Sibelius

Sibelius’ “The Dryad”: A Fleeting, Impressionistic Tone Poem

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Jean Sibelius’ impressionistic tone poem, The Dryad (Dryaden), Op. 45, No. 1, is magical and fleeting. It begins with hushed, searching melodic strands which seem to drift over a dark, desolate, and frigid nordic landscape before coalescing into a high-spirited dance. At moments, the woodwinds erupt in cackling laughter and shrieks of merriment. Tonal colors capture the shimmering brilliance of sunlight on snow. The wood nymphs, upon which the piece is based, come …

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Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony: An Expression of Nature’s Divine Logic

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Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major begins with the breadth and majesty of a vast, unfolding Nordic landscape. A mystical horn call rises and falls in an expansive arc, which opens the door to all that follows. Picked up by the woodwinds, the motif begins to fragment, spin, and develop with a sense of self-organizing inevitability. In his famous meeting with Gustav Mahler, Sibelius expressed admiration for the symphony’s “style and …

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Sibelius’ “Pohjola’s Daughter”: Tone Poem and Mythic Vision

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Jean Sibelius’ 1906 tone poem, Pohjola’s Daughter, was inspired by a mythic story outlined in Cantos 8 of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Väinämöinen, the white-bearded demigod, is speeding through the Finnish landscape on his sleigh when he spots a beautiful maiden sitting on the edge of an enormous rainbow. Captivated, Väinämöinen asks her to join him on his sleigh and to become his wife. The seductive maiden agrees on the condition that …

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Sibelius’ “Lemminkäinen” Suite: Four Legends from the Kalevala

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Lemminkäinen is a shamanistic figure from the frigid depths of Finnish mythology. Throughout the epic poetry of the Kalevala, where he represents an amalgamation of characters, Lemminkäinen takes the form of a young, heroic warrior. Occasionally described as a “handsome, arrogant and reckless” seducer, he is the son of Lempi, the Finnish goddess of love and fertility. The adventures of this epic hero provided the inspiration for Jean Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen Suite, a collection of four symphonic …

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Night Voyages: Salonen’s “Insomnia” and Sibelius’ “Nightride and Sunrise”

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Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2002 orchestral tone poem, Insomnia, takes us on a haunting nocturnal voyage. The opening bars slip into a restless, looping stream of musical “thoughts” which toss and turn with prickly persistence in the woodwinds. As the piece develops, the insomniac’s obsessive mental chatter becomes a colorful tonal dreamscape which is simultaneously beautiful and disturbing. Gradually, restlessness dissolves into the serenity of near sleep in the final minutes, only to be interrupted …

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Sibelius’ “En Saga”: Mystical Landscapes

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The music of Jean Sibelius evokes the rugged, desolate beauty of the Finnish landscape, the distinct cycles of darkness and light in extreme northern latitudes, and the ancient folklore of the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland. Sibelius’ music feels spacial and metaphysical. It changes our perception of time. The 1892 tone poem, En Saga (“A Fairy Tale”), does not depict a programmatic story related to the Kalevala. Instead, Sibelius described the work as an “adventure in an …

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Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony: Probing Psychological Depths

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Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 4 in A minor enters a dark, austere, and occasionally terrifying sonic landscape. At first listen, it is undoubtedly the strangest and most unsettling of Sibelius’ seven symphonies. Its four movements probe frigid, mysterious depths. Yet, upon entering this forbidding territory, we are rewarded with glimpses of rugged beauty and awe-inspiring power. Sibelius called the Fourth “a psychological symphony.” It is the stuff of Expressionism, murky dreams, and …

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