Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto This is Sibelius’s only concerto. “A polonaise for polar bears” was English musicologist Donald Tovey’s impression of the third movement. Sibelius did write other shorter works for violin and orchestra, including 6 Humoreques. An early and enthusiastic proponent of the concerto was violinist Jascha Heifetz, who made the first recording. Sibelius loved the changing of the seasons in Finland, reveling in such simple natural wonders as the arrival of geese on lake ice. His first movement begins in just such a highly restrained manner, as if to describe a frozen, silent landscape. Sibelius’s love for the isolated, windswept coldness of the north seems reflected in the long, lonely violin cadenzas of the first movement. This love of the north is something he had in common with the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, for whom Toronto was too southern a location for comfort. The orchestral violin ostinato seems ha...