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FINLAND
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Finnish 19th-century history was dominated by
Czarist Russia, which allowed the Finns autonomy as a Grand
Duchy until the end of the century, when a policy of Russification
was imposed. However, Finnish cultural roots have always been
Scandinavian, while the origins of composition in 19th-century
Finland were German; consequently Russian influences on the
music of Finland are limited. The major Finnish composers during
the 19th century had come from Germany, notably Fredik Pacius
(1809-1891) and Richard Faltin (1835-1919), both of whom made
important teaching contributions to the growing Finnish musical
life. But it was not until 1882, when Martin Wegelius (1846-1906)
founded the Helsinki Institute of Music (now called the Sibelius
Academy) in 1882, and Robert Kajanus (1856-1933) founded what
was to become the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra, that the foundations
for a widespread indigenous composition were laid.
Immediately a Finnish composer of international
importance emerged. Finnish music at the turn of the century
was dominated by the commanding figure of Jean Sibelius
(1865-1957), who achieved international popularity (especially
in Great Britain) with his tone-poems and with his series of
seven symphonies. The sense of the Northern landscape and emotions
that these symphonies evoked has never been matched; in addition,
his development of the symphonic form marked a new evolution
of the symphony, and with Mahler and Nielsen he
is the most important symphonist of the first part of the 20th
century. He ceased composing in 1929, while working on an unfinished
eighth symphony.
The dominance of Sibelius has obscured the very
real merits of other Finnish composers of the same generation.
Erkki Melartin (1875-1937), philosopher, mystic, naturalist
and painter, produced a huge output (including some 300 songs)
in a style that ranged from a lyrical Romanticism to a restrained
Expressionism. His most important works are his six symphonies,
of which the Symphony No.6 (1924) exemplifies both the
Expressionism, in the martially turbulent opening movement,
and the nature-painting Romantic hue in much of the rest of
the symphony. He was an influential teacher. Selim Palmgren
(1878-1951), perhaps the most conservative of this group, concentrated
on piano music and five piano concertos. Leevi Madetoja
(1887-1947) composed three fine symphonies, as well as the quintessential
Finnish opera, Pohjalaisia (1924). Yrjö Kilpinen
(1892-1952) concentrated on lieder of a high quality, with some
eight hundred songs and only a few instrumental works in his
output. Aarre Merikanto (1893-1958) is not to be confused with
his father Oskar Merikanto (1868-1924), who wrote the first
Finnish opera (Pohjan Neiti [The Maid of Pohja]).
He himself is now best known for the opera Juha (1922),
to a story based on a folk-novel by Juhani Aho, whose vocal
lines have a close correspondence with the rise and fall of
speech; it is not to be confused with the opera of the same
title and subject by Madetoja. Merikanto's version was
not performed until 1963, in part because his idiom had generally
been considered too advanced - he had come under the influence
of Schoenberg's atonalism as early as 1925 - but
has taken its place with Pohjalaisia as the cornerstone
of Finnish opera. Towards the end of his life Merikanto became
important as a teacher.
The vitality of Finnish composition was then
enhanced by four powerful composers born between the two World
Wars, three of whom have revived Finnish opera with considerable
success. Eric Bergman (born 1911) is an outstanding
composer of choral and vocal works, combining delicacy of texture
and effect with sureness of word-setting. Joonas Kokkonen
(born 1921) has concentrated on orchestral and instrumental
writing with a mystical atmosphere, and more recently opera.
Einojuhani Rautavaara (born 1928), the least-known of this group,
has written in most genres, and is one of the European mainstream
composers who has benefited from the example of Berg.
Currently, he is most likely to be heard in vocal and choral
works, often with a strong visionary element, ranging from the
rather disappointing Suite de Lorca (1973) for unaccompanied
chorus, which misses the passion and colours of Lorca's poems
(especially when compared with the settings by Ohana),
to the wide-ranging choral techniques (including cluster effects
and chant) of the very effective The Cathedral (1983),
also for unaccompanied chorus, which muses on man's existence.
He has written a number of operas, including Kaivos
(The Mine, 1957-1963), Thomas (completed 1985),
and notably Vincent (completed 1990). The literate,
Expressionist libretto of Vincent, by the composer himself,
follows Van Gogh's life through a kind of dream flash-back sequence
of scenes, far more tautly constructed than the similar technique
in Kokkonen's The Last Temptations. The themes are the
place of the visionary in both religious and artistic terms
(there are strong religious overtones throughout the work),
the place of reality (Van Gogh's flashbacks are part reality,
part illusion) and its relationship to sanity, and satire on
the uncomprehending experts in his life, who are intentionally
parody figures. The drama is taut, the music often dark, with
a Northern rather than a Dutch hue, the overall tone Expressionist
(distantly looking back to the example of Berg).
Each of the three Acts is preceded by very effective orchestral
preludes depicting one Van Gogh painting, and the orchestral
writing is built on 12-tone series, while the vocal lines are
intended to be more lyrically flowing. This difficult but intense
opera is recommended. Aulis Sallinen (born 1935)
started as a 12-tone composer, but moved into a freer idiom,
notably in his powerful symphonies and in his operas.
Besides these four composers, there is also an
impressive group of less well-known figures of the same generation.
Seppo Nummi (1932-1981) is remembered for his outstanding song
cycles and songs, rooted in folk-music traditions. The neo-classical
Einar Englund (born 1916) came to prominence through the symphonic
poem Epinika and two large-scale symphonies (the
Symphony No.2, 1948 has an evocative nocturne
as a slow movement), abandoned symphonic works for many years
(with a compositional silence from 1960 to 1966), and suddenly
in the 1970s produced three new symphonies, and three concertos,
including the Concerto for Twelve Cellos. Of these, the
Symphony No.4 (1976) for strings and percussion
is a tribute to Shostakovich, using many of the
Russian composer's stylistic features. He is best known for
his piano music, and for the Piano Concerto No.1 (1955).
Paavo Heininen (born 1938) has written expressive works in most
genre, including the chamber opera The Silken Drum (1983),
based on a nō play, but is best known for his handling
of very large orchestral forces, with a wide range of colour
effects. Of the younger composers, Kalevi Aho (born 1949) has
received attention; his output includes a large number of symphonies
influenced by Shostakovich. The Symphony No.4
(1972), whose three movements are based on a triple fugue, is
a huge, uneven, over-blown but sometimes impressive edifice,
a Finnish equivalent to the symphonies of the Swede Pettersson.
His interesting String Quartet No.3 (1971) is in seven
sections, covering a very wide range of neo-Romantic effect,
from Minimalism to the fugue and suggestions of Shostakovich,
from the tonal to the harmonically astringent. He has also written
a one-man opera, The Key (1979). Also worthy of
mention is Otto Donner (born 1939), the most experimental of
his generation of Finnish composers whose works often have a
rebellious sense of humour, and Jouni Kaipainen (born 1956),
who with Kaija Saariaho (born 1952), Olli Kortekangas (born
1955), Magnus Lindberg (born 1958) and Esa-Pekka Salonen (born
1958 and best known as a conductor) founded the `Ears Open'
movement, dedicated to absorbing the avant-garde and elements
of rock music into Finnish composition.
