The Snowshoed Sibelius

[Brahmsian]

To me, the 4th Symphony of Sibelius is as sunny as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, when compared to Shostakovich's 4th.  The beginning of Sibelius' 4th is indeed incredibly dark and gloomy, but I find that to dissipate more as the symphony goes on.  I am with Karl in that the final movement has a fair amount of cheerful energy.

[Karl Henning]

To me, the 4th Symphony of Sibelius is as sunny as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, when compared to Shostakovich's 4th.  The beginning of Sibelius' 4th is indeed incredibly dark and gloomy, but I find that to dissipate more as the symphony goes on.  I am with Karl in that the final movement has a fair amount of cheerful energy.

And, the way I hear it, it succeeds where Brian hears failure.

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.

I don't hear them as moments, but as the established character of the movement, and it is the somewhat darker drama which is passingly episodic.

[Brian]

And, the way I hear it, it succeeds where Brian hears failure.

I don't hear them as moments, but as the established character of the movement, and it is the somewhat darker drama which is passingly episodic.

Have you heard how the symphony ends??

[Sergeant Rock]

Have you heard how the symphony ends??

A tragic collapse, grim and despairing, proving there was no permanent escape from the Symphony's bleak opening.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

Have you heard how the symphony ends??

Once or twice 

A tragic collapse, grim and despairing, proving there was no permanent escape from the Symphony's bleak opening.

Sarge

I appreciate all you gents explaining your take, and I cannot really gainsay you.  I'll suggest (without at all faulting your view!) that you hear it a bit more luridly than I do.  The ending becomes more impassioned, unsettled, and then wistful. I don't hear bleak there. (The opening of the Sixth I hear as bleak, but agreeably, enchantingly so.)  I agree in a musical sense that the ending is "a rounding";  the Sarge's narrative reading is defensible and plausible, indeed

[Karl Henning]

And, as ever, thanks for the engaging discussion, which enriches revisitation even of pieces long known to a body 

[not edward]

Fascinating discussion, and I think a reminder of the greatness of the 4th (and the 6th); there are so many ways to interpret these works.

I think a lot of the points made about the 4th have applicability to the 6th; I find Rosbaud's interpretation of the 6th to be as disturbing as any I've heard of the 4th.

Now I need to find time to go back and revisit both.

[Karl Henning]

Fascinating discussion, and I think a reminder of the greatness of the 4th (and the 6th); there are so many ways to interpret these works.

This (parenthetically) is part of why I think it a little wrong-headed to find fault with Haitink's RVW cycle for being "insufficiently British."  What if "British all the way" is just one approach to the symphonies?

[vandermolen]

I think that Haitink's RVW cycle is one of the very best and it won me over to 'A Sea Symphony'. Am listening to Sibelius's 4th Symphony conducted by Beecham and the LPO; I do not know a better performance. In the new historical rarities set it appears on a CD with The Bard, extracts from both Tempest suites, extracts from Pelleas and Melisande and In Memoriam - a great disc. Am I right in thinking that Sibelius's Symphony 4 is about the only one to end on a note that is neither quiet nor loud?
[asin]B012PMZM4Y[/asin]

[amw]

I think a lot of the points made about the 4th have applicability to the 6th

Possibly. The 4th and the 6th are very different. In particular the 4th is more of an out-and-out tragedy as I hear it, with the possibility of redemption (dangled before us at the end of the 1st movement) running in parallel with a deeply self-destructive course ending in utter alienation. (Yes Vandermolen I know of no other symphony that ends mezzo-forte.) A word that comes to mind to describe large stretches of the final movement is hubris, right on the edge of madness, though that movement (and the 1st) also have long stretches of that sort of extraordinarily static, windswept music Sibelius debuted in the development section of Symphony 3/i. But the 4th is a basically human work where emotional states have consequences.

