liquid Tolkien

[calimac]

And the composer of the day, whose work was so described by ellen_kushner, is Jean Sibelius.

Today marks 50 years since Sibelius died at the age of 91, but it's closer to 80 years since he stopped composing, or at least composing anything that he ever let anyone see. The long "Silence from Järvenpää," his Finnish fastness, is the most notable long retirement from composition in musical history - more complete than Rossini's (he put out his "Sins of Old Age") and more mysterious than Copland's (he suffered from Alzheimer's).

While he was still actively composing (roughly 1890-1925), Sibelius's work became greatly renowned - first as a Finnish nationalist and then throughout the classical-listening world. In the 1930s he was probably the most popular living composer, surpassing even Stravinsky and Strauss. But a backlash hit. Sibelius's Second Symphony is a dazzling work in a good performance - Symphony Silicon Valley under Yasuo Shinozaki several years ago gave it one of the best renditions I've ever heard of anything from anybody - but the finale can get tedious if the work isn't played well. And I guess Virgil Thomson, composer and critic, heard a bad performance, because he reviewed the work as "vulgar, self-indulgent, and provincial beyond all description."

That was the beginning. In the serialist hegemony of the 50s and 60s a modern composer of tonal music was considered contemptible, and Sibelius's aspirations to grandeur may have made it worse. Even as late as 1970, critic Harold Schoenberg's attempt to rehabilitate him got no further than a weak "he deserves to occupy an honorable place among the minor composers."

"Minor composer" my foot. Sibelius has returned far since then; now he is recognized again as one of the greats, and in particular as one of the 20th century's finest symphonists. Sibelius was consciously moving against the fashionable compositional trends of his time, and preferred concision to grandiosity. He once had an argument with Mahler over the form. Mahler said, "The symphony must be like the world; it must contain everything," but Sibelius said it should have "severity of form" with "profound logic that creates an inner connection between all the motifs."

That's why I prefer Sibelius. In place of Mahler's disjointed, kitchen sink approach, Sibelius built cathedrals of sound that form a solid, cogent unity. All of his seven symphonies are striking works. The Second is the biggest and most extroverted and probably the most popular; the Fifth is right behind, notable for the big striding horn calls in the finale. At the tougher end, the Seventh, which essentially invented the condensed one-movement symphony, is perhaps the most original; and the Fourth, much of it cold and wintery, is the hardest nut to crack: you'll know you're a real Sibelius fan when you come to love it.

My own favorite is the Third, a small, classically unpretentious, work of three movements that contains the seeds for all his later major works. The first movement begins with a chattering motive on lower strings that grows into a broad theme; the slow movement is a simple beautiful flute melody that repeats without becoming repetitious; the finale begins in darkness and gradually reveals light. Throughout Sibelius maintains a perfect balance, with just enough cryptic enigma to be fascinating, but not so much as to frustrate the listener's desire for melodic and harmonic satisfaction.

As a Finnish nationalist, Sibelius is best known for a rousing tone poem called Finlandia, which to my mind exemplifies the enigmatic side of his work: it keeps threatening to really get going, but it never actually does. Among his nationalist works, I prefer the ones based on the Finnish epic myth, the Kalevala. These include a large choral symphony titled Kullervo (an early work, not fully in evolved Sibelius style, but interesting), but they're mostly shorter tone poems. Of these The Swan of Tuonela, a somber dialogue of cello and English horn against lush strings, is best known, but there are others. Pohjola's Daughter is the one which Ellen quoted in her Sound & Spirit program on Tolkien: the glorious entrance of Väinämöinen illustrated her claim that "like Tolkien, Sibelius has it all: sweeping grandeur, mystery, magic, and tragedy."

Sibelius's music has been comforting me in times of depression or stress for a long time. It's mostly better for introspective moods than for cheerful ones, because even when it ends in an outgoing vein, that ending is really earned. I'm keeping him by my side as we prepare to move house, and with the truly introspective holiday of Yom Kippur tomorrow eve, it's an even better time to listen to some Sibelius. You should too.

Comments

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

What do you recommend for a novice? I would like something reasonably easy to find and not too long.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

He's not hard to find. Look for a collection of his tone poems: Finlandia and The Swan of Tuonela in particular. Valse Triste (very short, very sorrowful, very famous) and the altogether more cheerful Karelia Suite are also good short beginner's pieces.

Of his longer works, the Violin Concerto is a good barnburner if you go for concertos, and the symphonies to start with are the Second and the Fifth.

Finnish conductors - various Järvis, Salonen, Segerstam, etc. - are usually good with Sibelius; of others, Karajan has a particularly good hand with him. But performer is less important than the music.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I've gotten two of his tone poems from the iTunes, and will check the albums out of the library to see how I like him. I'm still very much a novice at the classical side of things, but I'm learning that I do like some orchestral things quite a lot.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

I had a hunch she wouldn't have named Leon Kirchner.