Finland produced an outstanding conductor in
Robert Kajanus (1856-1933), whose interpretations of Sibelius
are outstanding and fortunately preserved in recording, and
who greatly improved the standard of orchestral playing in Finland.
Finish Music Information Centre:
Suomalaisen Musiikin Tiedotuskeskus
Runeberginkatu 15 A
SF-00100 Helsinki 10
Finland
tel: +358 0 409134
fax: +358 0 409634
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BERGMAN
KOKKONEN
MADETOJA
SALLINEN
SIBELIUS
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BERGMAN Erik Valdemar
born 24th November 1911 at Nykarleby
died 24th April 2006
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Erik Bergman has a high reputation in Finland
for the application of new musical languages to the Finnish
choral tradition in an individual, unostentatious voice, and
for his orchestral works, which include four concertos. He is
less well known outside Finland (this in part stems from the
unfamiliarity of singers with the Finnish language), but his
choral works are outstanding in their marriage of musical and
verbal evocation.
His earliest music was in the Finnish mainstream
tradition, and he attracted attention in Finland with Rubaiyat
(1953) for baritone, male chorus and orchestra, setting verses
by Omar Khayyam. After this work he adopted 12-tone and serial
techniques (the latter especially in the areas of rhythm and
colour), and in the late 1960s introduced mild improvisatory
and aleatoric elements into his work. An interest in the folk-music
of the Near East has added an exoticism of colour and a sense
of the mystic, and he has often preferred a refined instrumental
texture, with tuned percussion and woodwind, which Bergman himself
has called `refined primitivism'.
Bergman reached an international audience with
his serial Aubade op.48 (1958) for orchestra, which is
evocatively tinged with the colours drawn from his study of
folk-music in Turkey and Egypt. It was followed by a cantata,
Aton (1959) for speaker, baritone, chorus and orchestra,
whose text is a translation of Pharaoh Akhenaton's Hymn to
the Sun; the chorus use speaking and whispering effects.
Bergman's powers of evocation through the combination of musical
landscape and words is exemplified in the outstanding Fåglarna
op.56a (The Birds, 1962) for baritone, five solo voices,
male chorus, percussion and celesta, a setting of a poem by
Bergman's wife, the poetess Solveig von Schoultz. The baritone
has the role of the persona of the poem, the soloists the gathering
of birds with emotive effects, the chorus an atmospheric backdrop
of clusters and other effects such as verbal ostinati, tinted
by high, delicate percussion, with lower percussion creating
drama. Nox op.65 (1970) for baritone, chorus,
flute, cor anglais and percussion is a setting of four poems
about night, with a similar use of soloist and chorus in the
first poem (by Quasimodo), an evocation of the noisier sounds
of night with clanging percussion and ostinati xylophone in
the second (by Arp), a lover's night with tinkling percussion
in the third (by Eluard), and a bonfire dance in the last (by
Eliot), opening with the shades of night on flute and cor anglais,
and continuing with improvisatory dancing drums.
Colori ed Improvvisazioni op.72 (1973)
for orchestra explored subtle colours and their mutations, exotic
percussion prominent. Noa op.78 (1976) for baritone,
chorus and orchestra is based on the manipulation of fifteen
Hebrew words from the Biblical story of Noah and the flood,
with a wide range of vocal effects. Bim Bam Bum
op.80 (1976) for reciter, tenor, male chorus, flute and varied
percussion from prepared piano to conch-shell (played by a percussionist
and members of the chorus), sets poems by Christian Morgenstern;
readers should not be put off by the apparent flippancy of the
title, for this is an evocative cycle of considerable power,
a sardonic humour lying mainly in the verses. The third song
(`Fish's Night Song') is a graphic poem without words, instrumentally
recreated entirely with unpitched notes. The delicate variety
of the instruments is considerable, their pitches often unsubstantiated,
and against this the choral writing is often almost tonally
chordal; the overall effect is both appealing and haunting.
The last song shows his predilection for marrying the spoken
or half-spoken word with music, a technique he learnt from his
Swiss teacher Vladimir Vogel. The Hathor Suite
op.70 (1971) for soprano, baritone, chorus, flute, cor anglais,
harp and percussion, returns to ancient Egypt, using translations
of cult-texts to the cow-goddess Hat-Hor, consort of the sun-god
Re (Ra), freely translated into German by Siegfried Schott.
There is a stronger sense of ritual about this piece, partly
through the instrumental effects and the slow rhythmic progression
(it makes an interesting comparison with the Canadian Murray
Schafer's Ra).
A completely different side of Bergman's interest
in sonority and colour is shown in the impressive String
Quartet op.98 (1982) of compelling logic and taut, almost
exhausting, emotions. The opening movement is expressive and
dramatic, exploiting the full range of string effects, as if
the spirit of Bartók had been transported into
the North of the 1980s; the moods that follow range from the
serene and melancholic to grinding violence that turns into
anxious breathing effects, as if from an organ (Bergman wrote
an influential organ work, Exsultate in 1954), and stark
insistence on the attempt at resolution.
Few composers have used the languages developed
in the avant-garde period with such delicacy, nuance, and underlying
lyricism in vocal works, and those interested in modern choral
music are encouraged to discover the music of Bergman. He taught
at the Sibelius Academy (1963-1976), and he has a wide reputation
as a choral director, of the Akademiska Sångföreningen,
Muntra Musikanter, and the Helsinki Catholic Church Choir.
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works include:
- chamber symphony Silence and Eruptions
- cello concerto; flute concerto; piano concerto; violin concerto
- Ananke, Artica, Aubade, Circulus,
Colori ed improvvisazioni, Simbolo for orch.
