Ainola, meaning "Aino's land", was the home of Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

, his wife Aino

Aino Sibelius

Aino Sibelius was the wife of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. They lived most of their 65 years of married life at their home Ainola near Lake Tuusula, Järvenpää, Finland...

 and their family from the fall of 1904 until 1972. It stands on the scenic shores of Lake Tuusula in Järvenpää

Järvenpää

Järvenpää is a town and municipality of Finland.-History:Järvenpää was separated from its parent community Tuusula in 1951. Järvenpää was granted the status of a market town after the separation. Neighbouring districts Kellokoski and Nummenkylä were not added to the municipality of Järvenpää and...

, 38 kilometers north of Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

, the Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 capital. It was designed by the famous Finnish architect Lars Sonck

Lars Sonck

Lars Eliel Sonck was a Finnish architect. He graduated from Helsinki Polytechnic Institute in 1894 and immediately won a major design competition for a church in Turku, ahead of many established architects.Sonck ignored the growing trend toward architectural rationalism...

. The only requests Sibelius had for Sonck were to include both a lakefront view and a green fireplace in the dining room. Water pipes were never installed until after Sibelius died because he didn't want the distraction while he was there composing.

Its distance from the hustle and bustle of the nation's capital gave the composer the peace that he needed for his creative endeavours. Erik W. Tawaststjerna

Erik W. Tawaststjerna

Erik Werner Tawaststjerna was the best known Finnish musicologist of his generation. He was also a pianist, pedagogue, critic, and biographer of Jean Sibelius....

 writes that "when Sibelius first left Helsinki, Järvenpää was to a large extent untouched countryside. Foals and sheep almost nosed their way into the house, and from time to time an elk majestically bestrode the grounds." There were also other artistic families living in the neighborhood who provided a lively social circle for the Sibelius family.

Buildings around Ainola include the sauna

Sauna

A sauna is a small room or house designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these and auxiliary facilities....

 and the family's personal workshop. Sibelius died at Ainola on September 20, 1957; he is buried in a garden there. His wife Aino lived in Ainola for the next twelve years until she died on June 8, 1969. She is buried there with her husband.
In 1972 Jean Sibelius' daughters, Eva, Ruth, Katarina, Margareta, and Heidi, sold Ainola to Finland. The Ministry of Education and the Sibelius Society of Finland

Sibelius Society of Finland

The Sibelius Society of Finland is a society in Finland dedicated to the music of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was set up in December 1957. The Society and the Ministry of Education opened the composer's house Ainola as a museum in 1974....

 opened it as a museum in 1974. It is currently open from May to September. Among the personal effects remaining there are a grand piano, which was a gift to Sibelius on his fiftieth birthday, and paintings by Aino's brother Eero Järnefelt

Eero Järnefelt

Eero Erik Nikolai Järnefelt was a Finnish realist painter.Eero Järnefelt was born in Viipuri, Finland. His father August Aleksander Järnefelt was an officer in the Russian army and his mother was Elisabeth Järnefelt . He studied at the St...

.

External links

• Ainola website
• Ainola the home of Jean Sibelius-Virtual Finland-2008-archived at Wayback Machine
  Wayback Machine
  The Wayback Machine is a digital time capsule created by the Internet Archive non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the Archive calls a "three...