Throughout the billowing darkness of the first movement, the only real glimmer of hope is some beautifully angelic writing for horns (and occasionally trombones), like small rays of sunshine breaking through the thick cloud. But instead of the crisp, icy cold, clear strength of the first three symphonies (even with their heavier moments), this first movement is being painted not in whites and sky blues, but dark grays and near-black blues. This is an incredible sound, one for which Sibelius is very well known. ![]() There’s a cello solo here, and the music really does seem to develop and grow in waves, layers that build on each other as the work expands out. It’s like the far-off rumble of thunder, big meaty dark storm clouds rolling in. It’s a slow first movement, beginning with dark, somber cellos, basses and bassoons. But with the world soon to erupt in war, recovering from a very serious health scare, facing the change in direction of music, and even the development of psychoanalysis (in fact, Sibelius’s brother Christian was a psychiatrist and one of the first to discuss psychoanalysis in Finland), the composition of a bleak symphony like this may not be so surprising. It has absolutely nothing of the circus about it.” “…stands as a protest against present-day music. He even said once to a friend that the fourth symphony As you likely know, and as we shall eventually see of Sibelius’s later works, he never went down that path. Lastly was a more musical crisis, one in which Sibelius was confronted with the changing tides of the musical world, especially in mainland Europe, people like Schoenberg, Stravinsky and other modernists whose perceived progress challenged the Finn’s style. So that’s a very real trauma, an understandable one for sure. One thinks again of Mahler and a rather gruesome, bloody medical situation he had where he almost died, just prior to his fifth symphony. ![]() The operation apparently was a success, but he lived in fear of death for years afterward. Those two more abstract, nebulous influences aside, there were more real traumas or influences that affected the composer’s life.įirst was a surgery in Berlin in 1908 where he had a cancerous tumor removed from his throat. Tawaststjerna calls it “one of the most remarkable documents of the psychoanalytical era,” and even Sibelius referred to it as “a psychological symphony.” The work was indeed composed in a time when people like Sigmund Freud were very interested in the subconscious and all that. Tawaststjerna (that’s not spelled wrong) of psychoanalysis. Harold Truscott is quoted on Wikipedia as saying that “This work … is full of a foreboding which is probably the unconscious result of … the sensing of an atmosphere which was to explode in 1914 into a world war.” That’s a nice thought, for sure, but maybe more convenient in retrospect than reality. ![]() I hope you’re already listening to the work as you read, because the bleakness comes potentially, depending on who you ask, from a number of areas.įirst, there’s the idea that many associate with Mahler (this symphony is contemporary with his final works) of a sense of impending doom or tragedy, the horrors of the First World War that was to begin in just a few years. I feel like it’s been a while since we looked at the background of a work and said, “Here are the reasons this work sounds so (something),” and we’ll have a chance to do that today. The work was completed in 1911, and premiered on April 3 of that year by the Philharmonia Society (later to become the Helsinki Philharmonic) under the composer’s baton. There’s not a lot that’s positive about that statement, no matter how you look at it, and the first bars of this symphony will show you that it’s a pretty fitting quote. When asked once about the symphony, Sibelius quoted Strindberg’s statement above. 4 is next in line, so that’s what we’re doing.Īs the opening quote suggests, it’s a dark work. This is by no means his most famous or most performed symphony (that would have to be 1, 2, 5, or 7), and maybe if we really wanted to do something memorable I should have featured the fifth, but no. ![]() We’ve done the first three, out of order, and it would be sacrilege to have a Finnish symphony series and not include the Father of Finnish music, or whatever you want to call him. Well, we saw Sibelius a few days ago for the first time in too long, but now we’re getting back to the musical form for which he is most famous, the symphony.
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