- string quartet; Concertino de camera for 8 instrumental
soloists; Energien for harpsichord
- Lament and Inclination for soprano and cello; cantatas
Anon and Sela; Adagio for baritone, male
chorus, flute and vibraphone; Bim Bam Bum for reciter,
tenor, male chorus, flute and percussion; Fåglarna
(Birds) for baritone, male chorus, celesta and percussion;
Hathor Suite for soprano, baritone, chorus, flute, cor
anglais, harp and percussion; Noa (1976) for baritone,
chorus and orch.; Nox for baritone, chorus, flute, cor
anglais and percussion; Rubaiyat for baritone, male chorus
and orch.; other choral works including Bardo Thödol,
Drei Galgenlieder, Lapponia, Lemminkäinen,
Noa and Vier Galgenlieder
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recommended works:
Aubade op.48 (1958) for orchestra
Bim Bam Bum op.80 (1976) for reciter, tenor, male chorus,
flute and percussion
Colori ed Improvvisazioni op.72 (1973) for orchestra
Fåglarna op.56a (The Birds, 1962) for baritone,
5 solo voices, male chorus, percussion and celesta
String Quartet op.98 (1982)
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KOKKONEN Joonas
born 13th November 1921 at Iisalmi
died 2nd October 1996 at Järvenpää
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Joonas Kokkonen was one of the better-known of
his generation of Finnish composers, who followed a mainstream,
mostly orchestral, path. Much of his early work was for chamber
forces, including the String Quartet No.1 (1949),
and in neo-classical style. The work that brought him attention
was Music for Strings (1957), symphonic in scale and
in the layout of the four movements, which shows his predilection
for alternating darker, pessimistic passages with brighter,
more hopeful ideas. In it he combined neo-classical elements
with 12-tone ideas, and for a short period 12-tone principles
guided his structures, including those of the Symphony
No.1 (1958-1960). From the early 1960s this developed into
the synthesis common to many European mainstream composers of
tonal, chromatic and occasional 12-tone harmonic elements. But
in Kokkonen's case structures are often built on one or two
initial motives that provide the basic material for the whole
work, combined with rhythmic energy and an increasing command
of orchestral colour. Of his other symphonies, the tautly argued
Symphony No.4 (1971) is the most impressive, while
the Symphony No.3 `Sinfonia da camera' (1962) for strings
gave Kokkonen an international reputation; its uses the B-A-C-H
motto theme (H = German for B♮). The alternations of dark
and light shading, the strong influence of neo-classicism, and
the synthesis of harmonic systems, as well as the characteristic
impression of rugged solidity, are well expressed in ...durch
einen Spiegel (Through a Mirror, 1977) for twelve
strings and cembalo. This effective and extensive work of symphonic
proportions has both rhythmic drive and moments of mystical
atmosphere, with the strong contrast between cembalo and strings
providing continual interest. In Finland Kokkonen has sometimes
been compared to Britten, and in many passages
of this work, particularly when a long flowing line unfolds
over chattering strings, the analogy is apt.
However, it was Kokkonen's opera Viimeiset
kiusaukset (The Last Temptations, 1973-1975) that
brought his name to a wider audience outside Finland, and it
is a work that almost succeeds in spite of itself. Based on
a play by his cousin, Lauri Kokkonen, its central figure is
the early 19th-century evangelical leader Paavo Ruotsalainen,
who, lying on his death-bed, has a series of quasi-naturalistic
dream-flashbacks showing his single-mindedness, his abuse of
his family, and his arguments with established dogma. The first
fatal flaw of the libretto is that all this is announced in
the opening introductory scene, mostly semi-spoken against the
orchestra; any sense of dramatic expectation or progression
is destroyed at a stroke. Its second is a basic contradiction:
the first Act, which is essentially about the strongly-drawn
character of his first wife Riitta, shows the dysfunctional
result of religious fanaticism on the family, while the second,
mainly concerned with Paavo, seems to condone this religious
fanaticism. Nonetheless, Kokkonen almost succeeds in making
this ill-considered libretto viable by the sheer energy of his
music, which drives the momentum on, notably in the power of
the fourth scene, or the folk-dance in scene seven. Certain
symbols recur - the images of frost and of opening the gate
into heaven, and the use of hymn-tunes - and the music, symphonically
laid out, is extraordinarily eclectic, drawing on the experience
of Nielsen (in the opening), Janáček
and the Shostakovich of Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk
District (in scene seven), among others, but most successfully
welded into a personal idiom. Though the lack of character in
the libretto (the secondary characters are all cyphers) inevitably
leads to a certain lack of character in the score, this opera
is worth encountering.
Of his other vocal works, the beguiling Requiem
(1981) for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra, is surprisingly
straightforward and conservative in its harmonic idiom. Composed
in memory of his wife, Kokkonen intended it to be positive,
and it is indeed uplifting, rhythmically vital, the choral lines
tending towards a higher range to create a sense of joy, with
touches of bright detail from the orchestra. Amateur choral
societies with access to a reasonable orchestra might well consider
this work, which is well within such abilities, and would give
much pleasure.
Kokkonen taught at the Sibelius Academy from 1950 to 1963.
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works include:
- 4 symphonies; Sinfonia de camera for 12 strings
- cello concerto
- Inauguratio and Opus sonorum for orch.; Music
for Strings; ...durch einen Spiegel for 12 strings
and cembalo
- cello sonata; Duo for violin and piano; piano trio;
3 string quartets; piano quintet; wind quintet
- sonatine for piano; Five Bagatelles for piano
- song cycles Four songs to poems of Uuno Kailas, Illat
(Evenings); suite Lintujen tuonela (The Birds'
Land of Death) for voice and orch.; Missa a cappella,
Requiem (in memoriam Maija Kokkonen) for soloists, chorus
and orch. and other vocal and choral works
- opera Viimeiset kiusaukset
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recommended works:
...durch einen Spiegel (Through a Mirror, 1977)
for 12 strings and cembalo
Symphony No.4 (1971)
opera The Last Temptations (Viimeiset kiusaukset,
1973-1975)
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MADETOJA Leevi Antti
born 17th February 1887 at Oulu
died 6th October 1947 at Helsinki
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The works of Leevi Madetoja have been overshadowed by those
of his contemporary Sibelius, and his supposed
debt to the older composer has been overstated, even if the
influence is audible from time to time (as is that of Tchaikovsky
in Madetoja's early works). His idiom is post-Romantic, analogous
perhaps to the earlier works of Vaughan Williams.
But he has an individual voice, sometimes imitating or quoting
folk-song and often using melodies with a modal cast, with a
strong Scandinavian instinct for nature, of a more pastoral
vista than Sibelius - as if surveying the farmed lands rather
than the raw coastline.
In particular, Madetoja's three symphonies deserve to be better
known. The central slow movement of the three-movement Symphony
No.1 op.29 (1914-1915) is a marvellous creation, opening
with a slow, unsettled, swelling seascape of dark colours, building
up to the rumblings of a storm and dying away again. The almost
polytonal woodwind ostinati are more reminiscent of Nielsen
than Sibelius. The finale is bold and individual, with
a close, surrounded by fanfares, of considerable nobility. The
Symphony No.2 op.35 (1926) has a magical opening
of pastoral pleasure, with a dancing woodwind figure over held
horns and a string melody; the influence of Sibelius emerges
in the subsequent build-up of tension. The slow movement is
linked without a break, and uses material based on a shepherdess's
song heard by Madetoja. The combination of the two movements,
with horn calls and a return of the shepherd song ending the
andante, is an exceptionally attractive pastoral evocation.
The last two movements are also played without a break, but
the furious third movement completely changes the tone, while
the short fourth acts as an epilogue, returning to the tranquillity
of the opening with a mysterious and tonally ambiguous atmosphere
that evolves into a beautiful golden light. The symphony is
linked thematically (the second theme of the opening, which
itself is evolved from the first, reappears in the third movement),
and should give much pleasure to those who hunt it out. The
Symphony No.3 op.55 (1925-1926) has a very different
feel. Partly written in France, its lighter textures, at times
creating the sound of a chamber orchestra, and its gentle and
graceful good humour edge towards a French neo-classicism, combined
with infiltrations of darker Northern colours. Of his other
orchestral works, the early symphonic poem Kullervo
op.15 (1913) was inspired by a story from the Finnish national
epic, the Kalevala, and shows the influence of Tchaikovsky.