I'm keeping him by my side as we prepare to move house, and with the truly introspective holiday of Yom Kippur tomorrow eve, it's an even better time to listen to some Sibelius. You should too.

I usually use the time to listen to Schoenberg or similar music -- because it's atonal, you see -- but perhaps I'll make an exception.

Seriously, you have come up with an excellent shortlist, to which I might add (for those who wish to go farther) the strange brief cantata "Tulen Synty" ("The Origin of Fire").

Anybody with an eMusic subscription (or even just the trial) might want to check out the many, many recordings of Sibelius' music on the BIS label.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I've really fallen in love with the Seventh Symphony recently. I love the compactness, the sense of organic unfurling, the alternating somberness and ecstatic yearning, the strange, unresolved ending. ron_drummond recently sent me two recordings of it, including Segerstam's, which is utterly gorgeous. (My previous recording was the one on Naxos.) Both of the disks that Ron sent me also have recordings of Tapiola, which I think I like better than the other tone poems I have, including Finlandia. It's been a while since I've heard The Swan of Tuonela, which I don't currently have.

If you can point me at any other music like the Seventh Symphony, I'd be obliged. It reminds me of Debussy in some ways, but there I reach the limit of my knowledge.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I love the compactness, the sense of organic unfurling, the alternating somberness and ecstatic yearning, the strange, unresolved ending.

This lovely sentence could well describe several works by Vagn Holmboe, whom I consider to be Sibelius's spiritual heir. Holmboe direclty engaged with the legacy of Sibelius's 7th in his own single-movement 7th Symphony, and then immediately wrote a two-movement 8th (my favorite Holmboe Symphony), just to get over the hump I suppose -- before falling silent for twenty years, at least as far as numbered symphonies go, though he eventually wrote thirteen in all. In the immediate aftermath of Sibelius's death, Holmboe wrote a series of "Symphonic Metamorphoses", compact, organic, alternately somber and ecstatic, strangely unresolved...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I agree with Ron that Holmboe is structurally close to Sibelius, but he's very different in idiom, being far more of a modernist. I've noticed that people who deal with classical music professionally tend to associate composers by structural resemblance, whereas the lay listener tends to think in terms of sound and idiom (harmonic/melodic language).

That, surely, is the source of the resemblance you hear between Sibelius and Debussy. I don't think they're that close, though that may be due to knowing other things that are closer.

For a combination of Sibelian sound and concision, two composers who've also written one-movement symphonies come to mind:

1. Aulis Sallinen, now the leading living Finnish composer, is his heir in the next generation after Holmboe, and far more like Sibelius in sound than Holmboe is. Several of his symphonies are tightly-argued one-movement works: I'd particularly point to his Seventh, which is actually inspired by Tolkien!

2. Samuel Barber, particularly for his one-movement Symphony No. 1. His Adagio for Strings is roughly the American equivalent of Valse triste. Barber is one of the closest to Sibelius in sound of Americans; so is Howard Hanson, but he's far less compact in his writing.

There's also Sibelian sound in other more garrulous Nordic composers of his time - Carl Nielsen, Hugo Alfven, Kurt Atterberg - and in other subsequent Finnish composers, of whom after Sallinen the most notable is the forbiddingly named Einojuhani Rautavaara.

I'd also point you towards Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony, which is actually admiringly dedicated to Sibelius. It's long and not compact, and more contemplative than yearning, but in that contemplative context is fairly somber, and quite carefully constructed. (And for a "strange, unresolved ending," you cannot beat that of VW's extraordinarily eerie Sixth, though it sounds nothing like Sibelius. Don Keller and I once spent hours analyzing that one.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have an earlier recommendation of the RVW Fifth from you still languishing at the bottom of my inbox. Interesting comparison of the Adagio for Strings with Valse triste (which I first heard in the movie, Allegro Non Troppo). I think the only other thing of Barber's I've heard is a Violin Concerto that I heard on the radio years ago.

Well, all of this should be enough to motivate me to hit Silver Platters for the first time in eons. Hope I can find the Sallinen!

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I suspect you might really like some of the Carl Neilsen symphonies -- especially the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. There are a couple superb twofers on Decca with Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony that are a good cheap way to get to know them.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The Blomstedt cycle is my basic Nielsen symphony set. It underplays the quirkiness of the Sixth but otherwise serves the works very well.

