Poetry and music merge in readings and songs: an atmospheric starting point for the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s day of Total Immersion in the world of Sibelius the Storyteller.

‘I believe that music alone – that is to say, absolute music – cannot by itself satisfy’ wrote Jean Sibelius and his music is engaged in a continual dialogue with other artforms: poetry, drama and the folklore of northern Europe. At the start of the BBC SO’s Total Immersion day, musicians from Guildhall School perform Sibelius’s songs and melodramas – still under-appreciated in the English-speaking world.

We’ll hear songs and poems spanning three decades of creativity: tales of nature, of supernatural encounters and of love, sung in both Finnish and Swedish. And there’s a rare opportunity to hear two of Sibelius’s melodramas – spoken-word poetry set to a powerfully evocative score, opening a whole imaginative world in a few minutes of words and music.