Much more interesting is the suite from the pantomime-ballet
Okon Fuoko op.58 (1927), based on a work by the
Danish symbolist Poul Knudsen and taken from a Japanese tale,
melodically attractive, atmospheric, and restrained in its use
of exotic and percussive colours.
Madetoja's opera Pohjalaisia (The Ostrobothnians,
completed 1923) occupies an important place in Finnish musical
history, as the earliest Finnish opera in the regular Finnish
repertoire. Based on a famous 1914 play by Artturi Järviluoma,
it has a nationalist content (attacking Czarist control over
Finland) while having a rural setting of Madetoja's own home
area. It draws on folk-melodies, and imitations of folk-styles,
in a direct language.
Madetoja taught at the Helsinki Conservatory from 1916, and
then at Helsinki University from 1926; he was also active as
a music critic, and conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
from 1912 to 1914. His wife, the poetess L.Onerva, wrote many
of the words for his songs.
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works include:
- 3 symphonies
- Comedy Overture, Dance Vision, Kullervo,
Symphonic Suite and other works for orch.
- Lyric Suite for cello and piano; violin sonata; piano
trio
- 8 cantatas; Stabat Mater; De Profundis for soloists
and male choir; many choral works and songs
- ballet Okon Fuoko
- operas Juha and Pohjalaisia
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recommended works:
ballet suite Okon Fuoko op.58 (1927)
opera Pohjalaisia (The Ostrobothnians, completed
1923)
Symphony No.1 op.29 (1914-1915)
Symphony No.2 op.35 (1926)
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SALLINEN Aulis
born 9th April 1935 at Salmi
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Aulis Sallinen has emerged as a major Finnish composer of orchestral
works and operas. He has sometimes been called a `neo-Romantic',
but this is misleading as his idiom is less a conscious return
to tonal principles than an individual voice that has developed
from a mainstream tradition, ultimately from Sibelius
and Nielsen.
In his earliest music he was attracted to atonal and 12-tone
methods, but gradually he worked towards an expansion of his
harmonic interests, represented by Quattro per Quattro
(also known as Quatho per Quatho, 1964-1965) for oboe,
violin, cello and harpsichord, whose title simply refers to
four movements for four instruments. As his idiom matured he
evolved a style that combined some of the mainstream European
orchestral developments, notably cluster-tones and effects,
with a diatonic basis to the harmonic language. Often there
is in his music an undercurrent of expectation (sometimes intentionally
not fulfilled), created by an underlying sense of pulse, again
perhaps traceable back to Sibelius. A strong feel
for the Northern landscape informs his music (sometimes almost
pictorially), as well as a primary opposition: sombre, dark
colours and rhythmic figures set against high, bright, clear
vistas often created by tuned percussion or high woodwind and
by ostinati elements. Often the darker elements generate the
more positive. From time to time this cast takes on an almost
fantastical hue, as if the material were being seen through
a prism, most overt in the String Quartet No.3.
His four symphonies provide an effective introduction to his
music. The Symphony No.1 (1970-1971) is perhaps
his finest, a concentrated, fifteen-minute single movement of
organic growth. All the material grows out of the opening cells,
starting with a haunting, sparse, held chord, F♯ prominent,
joined by the equivalent of a string quartet and woodwind and
percussion. The effect of this opening is of hushed expectation,
and when joined by darker colours, not as an opposition but
a collusion, of new life pushing up from a dark earthiness.
This reaches a plateau, fertile woodwind figures spring out,
joined by dancing ideas against the held F♯, and then
a climax leading to bell-like sounds from the percussion (a
favourite device) and the suggestion of rain-drops. A more vigorous
rhythmic figure emerges, and eventually the organic growth is
complete, leaving the held F♯ on the horn, and a strong
feeling of fulfilment. The one-movement Symphony No.2
(1972) is for orchestra with a virtuoso percussion part that
emerges from the orchestra at the end of the first and in the
last of the three sections. Subtitled a `symphonic dialogue',
the slow middle section is especially effective, dominated by
a bassoon against a slow, sparse backdrop, and the work is cyclical
in that it returns to the opening material at the end. The Symphony
No.3 (1974-1975) occupies a large canvass, in three movements.
The first movement was inspired by the seascape around the Baltic
island where it was written, with a sense of the wind, the sea
in the surging strings, and the cries of gulls in the woodwind.
The central movement is a chaconne, built from material in the
coda of the first movement, and has suggestions of the dance
and of fantasy. The final movement returns to the atmosphere
of the first, but here the sea builds up into an engulfing orchestral
wave pouring over the landscape. The Symphony No.4
(1979) has a more concrete message than its predecessors, reflecting
an element of political statement in some of Sallinen's works,
such as Mauermusik (Wall Music) for orchestra,
commemorating a German victim of the Berlin Wall. The symphony
was written just after his Dies Irae (1978) for
soprano, baritone, male chorus and orchestra, which commented
on nuclear destruction, and a sense of that fear and danger
underlies the symphony, whose second of three movements is subtitled
`Dona Nobis Pacem' (`Give us peace'). The opening is arresting:
an energetic march juxtaposed with a hushed desolation, and
this opposition becomes the foundation of the symphony. Eventually
the march turns into the fantastical, felt again in the middle
movement which attempts to resolve the undercurrent of menace.
Here tuned percussion, joined by woodwind ostinati, oppose more
strident brass and strings, and the final movement is dominated
by the sound of bells. Such an opposition of light and dark
is found again in the Cello Concerto (1977), which
has the unusual form of a dark, tragic 20-minute opening movement
countered by a very short (five minute) second movement of brightness.
Chamber Music I (1975) for chamber orchestra uses
a web of short-phrased sound as its opening, from which themes
emerge, the atonal hue being gradually cast off; again there
is a contrast of darkness and light, and a slow ending of considerable
beauty that returns to the atmosphere of the opening but with
transformed material, now diatonic. The more pastoral and lighter-veined
Chamber Music II (1976) is for alto flute and
string orchestra, its colours dominated by the rich tones of
the solo instrument.
The work which brought Sallinen international prominence was
the haunting String Quartet No.3 (1969), subtitled
`Some Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik's Funeral March' (and arranged
for string orchestra, 1981). Its basis is a famous Finnish funeral
folk lament, put through five variations, two intermezzi, and
a coda; its power lies in the continual sense of distortion
and of the fantastical, created less by manipulation of the
basic tune than by the surrounding colours and instrumental
effects, and by the broken use of folk-like rhythms. The effect
of this attractive, immediate, and unusual quartet is not unlike
going to a ruined historical site, and imagining the sounds
that once occupied it when it was full of life.
