When Sibelius compared writing symphonies to following a river, was he remembering his own journey down the Rhine in 1894, just before his pilgrimage to Bayreuth? However much later commentators protested that the mature Sibelius was untouched by Wagner, the evidence is that the music left a profound and lasting impression. What Sibelius learned fromWagner – in style and in musical thinking – and how he transformed it into something utterly personal, is examined in this illustrated talk.

Writer, broadcaster and composer Stephen Johnson is theauthor of books on Beethoven, Bruckner, Wagner and Mahler.For 14 years he presented BBC Radio 3’s Discovering Music.

This meeting will be conducted online via Zoom. A link will be sent to the email address you have provided, ahead of the meeting.