Today’s piece was selected mainly so I could use that million-dollar pun in the title.

Orchestral instruments notoriously get used in uncreative ways: the trumpets always play the fanfares; the flutes play the part of dancing sprites; the basses always play, well, the bass line. The truth of the matter is, any top-knotch player is capable of a broad range of sounds and styles on his/her instrument. Trumpets can be sweet and lyrical; flutes can be aggressive and grizzly; and basses … well, they really do stick to the bass line, with few exceptions.

So when was the last time you thought, “I want to hear a beautiful instrumental aria … on the Bassoon!” Let me go ahead and guess – never. The bassoon is that bumbling bedpost of an instrument, the one who plays the Grandfather in “Peter and the Wolf“, the one that Stravinsky gave the awkward opening motif in “The Rite of Spring.” Could it really be suitable for a lovely lyric aria? Samuel Coleridge-Taylor thought so! Prepare to fall in love all over again … with the Bassoon!

Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, in the icy air of night!
Keeping time, time, time, in a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Maybe Edgar Allan Poe was a little out of his mind, but you have to admit, The Bells is a pretty catchy poem. And maybe Franz Liszt was a little out of his mind, but you have to admit, his La Campanella is a pretty slick bit of piano-piano.

Despite his hair, Evgeny Kissin is not crazy. He makes this impossibly difficult piece look easy!

I don’t know much about Finland – mainly I just know they have weird spellllinnggs and llöts öf döts ïn thëïr wörrdds.

What I do know is that they love and revere their most famous composer, Jean Sibelius, so far as to making his birthday (today, December 8th) a national holiday, the “Day of Finnish Music”. And to top that, his face used to be on their currency (before they adopted the Euro). Not too shabby for a musician …

Sibelius would have been 150 years old today, if he hadn’t sadly died at the too-young age of 91. The natural thing would be to play his most famous work, Finlandia, but it’s Tuesday and I don’t want to get worked up this early in the week. Instead, here’s a delightfully melancholy work based on Finnish mythology, The Swan of Tuonela.