In the 1970s Sallinen turned to the form of opera, with considerable
international success. Ratsumies (The Horseman,
1973-1974), to a libretto by Paavo Haavikko, is symbolist, its
characters allegories. Related to the opera is a song cycle
Neljä laula unesta (Four Dream Songs, 1973)
for soprano and piano, also to texts by Paavo Haavikko. The
themes of Punainen viiva (The Red Line, 1977-1978),
to a libretto by the composer based on a celebrated 1911 Finnish
novel by Ilmari Kiant, are both political and social. The backdrop
is the first full suffragette elections in Finland in 1907,
and especially the accompanying socialist agitation (hence the
red line). The foreground is the extreme poverty of parts of
rural Finland at the time, and the partly irrelevant impact
of the elections, votes not replacing bread. The opera is framed
by the presence of a bear, loaded with its own political symbolism,
but also representing raw nature, who raids the simple farming
household at the opening, and kills the man of the farm at the
end, with a slash across the throat (another red line). Underlying
this scenario is a sense of hope, patent in the music, but also
symbolized by a young birch tree at the close. This powerful,
well-wrought libretto perhaps has more resonances in northern
frontier countries, such as Finland, Russia or western Canada,
where such conditions pertained at the turn of the century and
still have resonance today; the political scenes, sometimes
criticized for their lack of characterization, are psychologically
accurate, since in such societies political and social argument
is often reduced to de-individualizing simplicities. The musical
style and framework are relatively conventional, dividing the
opera into two acts and including a few set solos, and treating
the story largely realistically. Sallinen has a very strong
sense of musical drama and pace, for vocal lines that express
the underlying emotions of the characters (as in the heroine
Riika's powerful solo in Act I, scene 2), and for a clarity
of orchestration that creates atmosphere and movement, and uses
such effects as children's voices with restraint and emotional
effect. The Red Line is the most effective opera to have
yet emerged from Finland.
Sallinen taught at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki (1965-1973).
───────────────────────────────────────
works include:
- 5 symphonies (No.2 with percussion solo, No.5 Washington
Mosaics); 3 Sinfonia
- cello concerto; violin concerto; concerto for chamber orch.;
Variations for cello and orch.; Metamorphoses
for piano and chamber orch.;
- Juventas, Mauermusik, Shadows and Two
Mythical Scenes for orch.; Chorali for 32 wind, harp,
celesta and 2 percussion; Chamber Music I for strings,
Chamber Music II for alto flute and strings
- Elegy for Sebastian Knight for cello; cello sonata;
Metamorfora for cello and piano; Canto and Ritornello
for solo violin; 5 string quartets (No.3 Some Aspects of
Peltoniemi Hintrik's Funeral March, No.4 Quiet Songs);
Quattro per Quattro (Quatho per Quatho) for flute,
violin, cello and harpsichord
- Chaconne for organ
- song cycle Neljä laulua unesta (Four Dream
Songs); Dies Irae for soprano, baritone, male chorus
and orch.; Laulua mereltä (Songs from the Sea)
for chorus and other vocal and choral works
- operas The Horseman (Ratsumeis), The King
Goes Forth to France, The Red Line (Punainen viiva)
and Savonlinna
───────────────────────────────────────
recommended works:
opera The Red Line (Punainen viiva, 1977-1978)
String Quartet No.3 (1969)
Symphony No.1 (1971)
Symphony No.2 (1972) for percussion and orchestra
Symphony No.3 (1975)
Symphony No.4 (1979)
───────────────────────────────────────
SIBELIUS Jean Johan Julius
Christian
born 8th December 1865 at Tavastehus
died 20th September 1957 at Järvenpää
───────────────────────────────────────
Jean Sibelius is the most distinguished of all Scandinavian
composers, and a major figure in the transition from the late-Romantic
19th century to the world of the 20th. His importance to Scandinavian
music cannot be underestimated, first (following the general
example of Grieg) for his use of indigenous Finnish legends,
connected with the Old Norse myths, which established that Scandinavian
composers had their own potent heritage to draw on; and second
and more crucial, the development (together with the less influential
Nielsen) of an orchestral sound that reflected
the qualities of the Northern landscape and light, with the
use of moto-perpetuo figures providing a structural backdrop.
Part of Sibelius's initial impact in Finland was his use of
nationalist themes at a time when the country was rediscovering
its own heritage in the face of considerable Czarist oppression
(Sibelius's family, like most middle-class Finnish families
of the period, spoke Swedish rather than Finnish), and at the
time his works carried political overtones analogous to those
of Verdi in his.
His compositional life is also a paradox, for between 1881 and
1926 he produced a huge number of works; then, after working
on an eighth symphony, he fell completely silent until his death
in 1957, revered as the father-figure of Scandinavian music.
Although he wrote in all genres (including an early unpublished
opera) the core of his output falls into two categories, the
orchestral tone-poems built around Finnish myths, and the seven
symphonies, which span his mature compositional life.
Behind much of his work lies the inspiration of the great Finnish
national epic, the Kalevala. This work was compiled in
1835 by Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), who collected and brought
together a huge body of Finnish and Karelian folk-poetry, shaping
it into an epic, leaving the actual poetry virtually untouched.
Starting with the creation and ending with the coming of Christianity
into Finland, its central theme is the struggle between two
groups for the talisman `Sampo', which brings prosperity to
its owner; its central character is an old man who defeats his
enemies by wisdom and magic. With such a construction it is
highly episodic, bringing together a multitude of stories, a
gold-mine for a composer of tone-poems. It is for this reason
that so many apparently unconnected stories in Sibelius's tone-poems
can be traced to the same source.
His earliest treatment of the Finnish epic was in the huge Kullervo
Symphony op.7 (1891-1892), not included in his numbered
symphonies, which uses baritone, soprano and male chorus in
the third of its five movements, and baritone and chorus in
the last; it is a transitional work in Sibelius's output, showing
the influence of Tchaikovsky and Bruckner, but also the development
of his own mature voice. At the same time he was writing the
first of his more familiar orchestral tone-poems, En Saga
op.9 (A Saga, 1892), whose title is loosely inspired
by the Icelandic Edda. Like many of Sibelius's
tone-poems, there is no programme as such; Sibelius preferred
to evoke the atmosphere of the story and to paint the landscape
setting rather than retell events. Although the climactic outburst
before the typically quiet ending looks backwards rather than
forwards, En Saga has many of the hallmarks of Sibelius's
mature idiom: shimmering string effects countered by rugged
themes stalking through the foreground; the sudden generation
of powerful impetus swelling into a climax; the brass striding
out over a strong underlying rhythmic pulse; and one theme eliding
into or over a very different one, an effect that sometimes
verges on the polytonal. Much of the melodic cast has suggestions
of folk-music, but as is usual with Sibelius, these are of his
own invention. Another feature of En Saga found throughout
Sibelius's work are pedal-points around which the melodic and
harmonic material move, as well as themes that grow and develop
out of their initial material.
It was followed by one of Sibelius' most popular works, the
invigorating Karelia Suite op.11 (1893), whose
title refers to the area bordering on Russia and which was a
centre of nationalist sentiment. In three movements, it opens
with unforgettable fanfares over shimmering strings, swelling
through rising strings to the famous march, trumpets buoyed
up by the quiet energy of the accompaniment, the percussion
far more prominent than was usual for the time, acting as a
major component of the texture; this movement is sometimes heard
on its own. The central movement (for chamber forces of wind
and strings) is a ballade with melancholic overtones but a throbbing
pulse, and the last movement another march with percussion again
prominent. The influence of the Kalevala then re-emerged in
the Lemminkäinen Suite op.22 (also known
as Four Legends, 1893-1895, revised 1896 and 1900), whose
four tone-poems, usually heard separately, are based on Kalevala
stories. The best known of these are the third, The Swan
of Tuonela and the fourth, Lemminkäinen's
Return. The Swan of Tuonela describes the singing
of the swan that glides on the black flood waters of Tuonela,
the mythological land of the dead. The swan is represented by
a cor anglais, joined by a cello theme against divided strings,
and the entire picture is of a ghostly melancholy, the graceful
movement of the swan accompanied by pictorial water-effects.
