False triste as mean Vienna Philharmonic blanks out Sibelius

To kick off the 150th birthday year of Jean Sibelius, the Vienna Philharmonic planned to play n New Year’s Day the Finnish composer’s famous Valse triste.

What they apparently forgot is that Sibelius lived to the age of 91 and is still in copyright.

When his publishers quite reasonably asked for a royalty that reflected the concert’s audience of 60 million in 73 countries, the mean team of the Vienna Philhamornic issued this notice:

“Die Wiener Philharmoniker bedauern außerordentlich, das bereits bekanntgegebene Programm des Neujahrskonzertes 2015 abändern zu müssen. Das im Gedenken an den 150. Geburtstag von Jean Sibelius angesetzte Werk Valse triste wird wegen unannehmbarer Forderungen des Verlages im Rahmen des Neujahrskonzertes 2015 nicht aufgeführt werden.” 

In other words, we’ve changed the rpogramme.

The amount requested by the publisher was 4,000 Euros. The Vienna Phil refused to pay more than 2,000. The orch recently trousered a million dollars from Sibelius’s near-compatriot (the composer was half-Swedish), the Birgit  Nilsson Foundation.

Have they no shame? Absolutely none.

h/t: Tero-Pekka Hennell

UPDATE: Now read the publisher’s response here.