Finlandia (disk 1)  (75:27)
	01	Andante festivo						04:39
	02	Finlandia, op. 26						08:21
	03	Valse triste, op 44/3						05:20
	04	Serenadi nro 1, op. 69a						07:17
	05	Masurkka, op. 81/1						02:24
	06	Romanssi, op. 78/2						02:56
	07	Kehtolaulu, op. 40/5						02:00
	08	Etydi, op. 76/2						01:22
	09	Kukka sarja, op. 85						01:28
	10	Kukka sarja, op. 85						02:02
	11	Kukka sarja, op. 85						03:00
	12	Kukka sarja, op. 85						01:57
	13	Kukka sarja, op. 85						02:09
	14	Haamarssi (1911)						04:00
	15	Tuonelan joutsen, op. 22/2						09:06
	16	Sydameni laulu, op. 18/6						02:13
	17	Finlandia-hymni (1940)						02:12
	18	Sinfonia nro 2, op. 43 - IV Allegro molto						13:01
Finlandia (disk 2)  (64:29)
	01	Karelia-sarja, op. 11 - Alla marcia						04:35
	02	Sinfonia nro 1, op. 39 - I Andante ma non troppo						10:42
	03	Romanssi, op. 42						04:39
	04	Kurkikohtaus, op. 44/2						05:09
	05	Rondino, op. 81/2						02:11
	06	Elegia, op. 27/1						04:03
	07	Puu-sarja, op. 75						01:54
	08	Puu-sarja, op. 75						02:46
	09	Puu-sarja, op. 75						02:44
	10	Puu-sarja, op. 75						01:44
	11	Puu-sarja, op. 75						03:37
	12	Impromptu (1893)						06:33
	13	Musette, op. 27/2						02:15
	14	Sinfonia nro 1, op. 39 IV - Andante - Allegro molto						11:37

Jean Sibelius
Country Finland
Birth Dec 8, 1865 in Hameenlinna, Finland
Death Sep 20, 1957 in Jarvenpaa, Finland
Period Modern

Biography
Jean Sibelius is perhaps the most important composer associated with nationalism in music and one of the most influential in the development of the symphony and symphonic poem.
Jean Sibelius was born in Southern Finland, the second of three children. His physician father left the family bankrupt, owing to his financial extravagance, a trait, along with heavy drinking, he would pass on to Jean. Jean showed talent on the violin and at age nine composed his first work for it, Rain Drops. In 1895 Sibelius entered the University of Helsinki to study law, but after only a year found himself drawn back to music. He took up composition studies with Martin Wegelius and violin with Mitrofan Wasiliev, then Hermann Csillag. During this time he also became a close friend of Busoni. Though Sibelius auditioned for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, he would come to realize he was not suited to a career as a violinist.

In 1889 Sibelius traveled to Berlin to study counterpoint with Albert Becker, where he also was exposed to new music, particularly that of Richard Strauss. In Vienna he studied with Karl Goldmark and then Robert Fuchs, the latter said to be his most effective teacher. Now Sibelius began pondering the composition of the Kullervo Symphony, based on the Kalevala legends. Sibelius returned to Finland, taught music, and in June 1892, married Aino Jarnefelt, daughter of General Alexander Jarnefelt, head of one of the most influential families in Finland. The premiere of Kullervo in April 1893 created a veritable sensation, Sibelius thereafter being looked upon as the foremost Finnish composer. The Lemminkainen suite, begun in 1895 and premiered on April 13, 1896, has come to be regarded as the most important music by Sibelius up to that time.

In 1897 the Finnish Senate voted to pay Sibelius a short-term pension, which some years later became a lifetime conferral. The honor was in lieu of his loss of an important professorship in composition at the music school, the position going to Robert Kajanus. The year 1899 saw the premiere of Sibelius' First Symphony, which was a tremendous success, to be sure, but not quite of the magnitude of that of Finlandia (1899; rev. 1900).

In the next decade Sibelius would become an international figure in the concert world. Kajanus introduced several of the composer's works abroad; Sibelius himself was invited to Heidelberg and Berlin to conduct his music. In March 1901, the Second Symphony was received as a statement of independence for Finland, although Sibelius always discouraged attaching programmatic ideas to his music. His only concerto, for violin, came in 1903. The next year Sibelius built a villa outside of Helsinki, named "Ainola" after his wife, where he would live for his remaining 53 years. After a 1908 operation to remove a throat tumor, Sibelius was implored to abstain from alcohol and tobacco, a sanction he followed until 1915. It is generally believed that the darkening of mood in his music during these years owes something to the health crisis.

Sibelius made frequent trips to England, having visited first in 1905 at the urging of Granville Bantock. In 1914 he traveled to Norfolk, CT, where he conducted his newest work The Oceanides. Sibelius spent the war years in Finland working on his Fifth Symphony. Sibelius traveled to England for the last time in 1921. Three years later he completed his Seventh Symphony, and his last work was the incidental music for The Tempest (1925). For his last 30 years Sibelius lived a mostly quiet life, working only on revisions and being generally regarded as the greatest living composer of symphonies. In 1955 his 90th birthday was widely celebrated throughout the world with many performances of his music. Sibelius died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1957. -- Robert Cummings




Andante Festivo, for string orchestra (arranged from string quartet version)
Composition Date 1938

