The Snowshoed Sibelius

[North Star]

Anything particular on your queue for tomorrow?    I'll make it a week long celebration.

Some N. Jarvi tone poems, Maazel/Vienna symphonies and Hahn's Violin Concerto recordings.  Looking forward to it. 

Nothing specific, but I imagine some choice symphonies and tone poems will be revisited.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Happy birthday, Janne!

[Maestro267]

I've taken the opportunity today to listen to some Sibelius works I've neglected somewhat, and I must say, the Violin Concerto is actually very nice indeed. I've had it for a while, but I just kinda forgot about it. Spending my evening with the symphonies though.

[Brahmsian]

For the 150th celebration, found this disc today at a local bookstore that has a very decent classical music section; of a work I have never heard of before.  AND, it is a ballet by Sibelius!   

So, for a first listen, I did like it.  It is unique.  Certainly interesting, and you can sense some of the characteristics of Sibelius' music.  A good first impression, a strange mix of Swan Lake meets The Miraculous Mandarin? 

Scaramouche Ballet, Op. 71 - composed 1913

[calyptorhynchus]

I listened the fragments of the Eighth broadcast on Radio 3 (UK) on Sunday, all 2.30 s of them. These are found in some MSS dating from the 1920s. There's an opening, a scherzo fragment and a fragment of a slower movement. They all sound much more like the Sixth Symphony than the Seventh and Tapiola.

I think that the Eighth was fully composed in the late 1920s and early 1930s, or at least composed up to the finale. At this point I suspect that Sibelius was finding that the logic of the music was making the symphony end in a key that was not the tonic and he couldn't find a way to bring the music back home. Despite the conscious effort he made in the Seventh and Tapiola to write music rooted in their respective tonics and hardly leaving them, he could not help but revert to the tonal conflict of the Fourth and Sixth.

All credit to his integrity in not faking a tonic ending, but he really should have taken a deep breath and  just trusted to the music. An Eighth Symphony involving progressive tonality would have been Sibelius's crowning masterpiece.

[Brahmsian]

For the 150th celebration, found this disc today at a local bookstore that has a very decent classical music section; of a work I have never heard of before.  AND, it is a ballet by Sibelius!   

So, for a first listen, I did like it.  It is unique.  Certainly interesting, and you can sense some of the characteristics of Sibelius' music.  A good first impression, a strange mix of Swan Lake meets The Miraculous Mandarin? 

Scaramouche Ballet, Op. 71 - composed 1913

Has no one else heard this complete work?    There are only two existing recorded performances.  The Segerstam above, and N. Jarvi/Gothenburg.

[Mirror Image]

Has no one else heard this complete work?    There are only two existing recorded performances.  The Segerstam above, and N. Jarvi/Gothenburg.

I have heard it, Ray, but I don't remember it making a strong impression on me. Not to say it's a bad work or anything. I really need to revisit it. I own the Jarvi. I imagine Segerstam being even better than Jarvi.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Has no one else heard this complete work?    There are only two existing recorded performances.  The Segerstam above, and N. Jarvi/Gothenburg.

I've heard it and I find it remarkable! I listened to it for the first time early this year when looking up some of his lesser known works. It truly is a hidden gem. So many hidden gems in his output!

[Mirror Image]

So many hidden gems in his output!

And thanks to these Sibelius Edition sets on BIS, I have been able to hear many of these buried treasures. One of my great discoveries in the Voice & Orchestra set was The Origin of Fire, which, for some reason, I neglected as it was actually found in the Berglund/Helsinki set on EMI. Not sure why I missed it, but there you have it.

[Madiel]

Listened to the 4th symphony last night. Honestly, I think it's one of the most amazing things in music. All of the 'formal' boxes of a symphony are ticked, and yet the effect is this brooding, dark thing that just sounds unlike anything else.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Listened to the 4th symphony last night. Honestly, I think it's one of the most amazing things in music. All of the 'formal' boxes of a symphony are ticked, and yet the effect is this brooding, dark thing that just sounds unlike anything else.

I loved it from the moment I heard it, and I believe even Sibelius himself didn't feel the need to change any note. I feel that it's a true example of non-Viennese expressionist music, perhaps the only piece of the time which fits the same 'kind' of artistic expression as Schoenberg/Berg/Webern etc despite the hugely different aesthetic.

[Mirror Image]

Listened to the 4th symphony last night. Honestly, I think it's one of the most amazing things in music. All of the 'formal' boxes of a symphony are ticked, and yet the effect is this brooding, dark thing that just sounds unlike anything else.

Yep, it's a masterwork and one of my favorites from good ol' Jean.

[Mirror Image]

I'm really looking forward to digging into the two new Sibelius Edition sets I bought: Chamber Music I & II. I've heard very little of this side of his oeuvre, but what I have heard The Lizard and a Piano Quintet were quite good.

[amw]

Listened to the 4th symphony last night. Honestly, I think it's one of the most amazing things in music. All of the 'formal' boxes of a symphony are ticked, and yet the effect is this brooding, dark thing that just sounds unlike anything else.

I think the 4th is one of the bleakest, most hopeless pieces of music ever written, but people who follow this thread probably know that already so I won't keep harping on it

[Karl Henning]

Oh, I dunno . . . I really think the 'A' material cheerful, elfin, energetic:

http://www.youtube.com/v/USeUdeBb704

[Karl Henning]

The last movement, too, seems to me joyful and quite unclouded:

http://www.youtube.com/v/t49T0ETYRAM

[amw]

I think I listen to Sibelius through grim-coloured glasses because those two allegros are seriously disturbing from the beginning (let alone their respective descents into darkness of two very different kinds). I've never heard any "lightness" in the piece—only extreme clarity.

One thing that's interesting is how the formal symphony boxes are often only ticked in the most perfunctory fashion—the second movement is basically Scherzo-Trio with the return of the Scherzo consisting of the last four bars of the piece, the final movement is a Rondo whose A material completely disappears over the course of the piece leaving us with pretty much nothing but an A major chord and hanging D-sharp. The first movement is a totally by-the-book sonata form of course, but which has the effect of sounding like a free fantasy, I think because of how unusual the material is.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I have to agree with Karl: those two movements definitely have some joy, I would say even lightness, in them.

[Karl Henning]

I think I listen to Sibelius through grim-coloured glasses because those two allegros are seriously disturbing from the beginning (let alone their respective descents into darkness of two very different kinds). I've never heard any "lightness" in the piece—only extreme clarity.

One thing that's interesting is how the formal symphony boxes are often only ticked in the most perfunctory fashion—the second movement is basically Scherzo-Trio with the return of the Scherzo consisting of the last four bars of the piece, the final movement is a Rondo whose A material completely disappears over the course of the piece leaving us with pretty much nothing but an A major chord and hanging D-sharp. The first movement is a totally by-the-book sonata form of course, but which has the effect of sounding like a free fantasy, I think because of how unusual the material is.

I have to agree with Karl: those two movements definitely have some joy, I would say even lightness, in them.

Thanks, both. It is really intriguing how differently we hear music.

[Brian]

I'm joining Team AMW here. If those movements have moments of lightness, their function is to attempt to fight off the gloom, but eventually fail.