It was originally intended as the prelude to an opera project,
The Building of the Boat. Lemminkäinen's
Return describes the return of the hero, restored to life
by his mother and persuaded to forsake his lover, and is more
dramatic, with a driving energy and a fragmentation of idea
over the general pulse, gradually building up with thematic
snatches; it will be of interest to those following Sibelius's
development, as it foreshadows some of techniques of the later
symphonies.
However, it was the nationalist symphonic poem Finlandia
op.26 No.7 (1899, revised 1900) that gained Sibelius an international
audience. The Czarist authorities had clamped down on freedom
of speech, and in response a number of meetings were held culminating
in an evening at the Swedish Theatre, to which Sibelius contributed
music for a series of tableau depicting Finnish history, of
which Finlandia was the last (three others were published
as Scènes historiques op.25). Its dramatic brass
opening, countered by a hymn-like theme, the turbulent allegro
with an insistent, demanding rhythmic figure from the trumpets,
the famous central tune that has become as endemic to Finland
as Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance No.1 has to the
British, all contribute to one of the most stirring pieces of
all music, that manages to avoid both bombast and sentimentality.
In 1903 Sibelius wrote incidental music to Kuolema
(Death), a play by his brother-in-law Arvid Järnefelt,
and drew from it the short Valse Triste op.44. With subdued
melancholy it evokes an ill mother dancing with the shades of
the night, the events enlivened at its centre, prompted by the
flute; it is a regular encore piece, and has its best impact
when given by those rare orchestras who can achieve totally
united ppp string playing. The symphonic fantasy Pohjola's
Daughter op.49 (1906, probably earlier) returns to the Kalevala;
a traveller sees Pohjola's daughter, of the land of the North,
sitting on her rainbow spinning. He woos her, and has to perform
three magic tasks; he succeeds in two, but not the third, which
leaves him wounded in the leg from his own axe. She continues
her spinning and he continues his journey to a peaceful home
in Kalevala. It is one of the most colourful and graphic of
Sibelius's tone-poems, making full use of the possibilities
of the very large orchestra. Its extended range of contrast
and idea, as well as some of its material, bring it closer to
the symphonies than the shorter tone-poems. The Bard
op.64 (1913, revised 1914), represents Sibelius's increasing
refinement of texture and economy of means, in a restrained,
almost introvert short work, sounding harp arpeggios against
the orchestra. Sibelius's final symphonic poem, and his last
completed work, Tapiola op.112 (1925), is a description
of the northern woodlands ruled by Tapio, King of the Forest.
Its five sections give it the proportions of a symphony, and
there is a suggestion of elemental savagery (especially in the
storm section) not found in his early tone-poems, as well as
a descriptive feeling of true wilderness, a forest essentially
unpeopled.
These works represent the best of his large output of tone-poems
and suites, though many of the others, such as Night-ride
and Sunrise op.55 (1907), the march of Scènes
historiques op.25, No.2 (1899), or the only symphonic poem
not related to the North, The Oceanides op.73
(1914), are worth exploring. In them Sibelius, along with his
contemporary Strauss, was bringing a Romantic
tradition to a close. Both had their roots in the same Germanic
tradition, and both developed tonal harmony. Strauss continued
to explore the Romantic angst, describing internal psychological
states of heroes or his own family in an increasingly chromatically
complex and dense idiom. Sibelius, however, took a very different
route, thinning out the dense late-Romantic textures, seeking
harmonic progressions that pared off the superfluous, and describing
moods and states that are evoked externally; in this he has
parallels with some of the northern landscape painters of the
period. For Strauss it was the end of one particular road, but
Sibelius also looks forward, specifically to the tone-poems
of such composers as Bax and Arnold, but
more generally to a symphonic cast adopted across Scandinavia.
These concerns also tend towards the abstract, and it was entirely
logical that Sibelius's genius should be turned to the form
of the symphony.
In the symphonies Sibelius evolved a completely new and in its
own way revolutionary path of symphonic development, with the
first two symphonies acting as a prelude, the third as the catalyst,
and the remaining four the evolution of this development. For,
especially in the last four symphonies, progression is predicated
by pulse and flow, by the different rates of flow within the
overall current of a movement, sometimes with a step-like progression.
The thematic material is often chosen to aid that flow, with
themes that develop from short figures and are often capable
of endless transformations, and with moto-perpetuo figures;
themes also transform by the addition of material. Consequently,
there are few themes, especially in the later symphonies, that
carry their own recognizable emotional weight; that is gained
during the flow and by their orchestration. The harmonic progressions
are similarly intertwined with this flow: although Sibelius
uses essentially traditional frameworks, symphonies ending in
their home key (with the addition of a modal cast in the sixth
symphony), the method by which they progress is not traditional.
Sibelius cuts away much that is superfluous, so that one key
may abut another without the traditional bridge; again, this
contributes to the sense of pulse, and movement by steps. Similarly,
he often uses a favourite device of a pedal point as an anchor
for that flow, around which movement on a very large scale can
hinge and allow the logic of the shorter-scale to evolve without
disintegration. Naturally, the cast of this system of evolution
through flow has correspondences with such traditional forms
as the rondo and sonata, for that is the source of the evolution.
Such forms are clear in the first two symphonies, and to a lesser
extent in the third. All this has led to confusion and contradiction
among those who have tried to analyze the later symphonies in
terms of 19th-century theory in which key relationships and
their placement are primary (the opening movement of the sixth
has been variously described as having a "normal sonata
form" and as having lost all connection with sonata form!).
They really need different methods that would recognize the
primacy of pulse, and within that the relationships of key.
In this, Sibelius was anticipating methods that have increasingly
become familiar through the century, both in terms of thematic
transformation from germ cells, but more important, progression
through the underlying pulse and changes in the surface movement,
found in works as disparate as those of Martinů
and the Minimalists. There is another aspect that removes the
later symphonies from the Romantic era; as Neville Cardus originally
observed, it is very difficult to imagine these symphonies as
being peopled by anyone (which is not true of most late-Romantic
symphonists, or of Mahler or Shostakovich);
it is possible to imagine them as landscapes, but ones devoid
of people. There is a sense of distancing, of abstracting, yet
at the same time they are absorbing and involving. Herein, perhaps,
and probably unconsciously on Sibelius's part, lies the real
purpose of that pulse and flow in the last twenty years of Sibelius's
compositional life: they match our internal physical pulses,
and particularly our different types and rates of breathing,
and it is this that produces such pent-up excitement or such
contemplation or simple pleasure, and which can be so triumphantly
overwhelming when Sibelius builds up to a great climax. This,
again, is a specifically 20th-century idea, formulated and utilized
in music in the second half of the century; with Sibelius it
is cloaked in the remnants of the 19th-century orchestra and
symphonic layout, and therefore often overlooked. It is conceivable
that there is a psychological basis for this: Sibelius was diagnosed
as having a benign throat tumour in 1908, and some modern schools
of psychology would not be surprised to discover that his subsequent
work had analogies to breath and breathing.
