki, in the 1940s. Santeri Levas/Finnish Museum of Photography hide caption
Music can be like a fleeting summer. You get to the end wondering, "How did we get here already?" iStockphoto hide caption
Violinist Augustin Hadelich pairs a classic concerto with a contemporary one on this new album. Rosalie O'Connor hide caption
Hadelich: 'Sibelius, Adès Violin Concertos'
Audio for First Listens is no longer available after the album is released.
Classical albums we loved this year. NPR/Denise DeBelius hide caption
Colin Davis found power in humility later in his career — and one astonished music journalist. Alberto Venzago hide caption
Davis On First Hearing Berlioz's Melodies
Violist Nadia Sirota. Samantha West/courtesy of the artist hide caption
Hear Nadia Sirota Play Greenstein's 'In Teaching Others We Teach Ourselves'
One of the great unknown Russian composers?: Tsar Alexander II of Russia, in a portrait from c. 1875. Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption
What's on your summer playlist? iStock hide caption
Can classical music get down and party? Photo Illustration: Lars Gotrich/Photos: Hulton Archive/Getty Images, iStock. hide caption
Jascha Heifetz set new precision standards for the classical violin. Sony Classical Archives hide caption
A sunless day in winter. Time for a Sibelius symphony? iStock hide caption
Yes. It is a partridge in a pear tree. iStock hide caption
He'd be great to swill gin with, and he might tell us what he did with his mysteriously missing Symphony No. 8. Getty Images hide caption
Hear Sibelius conduct his own music: "Andante Festivo" (recorded Jan. 1, 1939)
Conductor Simon Rattle has been making records for EMI for 30 years. EMI Classics hide caption
In his diary, Sibelius noted the inspiration for the grand theme in his Fifth Symphony: "Today I saw 16 swans. God, what beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a silver ribbon." Istock hide caption