Trip to Hämeenlinna

We made a day trip to Toijala, Parola and Hämeenlinna with my in-laws and Leevi. Hubby, Leevi, grandfather and Peetu visited  Parola Armour Museum (King Tiger V2 as a special visitor there) and SA army shop, meanwhile I went to Puuvillatehdas shop and Tiirinkosken tehdas shop with grandmother.

Then we met in the Hämeenlinna castle park and visited together Jean Sibelius home museum. Finally we had dinner in the restaurant Fifth Avenue. There was a menu for dogs too!!!

Later in the evening at home, after Emma's work day we celebrated Emma's and Leevi's birthday. (Emma's birthday was last Sunday and Leevi's birthday is tomorrow.)

The picture is from Sibelius' childhood home.
 
Johan Christian Julius Sibelius was born on the 8th December 1865 in Hämeenlinna, His father was Christian Gustaf Sibelius, a 44-year-old medical doctor who was City Medical Officer and physician to the Hämeenlinna Sniper Battalion. The composer’s mother was Maria Charlotta Sibelius, née Borg, who was aged 24 at the time of his birth.

The couple decided to call their son Janne in memory of Doctor Sibelius's brother, Johan "Janne" Sibelius, who had been the captain of a merchant ship. Later on it became Janne’s habit to modify his official first names, writing them in the order Johan Julius Christian. During his student years, he began to use visiting cards which he had found in the estate of his uncle, Johan Sibelius. In the fashion of the times, his uncle had written his name on the cards using a French form. Thus Johan Christian Julius "Janne" Sibelius became known to posterity as Jean Sibelius.

Little Janne had a vivid imagination. When his mother was playing the square piano, he crawled under it and tried to associate the notes he heard with the colours of the stripes of the rag rug. He made up stories about fairies, and about fires which he imagined he had seen in the neighbouring houses. Janne's relatives took him to concerts from an early age, and from the age of four he tried to pick out chords and melodies on the piano.

Janne’s mother tongue was Swedish, but in 1874 he was transferred to Lucina Hagman's Finnish-language preparatory school, since he had to learn Finnish in order to be admitted to the Hämeenlinna Normal Lyceum. Hämeenlinna was an unusual Finnish town for its time: there one could become a secondary school graduate in Finnish, but not in Swedish. Finland had been part of Sweden until 1809 and the dominant language of the educated classes was still Swedish, not Finnish.

Sibelius was considered an absent-minded pupil, who preferred to write music notes in the margins of his exercise books. However, he did well in mathematics and botany. In his leisure time, Janne was a bookworm, and later he took up hunting. He read a great deal and admired Runeberg, the poet, so greatly that when he visited the poet's tomb he felt that Runeberg’s soul had flowed into him.

Janne's father died of typhoid fever in July 1868. Janne moved to Helsinki together with his mother and sister Linda in 1885.. His little brother Christian stayed on in Hämeenlinna for a few years to continue his education under the care of his grandmother and aunts.

The transition from Hämeenlinna with its few thousand inhabitants to Helsinki, with a population of 60,000, was thrilling for Janne. He studied the Helsinki Music Institute. Janne’s violin teacher was Mitrofan Wasiljeff, who considered his pupil a musical genius.


+22,6  °C, mostly cloudy, showers