The direct utterance of the first two symphonies has made them
the best known to general audiences. The memorable first movement
of Symphony No.1 op.39 (1898-1899) immediately displays
a symphonist of stature, with the sense of growth and propulsion
within the sonata form; the second movement has the suggestion
of a seascape, with distant echoes of Wagner and Dvořák,
a sombre opening leading to a haunting nostalgia. The lithe
third movement has quite rightly been compared with Beethoven's
Pastoral Symphony, not so much from its construction
but from its general mood, and in particular the handing of
idea around the orchestra. The last movement again returns to
echoes of Dvořák, in the initial attempts to generate
momentum and in the later dance-like passages, but at its heart
is a big, noble tune; this is the weakest movement of the symphony,
for while its episodes are interesting, they fail to gel. The
Symphony No.2 op.43 (1901-1902) has an overall mood of
expansive triumph, the opening movement one of fermenting energy,
expectation alternating with emotional pause at its start, and
the subsequent build-up employing a technique where the expected
pedal-point is only occasionally sounded, creating considerable
nervous tension. The second movement is perhaps the symphonic
movement closest to the tone-poems, with its unusual opening
pizzicato on the lower strings, its dramatic and lyrical elements,
and a big swell reminiscent of Finlandia. It is
the lovely pastoral trio of the third movement, surrounded by
fast pace and a brass climax, that provides the most lyrical
slow passage of the symphony, while the gorgeously expansive
finale strives for the long synthesis, for the build-up of material
over a long period often using step movements, and largely succeeds.
The Symphony No.3 op.52 (1904-1907) is in three
movements, and in it Sibelius moves musically from the 19th
to the 20th century. Sibelius suggested the opening movement
represented fog banks off the English coast; if so, these fogs
were shot through with sunlight, though the uplifting flow of
the movement has the feel of the sea. The middle movement has
the gentle air of melancholy being released, as if the Swan
of Tuonela had been brought out to a calm lake in the dawn sunlight,
while the build-up to the climax of the finale has tremendous
power. The four-movement Symphony No.4 op. 63 (1911)
is the darkest of the symphonies, constructed on the interval
of the tritone, once considered the interval of the devil and
here used both to disrupt through dissonance and to build the
harmonic progression. Each movement starts with the end note
of its predecessors, and as in the later symphonies of Nielsen
there is little distinction between major and minor. The opening
movement has both sadness and weariness, no blaze in the coda
but bleak and sparse textures. The second movement makes an
attempt at the more jovial, following images of grey, dancing
waves; it fails, and the reprise of its A-B-A form is very short,
truncated by the timpani. The desolate slow movement has dark,
wandering fragments of different themes that eventually coalesce
into a brighter image, and dissolve again into fragments, one
of which eventually emerges as the major idea. The final movement,
of enormous latent energy, has new features, the colours of
the glockenspiel, woodwind snarls and screams, and the kind
of melodic shapes also heard in Luonnotar (discussed
below); the sense of pulse and surge reverberates through this
ending.
The Symphony No.5 op.58 (1915, revised 1916 and
1917) was originally in four movements, but Sibelius revised
it into three. Its core is the final movement, which the rest
of the symphony sets up, though this is not apparent during
its progress. The first movement has been endlessly discussed,
with the suggestion of the equivalent of a scherzo being placed
in the middle; to all intents and purposes, Sibelius had by
now evolved his own principles of organic growth, discarding
sonata form and contrasts of `subjects'. Discussion in terms
of 19th-century models becomes unfruitful, and the overall pulse
and unity of this movement is totally convincing. Its opening,
with calling horns and woodwind, suggests the calling to a quest,
and the movement, heroic in cast, has one long overall flow
within which there are passages of organic fertile growth, surges
to climax, and then to a lighter, dancing vein. Granville Bantock,
close friend of Sibelius, saw this whole symphony as a description
of Sibelius's home landscape, and the concept rings true. The
second movement, essentially a theme and variations by rhythm,
has grace and charm, though also intimations of the finale,
and is a kind of interlude between the pace and tensions of
the outer movements. The short and magnificent finale, its mood
of rock-solid confidence and joy a complete answer to the desolations
of the fourth symphony, to all intents and purposes simply allows
the orchestra to breath in different ways: the long overall
breath that is the momentum of the entire movement, the short
breaths of the opening string moto-perpetuo, the glorious rocking
breaths of the idea that follows; the different rates of breathing
interact and eventually join together. At the same time it transcribes
a huge swing around the key of the symphony, E flat, from C
major to G♭ major, and with the final tremendous hammer
strokes arrives at the home key. For readers who are new to
Sibelius, or for those who only know the tone-poems and perhaps
the first two symphonies, this symphony is an interesting place
to start. The Symphony No.6 op.104 (1923) is another
departure, being to all intents and purposes Sibelius's pastoral
symphony. The textures are leaner, more astringent, the mood
more contemplative, the characteristic pulse much less obvious
in the opening movement, that evolves into a kind of joyous
ride through a sparkling countryside. The second movement, with
its overlapping rising lines, has almost neo-classical textures,
while the scherzo has a jerky march, as if Sibelius's normal
flow had been taken apart and recast. The beautiful last movement,
the Sibelian pulse more plastic and less assertive, returns
to the gentle and the pastoral, with a quiet close.
The Symphony No.7 op.105 (1924) was originally
entitled Fantastica Sinfonica, an ambience it shares
with three other last symphonies, those of Nielsen (Sinfonia
semplice), Martinů (Fantaises symphoniques),
and Shostakovich, whose fifteenth symphony could easily
have been given such a title. The reasons are the same: in each
case, the composer had arrived at such an instinctive and plastic
command of his particular symphonic structure that he had departed
far from the traditional norms. The symphony is in one movement,
and opens with a marvellous fluidity that resolves into an atmosphere
of glowing nostalgia and then a hymn-like string theme tinged
with sadness, that becomes shot with golden sunset colours as
it builds with a typical Sibelian walking bass in a passage
that is among the noblest music written. Trombones join the
texture in Nordic fanfare, and the material on which the symphony
is built has now all been presented. The luminous mood then
evolves through more uneasy strings, a more turbulent dance
that itself evolves into long swirling string figures, and the
return of the trombones. This moment is equivalent to a recapitulation,
but new ideas are introduced, both darker shades from the strings
and a sense of the waltz, moments of mawkish woodwind lurking
through them. The trombones return to herald the final section
of the symphony, building to an extraordinary climax in which
all Sibelius's favourite moods are layered over each other,
the nobility, the tense expectations of strings, the vistas
of the dark northern landscapes, evolving to a great swelling
chord emerging into the light of A major. The strings bring
this into a sadder, intense mood, the fanfares return, now nostalgic,
woodwind sing a plaintive song over tremolo strings, and suddenly
the orchestra emerges in a great swell to C major. Yet to cast
the symphony into such divisions is itself misleading; the whole
work is one overall phrase, the various events rising and falling
within it and evolving out of each other, less the swells of
the ocean than the unending reshapings of clouds, some scurrying,
some building into thunderheads, some serene, but all part of
the same, still unpeopled, vista, ending in the great glory
of the sun. After writing a work so self-contained and so complete
it is hardly surprising that Sibelius never completed another
symphony.
