While in Helsinki, Dan and I visited The Sibelius Monument, dedicated to Jean Sibelius.
He once said of his Sixth Symphony:
[It] always reminds me of the scent of the first snow.
On the subject of Sibelius's connection to nature, biographer Erik W. Tawaststjerna, wrote:
Even by Nordic standards, Sibelius responded with exceptional intensity to the moods of nature and the changes in the seasons: he scanned the skies with his binoculars for the geese flying over the lake ice, listened to the screech of the cranes, and heard the cries of the curlew echo over the marshy grounds just below Ainola.
He savoured the spring blossoms every bit as much as he did autumnal scents and colours.
It consists of series of more than 600 hollow steel pipes welded together in a wave-like pattern. These 600 acid-proof stainless steel tubes of various diameters, welded together individually and hand-textured by Eila Hiltunen. Wearing a 1930s leather jacket and red overalls scattered with holes from welding sparks, she would sit on a tube for hours, with the welding torch in one hand and a water-hose for rapid cooling in the other.
Mary^