The 6th I would describe more as the listener being the last living creature on earth. There is beauty and joy and nostalgia, and also rage and passion and disappointment, and they're all utterly inconsequential—we never get any sense that the music of the opening 2 minutes had to be interrupted and could in fact continue in the same vein for another 30 with no change in mood. That mood is primarily emptiness, but not in a boring sort of way, if that makes sense. Like walking around a peaceful, silent landscape occasionally disrupted by the howling of winds, only you're constantly reminded that this peaceful, silent landscape was literally New York City before the plague came and killed everyone or whatever. The agonised chorale on the last page is sort of like crying out to God (or whoever) for an explanation, and receiving none, and wondering if maybe God is dead along with everything else. And then just moving on to wander through more of the beautiful dead world because what else can you even do? You know? Am I being too hermeneutic?

(The 6th also functions quite well as a depiction of clinical depression)

I wonder if maybe there are particular recordings that shaped people's views of these works as "light" vs. "heavy" or whatever, or if it was just how I was as a teenager. I have the Davis/BSO set of the Sibelius symphonies, but for the 4th I think the first recording I listened to was either Rattle/CBSO or Maazel/Vienna, and for the 6th possibly Sakari/Iceland? I don't remember tbh. They were library discs and I didn't bother to tag them with performer information.

[Karl Henning]

I should never have thought, not in a hundred years, of applying the word "hubris" to any part of the symphony

[Mirror Image]

I believe the 4th to be the bleakest of Sibelius' symphonies, but it's not bleak to the point of suicidal tendencies. There is some light channeling through that dark tunnel from time to time. I'm with Karl that the last movement doesn't sound really ominous, but that ending, as Brian and Sarge suggested, does leave many questions in one's mind.

[Sergeant Rock]

I should never have thought, not in a hundred years, of applying the word "hubris" to any part of the symphony

In the sense of overly self-confident, yes, I agree with amw's use of hubris. That last movement of the Sibelius 4th reminds me of the last movement of Mahler 6: a headlong, optimistic rush into catastrophe; the last appearance of the bells comparable to the hammerblows in Mahler.

Sarge

[Mirror Image]

Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63



Op. 63 Symphony no. 4 in A minor
1. Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio, 2. Allegro molto vivace, 3. Il tempo largo, 4. Allegro. Completed in 1911; first performance in Helsinki on 3rd April 1911 (Orchestra of Helsinki Philharmonic Society under Jean Sibelius).

The fourth symphony was once considered to be the strangest of Sibelius's symphonies, but today it is regarded as one of the peaks of his output. It has a density of expression, a chamber music-like transparency and a mastery of counterpoint that make it one of the most impressive manifestations of modernity from the period when it was written.

Sibelius had thoughts of a change of style while he was in Berlin in 1909. These ideas were still in his mind when he joined the artist Eero Järnefelt for a trip to Koli, the emblematic "Finnish mountain" in Karelia, close to Joensuu. The landscape of Koli was for Järnefelt an endless source of inspiration, and Sibelius said that he was going to listen to the "sighing of the winds and the roar of the storms". Indeed, the composer regarded his visit to Koli as one of the greatest experiences of his life. "Plans. La Montagne," he wrote in his diary on 27th September 1909.

The following year Sibelius was again travelling in Karelia, in Vyborg and Imatra, now acting as a guide to his friend and sponsor Rosa Newmarch. Newmarch later recollected how Sibelius eagerly strained his ears to hear the pedal points in the roar of Imatra's famous rapids and in other natural sounds.

The trip also had other objectives. On his return Sibelius wanted to develop his skills in counterpoint, since, as he put it, "the harmony is largely dependent on the purely musical patterning, its polyphony." His observations contained many ideas on the need for harmonic continuity. Since the orchestra lacked the pedal of the piano, Sibelius wanted to compensate for this with even more skilful orchestration.

Yet one more natural phenomenon – a storm in the south-eastern archipelago – was needed to get the symphonic work started. In addition, in November 1910 he was preparing the symphony at the same time as he was working on music for Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, which he had promised to Aino Ackté. The Raven was never finished, but its atmosphere and sketches had an effect on the fourth symphony.

