The Sibelius Estate grants Rumon Gumba rare permission to conduct an Australian premiere.

The Queensland Symphony Orchestra has secured the rights to perform the original version of Sibelius’s epic Symphony No 5 in two concerts at the QPAC Concert Hall this June.

Originally composed in 1915, Sibelius would revise his Fifth Symphony on two occasions – once in 1916, and again in 1919. It is the 1919 version that is most commonly heard today, and to date the only version that has been performed in Australia.

“I’m glad the permission is in hand,” said  the President of the Sibelius Society in Europe on hearing the news, “especially as this work has a history of being troublesome in that respect! I’ll very much look forward to hearing the recording of the broadcast. Given that it’s been played complete in concert just a handful of times before (to the best of my knowledge: a few outings in Finland in 1915 and the start of 1916, the semi-official one in Helsinki in the 1970s, once in Japan, I believe, in the 1990s), you have every right to make a significant fuss about it!”

The original version of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony differs from the 1919...