Robert Kajanus

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Robert Kajanus (2 December 1856 - 6 July 1933) was a Finnish conductor and composer.

Robert Kajanus was the most prominent Finnish composer before Jean Sibelius, and his music drew on the folk legends of the Finnish people.. He studied with Talsin and Niemann in Helsinki, with Hans Richter, Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn in Leipzig, and Johann Svendsen in Paris. In the 1880s he put the Helsinki Orchestra on a permanent footing.

He worked in Dresden in the years immediately after his graduation, and returned to Helsinki in 1882. He founded the Helsinki Philharmonic Society, (later to become the Finnish National Orchestra), the first permanent orchestra in Finland. He brought the orchestra to a very high performance standard very quickly, so that they were able to give quite credible performances of the standard late classical/mid-romantic repertory. Kajanus led the Helsinki Philharmonic for 50 years, and among the milestones of that history was the first performance in Finland of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, in 1888.

Kajanus was appointed director of music at Helsinki University in 1897 and remained in the post for the next 29 years, a period in which he had a major impact on music education in his native country. He was also the founder of the Nordic Music Festival in 1919.

Kajanus had a decisive impact upon the development of the career of Jean Sibelius. He was considered an authority on the interpretation of Sibelius's music, and he and Sibelius were close friends; this was compromised in 1898 when Sibelius was appointed to a university post for which Kajanus was himself a candidate. Kajanus appealed and the decision was overturned. However they reconciled for the orchestra's tour of Europe in 1900, where they appeared at the Exposition Universelle at the invitation of the French government.Kullervo, Sibelius's epic masterpiece, was written in the wake of Kajanus' symphonic poem Aino. Additionally, as a conductor, Kajanus was responsible for commissioning one of Sibelius' most popular and enduring works, En Saga, in the wake of Kullervo. Pohjola's Daughter was dedicated to KajanusWhen Kajanus took the Helsinki Orchestra on a tour of Europe in 1900, both he and Sibelius served as conductors, in what proved to be the first performances of Sibelius's music outside of Finland. This ensured the spread of the young composer's reputation far beyond the borders of his homeland, the first Finnish composer to receive such attention.

He was the first to make recordings of Sibelius's symphonies, including[Symphony No. 1 (Sibelius)|First]], Second, Third and Fifth symphonies. The first two symphonies were recorded in the early 1930s, with the London Symphony Orchestra). The relationship between Kajanus and Sibelius was such that his interpretations of the composer's music are usually regarded as being extraordinarily close to Sibelius's own wishes.

Although there were younger conductors who embraced Sibelius's music around this time, including Sir Thomas Beecham, Kajanus remained the definitive interpreter of these works. In 1930, the Finnish government and Britain's EMI-Columbia label, perceiving a potentially wide audience for the composer's work, contrived to secure recordings of Sibelius's first two symphonies, and Kajanus was selected to record both at the insistence of the composer. In 1932, Kajanus recorded the Symphonies Nos. 3 and 5, along with several of the orchestral suites and tone poems. Apart from being the most massive recording project ever attempted around the work of a living composer, these recordings were considered definitive for many years, and are still regarded as necessary listening for serious fans of Sibelius. Only his death in July of 1933, at the age of 76, prevented Kajanus from recording the composer's complete extant works.

He received many decorations, including the French Légion d'Honneur.

Robert Kajanus is also the great-grandfather of composer Georg Kajanus, creator of the bands Eclection, Sailor (band) and Data. Sailor had considerable success across Europe and Australia in the Seventies with such hits as 'Girls, Girls, Girls' and 'A Glass Of Champagne'.