The symphony was performed for the first time on 3rd April 1911, in Helsinki. Its tone was both modern and introspective, and it confused the audience so much that the applause was subdued. "Evasive glances, shakes of the head, embarrassed or secretly ironic smiles. Not many came to the dressing room to deliver their congratulations," Aino Sibelius recollected later. The critics, too, were at a loss. "Everything was so strange," was how Heikki Klemetti described the atmosphere. In the years that followed audiences in many parts of the world reacted the same way.

However, Sibelius remained happy with the symphony and after the first public performance he prepared it for publication. Nowadays, the fourth symphony has come to be recognised as one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century and one of Sibelius's most magnificent achievements. It was, after all, contemporary music of the utmost modernity, a work from which all traces of aesthetisation or artificiality had been eliminated.

A kind of motto for the work is the augmented fourth, or tritone, which creates tension in all the four movements of the symphony. The atmosphere of the work varies from joyfulness to austere expressionism. Every movement fades into silence. We are as far as we could be from the triumphant finales of the second and third symphonies.

Indeed, the fourth symphony often seems to shock listeners, and analysis of the work can turn into philosophising. It is as if Sibelius were directly penetrating the merciless core of life, laying it bare without offering any kind of false consolation. He himself had felt close to death a few years earlier, when a tumour had been removed from his throat in an operation.


[Article taken from Sibelius.fi]


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Quite simply a masterpiece (of many) for Sibelius. The brooding, ominous clouds create an overcast in this enigmatic symphony. I remember the first time I heard it (Colin Davis/BSO) and I thought to myself "Okay, what the heck is this supposed to be or what is it trying to convey? Why is this music so gloomy?" It took me some time to fully appreciate the work. I think my 'breakthrough' with the work was HvK's excellent account (w/ the Berliners) on Deutsche Grammophon. From that time forward, it just started really sinking in for me. Of course, I now have many favorites besides HvK: Segerstam/Helsinki, Vanska/Lahti, Berglund/Helsinki, etc.


Please discuss your favorite performances and why this symphony is so enjoyable for you.

I just had to dig up this old post. It seemed like it was the appropriate occasion to do so.

[Madiel]

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.

Pretty much a view I'd subscribe to.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

6th, despite it's minor key, never sounded to me sad (even that incredibly catchy theme in the last movement is just too much fun). Those shimmering strings in the first movement transport me into a world with extraordinary beauty. Kind of like Finnish version of the fairytale world Tchaikovsky creates with his ballets.

[Karl Henning]

6th, despite it's minor key, never sounded to me bleak at all (even that incredibly catchy theme in the last movement is just too much fun for me to call it "bleak"). Those shimmering strings in the first movement transport me into a world with extraordinary beauty. Kind of like Finnish version of the fairytale world Tchaikovsky creates with his ballets.

This harmonizes with how I hear the symphony.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Glad to hear it, Karl. 

[Mirror Image]

6th, despite it's minor key, never sounded to me sad (even that incredibly catchy theme in the last movement is just too much fun). Those shimmering strings in the first movement transport me into a world with extraordinary beauty. Kind of like Finnish version of the fairytale world Tchaikovsky creates with his ballets.

Our own interpretations of the 6th aside, let's remember what Sibelius said about it: "The sixth symphony always reminds me of the scent of the first snow" which was stated in 1943, then, in 1955, he said "Rage and passion ... are utterly essential in it, but it is supported by undercurrents deep under the surface of the music."

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I just had to dig up this old post. It seemed like it was the appropriate occasion to do so.

And I'm so happy you did dig up this post! Wonderful read and great article.

For a long time I was never much impressed by Sibelius's compositions. It was only when I was fifteen that I grew to enjoy the second symphony. The fourth became one of my favourite pieces of music ever right as I was listening to it for the first time. Perhaps it was because it sounded so different to anything else I had heard previously...who knows.