Sibelius's sole concerto is the Violin Concerto
op.47 (1903, revised 1905), an unforgettable work of passionate
intensity, requiring richness of tone from the soloist. It is,
though, oddly balanced, the massive first movement (completely
reordering the normal events of a sonata-form movement) outweighing
the other two. It is a transitional work, the solo writing emerging
from the 19th-century tradition, and with overall ideas looking
towards the later symphonies. Although the solo writing is virtuoso,
the orchestra have great weight and importance and many of Sibelius's
characteristic hallmarks. Underneath the intensity there is
a mellowness to the whole work, especially in the string colours,
emphasized by the low writing for the soloist in the gloriously
rich slow movement. Sibelius's only important chamber work is
the String Quartet `Voces Intimae' op.56 (1908-1909).
It is a beautiful, often meditative work in five movements,
using the generation of themes from initial cells that he was
developing in the symphonies, and the central andante, the heart
of the work, is moving. However, it has the ambience of a symphonist
turning to the form rather than that of a born composer of string
quartets; Sibelius's general avoidance of counterpoint throws
the emphasis on chordal progression and long evolving short-note
phrases, which minimize the contrasts between the instruments,
making the quartet rather monochromatic.
Of his vocal music, Luonnotar (1913) is the finest,
a marvellous nine-minute tone-poem for soprano and orchestra
setting the Finnish myth of the creation that opens the Kalevala,
with the world emerging from the breaking of a teal's egg. With
the pent-up excitement of the string opening, the orchestral
evocation of the landscape of the creation is Sibelius at his
descriptive best, and over this soars imaginative soprano lines
of an exceptionally wide range, much of it lying very high.
The melodic cast is highly individual, with something of the
shape and spontaneity of an improvisatory folk song. Sibelius
wrote nearly a hundred songs, all with piano and mostly to Swedish
texts, and their variable quality has masked the very real impact
of the best; generally they are more effective when sung by
larger, operatic voices. The best are to be found in op.35,
op.36, op.37, and op.38. Six Songs op.36 (1899) includes
the famous Svarta rosor (Black Roses), with its
flowing accompaniment to a poem by Ernst Josephson about the
black roses of sorrow, and the equally well-known and limpidly
beautiful Säv, säv, susa (Sigh, rushes,
sigh) to a poem by Gustaf Fröding telling of the death
of Ingalill, drowned in a lake. The last of the Five Songs
op.37 (1900), Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings
möte (usually known as The Tryst), is
a passionate short ballad in the form of a J.L. Runberg poem
telling of a young woman returning home from her unfaithful
lover and hiding the fact from her mother. Höstkväll
(Autumn evening), the first of the Five Songs
op.38 (1903-1904), is a haunting description of a coastline
in the autumn rain watched by a traveller, setting a poem by
Viktor Rydberg, with a very restrained piano part, confined
at its climax almost entirely to a repeated note before breaking
out with a Sibelian intensity. Two Songs op.35
(1907-1908), the last of this group to be written in spite of
the opus number, comprises two inventive and almost operatically
dramatic songs, the piano writing acting as descriptive commentator.
Jubal is a poem by Ernst Josephson about Jubal
killing a swan at dusk and agreeing to mourn it in song every
evening, and Teodora a setting of Bertel Gripenberg where
the singer tells of his lust for the Byzantine Empress Theodora
with an almost Straussian dark eroticism; with Luonnotar,
this is the most original of Sibelius's vocal output. Of his
late songs, the first of the Six Runeberg Songs op.90
(1917), Norden (North), is a magical evocation
of the frozen north, the flying swans of the poem again firing
Sibelius's imagination, the piano providing the monochromatic
colours of tinkling ice, the whole setting seeming to occupy
one long breath.
Sibelius has suffered in the reaction against the late-Romantics
of the 1940s and 1950s: like many of his contemporaries, those
who appreciated his earlier music precisely because it belonged
to the residue of the 19th century could not understand his
later music, as it moved into the 20th. Many of those who might
have appreciated his later music were put off by the Romantic
hue (and the excessive advocacy by some critics) of that earlier
music, and were often unfamiliar with the later works. Those
later works mark him as one of the cornerstones of 20th-century
music, and the foundation of almost all Scandinavian composition.
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works include (English titles):
- 7 symphonies; Kullervo Symphony for soprano, baritone,
male chorus and orch.
- violin concerto; Suite mignonne for flute and strings;
Suite caractéristique for harp and strings; Six
Humoresques and 2 Serenades for violin and orch.
- suite The Bard, Belshazzar's Feast, The Dryad,
Finlandia, In Memoriam, Karelia Overture,
Karelia Suite, suite King Christian II, Lemminkäinen
Suite (including The Swan of Tuonela), Nightride
and Sunset, The Oceanides, Pan and Echo, suite
Pellèas et Mélisande, Pohjola's Daughter,
Rakastava Suite, En Saga, Scene with Cranes,
2 Scènes historiques, Spring Song, suite
Swanwhite, Tapiola, The Tempest (prelude
and 2 suites), Valse chevaleresque, Valse Triste,
The Wood Nymph for orch.
- Andante festivo, Canzonetta, Portraits,
Romance and Suite champêtre for strings
- violin sonata and many other works for violin and piano; Suite
for string trio; string quartet Voces intimae; piano
quartet; piano quintet and other chamber music including a number
of early works
- many piano works
- many song cycles, including 2 sets of Runeberg Songs;
cantatas The Liberated Queen, Hymn of the Earth,
Our Native Land; The Origin of Fire for baritone,
male chorus and orch.; many other vocal and choral works
- opera The Maiden in the Tower; pantomime Scaramouche;
incidental music
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recommended works:
symphonic poem Finlandia op.26 (1899)
Karelia Suite op.11 (1893)
Lemminkäinen's Return op.22 No.4 (1895)
symphonic fantasy Pohjola's Daughter op.49 (1906)
tone-poem Luonnotar (1913) for soprano and orchestra
symphonic poem En Saga op.9 (1892)
The Swan of Tuonela op.22 No.3 (1895) for orchestra
Symphony No.1 (1899)
Symphony No.2 (1901-1902)
Symphony No.3 (1904-1907)
Symphony No.4 (1911)
Symphony No.5 (1915)
Symphony No.6 (1923)
Symphony No.7 (1924)
symphonic poem Tapiola op.112 (1926)
Two Songs op.35 (1907-1908)
Valse Triste op.44 (1903) for orchestra
Violin Concerto op.47 (1903, revised 1905)
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bibliography:
R.Layton Sibelius, London, 1965, 1978
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