Jean Sibelius was born in Tavastehus, Finland, on December 8, 1865.
Though he early revealed a pronounced gift for music he planned a career
in law. After a year at the University of Helsinki he finally decided
upon music. From 1886 to 1889 he attended the Helsinki Conservatory
where one of his teachers was Ferruccio Busoni, after which he studied
in Berlin with Albert Becker and in Vienna with Robert Fuchs and Karl
Goldmark. He was back in his native land in 1891, and one year after
that conducted in Helsinki the première of his first work in a national
style, _Kullervo_. From then on, he continued producing works with a
pronounced national identity with which he became not only one of
Finland’s leading creative figures in music but also its prime musical
spokesman. In 1897 he was given the first government grant ever bestowed
on a musician which enabled him to give up his teaching activities for
composition. He now produced some of his greatest music, including most
of his symphonies. In 1914 he paid his only visit to the United States,
directing a concert of his works in Norfolk, Connecticut. After World
War I, he toured Europe several times. Then from 1924 on he lived in
comparative seclusion at his home in Järvenpää, which attracted admirers
from all parts of the world. Sibelius wrote nothing after 1929, but by
then his place in the world’s music was secure as one of the foremost
symphonists since Brahms. In Finland he assumed the status of a national
hero. He died at his home in Järvenpää on September 20, 1957.
Some of the compositions by Sibelius enjoying popularity as
semi-classics are in the post-Romantic German style which he had assumed
early in his career; only one or two are in the national idiom for which
he is so famous.
In the former category belongs a slight, sentimental piece called
_Canzonetta_, for string orchestra, op. 62a (1911). As its name implies
it is a small and simple instrumental song for muted strings, deeply
emotional in feeling, at times with deeply somber colorations.
_Finlandia_, for symphony orchestra, op. 26 (1900) is one of Sibelius’
earliest national compositions, and to this day it is the most famous.
Both in and out of Finland this music is as much an eloquent voice for
its country as its national anthem. One can go even further and say that
more people in the world know the melodies of _Finlandia_ than the
Finnish anthem. So stirring are its themes, so identifiably Finnish in
personality and color, that for a long time it was believed Sibelius had
utilized national folk tunes; but the music is entirely Sibelius’. It
opens with a proud exclamation in the brass. After this comes a
sensitive melody for the woodwind, and a prayer-like song for the
strings. The music now enters a dramatic phase with stormy passages. But
there soon arrives the most famous melody in the entire work, a
beautiful supplication sounded first by the woodwind and then by the
strings. A forceful climax ensues with a strong statement which seems to
be speaking in loud and ringing tones of the determination of the people
to stay free.
Performances of _Finlandia_ played a prominent role in the political
history of Finland. When performed in its first version, in 1899, it was
used to help raise funds for a Press Pension fight against the
suppression of free speech and press by the Russians. Within the next
two years (following a radical revision of the music in 1900) the work
was given under various titles: In France it was first performed as
_Suomi_ and then as _La Patrie_; in Germany, as _Vaterland_. In Finland
the music proved so inflammatory in arousing national ardor that Russia
suppressed its performances in that country, while permitting it to be
played in the Empire so long as the title _Impromptu_ was used. When, in
1905, Russia made far-reaching political concessions to Finland,
Sibelius’ tone poem was once again permitted performances. For the next
twelve years it became the national expression of a people stubbornly
fighting for its independence. Performances kept alive the national fire
to such an extent that it has been said that they did more to promote
the cause of Finland’s freedom than all the propaganda of speeches and
pamphlets.
When the Soviets invaded Finland in the first stages of World War II,
_Finlandia_ once again acquired political importance. In the free world,
particularly in the United States, the music was used to speak for the
spirit of a people refusing to accept oppression and defeat.
Another piece of stirring national music that has become a lighter
classic comes out of the _Karelia Suite_ for orchestra, op. 11 (1893),
the _Alla Marcia_ section. This work was written for a historical
pageant presented by the students of Viborg University and consists of
an overture, two melodious sections (_Intermezzo_ and _Ballade_) and the
_Alla marcia_, march music of dramatic surge and sweep, in which
effective use is made of abrupt key changes.
Sibelius wrote several delightful _Romances_ in the German-Romantic
idiom of his early _Canzonetta_. One of these was originally for solo
piano, in D-flat major, op. 24, no. 9 (1903); another for violin and
piano, F major, op. 78, no. 2 (1915). The former has become popular in
transcriptions for salon orchestra; the latter, for violin and
orchestra, and cello and piano. Perhaps the most famous of Sibelius’
_Romances_ is that in C major, for string orchestra, Op. 42 (1903). It
begins with an unorthodox opening, unusual in harmonic structure and
varied in inflections, but its principal melody—a soulful song—is in the
traditional idiom of an uninhibited Romanticist.
The best known of Sibelius’ Romantic compositions, a universal favorite
with salon orchestras, is the _Valse Triste_, for orchestra, op. 44
(1903). This is a section from the incidental music for _Kuolema_, a
play by Sibelius’ brother-in-law, Arvid Jaernefelt; but it is the only
one from this score to get published. This slow and lugubrious melody,
bathed in sentimentality, is a literal musical interpretation of the
following program, translated by Rosa Newmarch: “It is night. The son
who has been watching by the bedside of his sick mother has fallen
asleep from sheer weariness. Gradually a ruddy light is reflected
through the room; there is a sound of distant music; the glow and the
music steal nearer until the strains of a valse melody float distinctly
to our ears. The sleeping mother awakens, rises from her bed, and, in
her long white garment which takes the semblance of a ball dress, begins
to move slowly and silently to and fro. She waves her hands and beckons
in time to the music, as though she were summoning a crowd of invisible
guests. And now they appear, these strange visionary couples, turning
and gliding to an unearthly valse rhythm. The dying woman mingles with
the dancers, she strives to make them look into her eyes, but the
shadowy guests one and all avoid her glance. Then she seems to sink
exhausted on her couch, and the music breaks off. But presently she
gathers all her strength and invokes the dance once again with more
energetic gestures than before. Back come the shadowy dancers, gyrating
in a wild, mad rhythm. The weird gaiety reaches a climax; there is a
knock at the door, which flies wide open; the mother utters a despairing
cry; the spectral guests vanish; the music dies away. Death stands on
the threshold.”