He's an excellent composer - I actually like him, at his best, more than Sibelius - but he writes to a very different compositional aesthetic, which is why I didn't mention him. Nielsen is a very forward-driving, goal-oriented composer where Sibelius is musing and ambiguous. Like Beethoven, Nielsen uses fog and uncertainty as a problem to get out of. I don't think the kinds of virtues Randy hears in Sibelius's Seventh would be well satisfied by Nielsen.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I'd been wondering about Sallinen and am grateful for this recommendation, also the other composers you mention. Have been meaning to check out Alfven for some time. Rautavaara is quite wonderful, I think, and I regret that the two or three discs I have of him are in storage and inaccessible -- I especially like his Violin Concerto.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I mentioned Alfven because Randy mentioned Debussy. Alfven is the closest thing the North has to an Impressionist composer. Compare his Fourth to La Mer and tell me what you think.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

By the way, I picked up Barber's First and Vaughan Williams' Fifth this weekend, along with a two-disk set of Debussy's orchestral music that includes La Mer (because that is, indeed, the piece that Sibelius' Seventh made me think of, for whatever reason). I'm really, really enjoying the Barber and RVW. Thanks so much for the recommendation. I've also ordered the Sallinen, which I couldn't find at Silver Platters. Now I'll look for Alfven too. I hadn't listened to La Mer in probably twenty years, but it was a favorite in college and still sounds great to me. "Musing and ambiguous" (re: your comment to Ron above) seems applicable here too.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

A lovely overview, David. I was unaware of the anniversary and appreciate the head's up.

I too was struck by the Tolkien resemblance when I first got into Sibelius. He takes these vast northern landscapes and unfolds them inside of his symphonies and tone poems, to extraordinary effect. Or anyway that's how it sounds to my ears -- not just extraordinary landscapes but one's breathtaking pathway through them.

The Third and Seventh are my favorite of his Symphonies, and Tapiola is the crown of his tone poems -- a cathedral of trees!

"The Swan of Tuonela" is part of a 45-minute long, four-movement work (effectively his second symphony before he started writing numbered symphonies) called Lemminkainen Legends -- it's quite wonderful all the way through, and another favorite. I love Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Phil's way with it, on Ondine -- it's coupled with the Tapiola I sent Randy, and happens to be my all-time favorite orchestral recording from the standpoint of the recorded sound, and the performances are about as fine as I ever hope to hear of those works.

I'm also very fond of En Saga and his single mature string quartet, in D minor. The Violin Concerto is also wonderful, as you say.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

I love "En Saga" and will also suggest "The Oceanides."

[ellen-denham.livejournal.com]

I didn't study Sibelius in music history, as my professor didn't consider him important enough. So it was not until later that I listened to his music, as my dad's extensive classical recording collection did not include any Sibelius.

When Stephan and I were thinking of doing a ballet based on Beren and Luthien, we were going to use movements of Sibelius symphonies, so we definitely agree with your (and Ellen K.'s) thoughts about Sibelius and Tolkien. We listened to all the symphonies during one drive from Indiana to North Carolina several years ago, and selected movements that fit the scenes of the story.

To make a very long story short, the Beren and Luthien ballet never happened, and our new ballet, The Willow Maiden, used an original score by composer Frank Felice. Frank composed a wonderful neo-romantic score, using our compilation of Sibelius symphony movements as a "scratch track." Frank had previously composed a tone poem on Tolkien's Ainúlindalë. You can hear excerpts of both on his website, here. Go to the list of compositions page. I think the Sibelius influence is most clear in the Sarabande from the third suite, and the Elder Tree's Dance. I'd be interested to hear what you think.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Seems like you were the victim of that period of Sibelius disdain I mentioned in the post. Today's list of great 20th century composers would have shocked people 40 years ago, as theirs does us - and did me then, though I was too young and untrained to do much about it. But I knew I admired Sibelius, and to ignore those who said I shouldn't.

I can't really judge music, or at least the kind of music I most like, from short excerpts, as to me music is structure. But I can say from listening to the Willow Maiden excerpts that I hear what you mean by Sibelian influences in the Sarabande: there is definitely a Sibelian orchestration and even a turn of melodic phrase. From what the excerpts give it seems comptently done; overall it reminds me most of American gebrauchtsmusik of the Hanson-Thompson school, an impression reinforced by listening to some other random excerpts on the compositions page. I would not at all mind hearing more.

Felice's Ainulindale is more astringent, at least in this excerpt: perhaps if Tolkien had heard it he would have smiled politely, but I don't think he'd find it in his idiom. But I'd certainly be curious to hear the whole work.

Lastly, you might advise him to consider removing the dangling participle and the disagreement of number in the first sentence on his home page. It would really look better without them.

[ellen-denham.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked the excerpts. Yes, it is pretty hard to get a sense of the work from little snippets.

I haven't heard Frank's entire Ainúlindalë, so I'm just guessing that the excerpt on the website is some of the discord of Melkor. Though much of Frank's music does have atonal elements, which I can well imagine Tolkien disliking.

I hadn't read the first page of the website - that's an error I frequently correct when critiquing for my writers' group as well!

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

I first learned of Sibelius' music when I was a teenager, from, of all people, Morris Scott Dollens. Morris was a painter of astronomical art, chronologically sort of a godson of Bonestell and a godfather to Okuda and others. He often gave slideshows of his art at lasfs and at cons, accompanied by a recording of Sibelius' Symphony #1. That rather Tchaikovskian work was my entrée into the music of the Northern master.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

The New Yorker ran an excerpt about Sibelius from Alex Ross's upcoming book on 20th c. music, and he put it on his blog as well: Apparition from the Woods (http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/07/sibelius-chapte.html).