Description
Despite the rejection of the string orchestra repertoire by several major publishers of his day, including the extremely influential Breitkopf & Hartel, Sibelius was drawn to the medium throughout his lifetime. Most of his works, however, are arrangements of works composed in other media which were more easily publishable and might be familiar to listeners in other guises. In 1922 Sibelius composed Andante Festivo for the 25th anniversary of the Saynatsalo plywood mill. First written for a string quartet and later arranged for a string orchestra and timpani ad libitum, its musical vocabulary is in almost complete opposition to the prevailing trends in art and music at the time. While it would have been rather fashionable, as well as appropriate for the occasion, to capture the mechanical features of the mill, Sibelius's greatest inspiration was nature, and the work features a tone of almost sacred solemnity. Curiously, Sibelius conducted the premiere of this work, long into his retirement, in a 1939 live radio broadcast to the United States on New Year's Eve. -- Brian Wise



Valse Triste, for orchestra (from Kuolema), Op. 44/1
Composition Date 1904

Description
Despite almost a century of familiarity and unsatisfactory performances by unlikely instrumental combinations, it's easy to imagine the truly magical effect that Jean Sibelius' Valse Triste (1904) must have had on audiences of the day. The Valse was extracted and published separately from the composer's incidental music to his brother-in-law's play Kuolema (Death). Still, the work stands quite well on its own as an orchestral poem in miniature, and it seems today as fresh, charming, and thoroughly well-crafted as it did when it single-handedly spread its composer's fame through the tea houses of Europe and America. A brief paraphrase of the Valse can even be found at the end of the composer's Symphony No. 7 (1924). perhaps in acknowledgement of the tremendous effect this composition had on Sibelius' career. Cast in a ternary dance form, Valse Triste opens with a simple utterance, but this apparently transparent statement masterfully introduces an overwhelming mood of vast, if perhaps bittersweet, melancholy. As the music unfolds, it exhibits a remarkable ambiguity of mood, reflecting both an old woman's joy at being reunited with her dead husband and the audience's knowledge that it is in fact Death himself that the mother is dancing with. Passions rise in the middle section, and as the opening material reasserts itself at the end of the dance, it is clear that the woman has died. The work draws to a somber end with three ominous chords. -- Blair Johnston



Karelia Suite, for orchestra, Op. 11
Composition Date 1893

Description
Sibelius' work on the incidental music to Karelia was borne on the rising tide of nationalism that swept through Finland in the 1890s. During this era, many considered education to be the best means of preserving cultural identity and thus opposing Russia's encroachment on Finland. Sibelius' score, composed in a frenzied rush in 1893, was a natural response to this outlook and to the Finnish people's fondness for historical tableaux.
The work was commissioned by the Viipuir Students' Association of the University of Helsinki -- a student organization that was prevalent across the province of Viipuri (now part of Russia) -- and was premiered at a November 1893 gala event. Proceeds from the ticket sales were to go to "improving the social and cultural life of the Eastern border districts." The work was a rousing success; as Sibelius noted in a letter to his brother Christian, "You couldn't hear a single note of the music--everyone was on their feet cheering and clapping."

Buoyed by this popular acclaim, Karelia got off to a promising start and was performed a handful of performances to similar acclaim. The composer, however, was less convinced of its musical value, and soon his excitement for the piece waned, likely from a belief that it was too loosely constructed and "tableaux-like" for a concert setting. He later condensed the eight scenes into the three-movement work now familiar as the Karelia Suite, Op. 11.

In its original form, after a patriotic overture, the work's first tableau ("Karelian Home -- Runic Song, interrupted by War Music, 1293") features a stylized "Karelianist" interpretation of rune singing from the Karelia region. In the second tableau ("The Founding of Viipuri Castle, 1293"), Sibelius incorporates a fugato based on Gregorian chant, followed by a chorale-like subject intended as a reference to the blessing of the foundation stone by Bishop Petrus. Following this lofty subject matter, the third tableaux ("Narimont, the Duke of Lithuania, levying taxes in the Province of Kaksim, 1333") somewhat prosaically depicts the collection of taxes; appropriately, it begins with clamorous battle music, followed by a central march section. The subject of the fourth tableau ("Ballade--Karl Knutsson in Viipuri Castle, 1446") is the famed King, who after being deposed in 1446 withdrew to Viipuri Castle to lick his wounds; in Sibelius' score, he seeks solace in the singing of a troubadour. The distinctly warlike fifth tableau ("Pontus de la Gardie at the Gates of Kakisalmi, 1580") includes several fanfares, some wildly dissonant in relation to a pedal bass, leading to a central Alla marcia. The sixth tableau ("The Siege of Viipuri, 1710") hints at Sibelius' characteristic mature style, an exciting combination of brisk motion and static, block-like harmonies. The seventh and eight tableaux ("The Reunion of Old Finland with the Rest of Finland, 1811" and "The Finnish National Anthem 'Our Land'") are allegorical renditions, the latter of which elevates the Finnish national anthem to new dramatic heights. As Jouni Kaipainen, who in 1997 edited and reconstructed parts of the original work, noted, "The nature and message of the tableau was so stunningly obvious that it is actually interesting to wonder how the Czarist censor ever managed to let it through." -- Brian Wise




Finlandia, tone poem for orchestra, Op. 26
Composition Date 1900

Description
Jean Sibelius' Finlandia became the composer's most enduring work in part because of the political climate in Finland at the time of its creation. Russia imposed a strict censorship policy on the small nation in 1899. In October of that year, Sibelius composed a melodrama to Finnish writer Zachria Topelius' poem The Melting of the Ice on the Ulea River, which is marked by a particularly patriotic fervor; "I was born free and free will I die" is typical of its sentiments, and one of which Sibelius took particular note. The following month saw a fund-raising gala organized by the Finnish press. While its ostensible purpose was to raise money for newspaper pension funds, it was in fact a front for rallying support for a free press at a time when the czarist hold on the country was tightening.
Sibelius extracted six tableaux from his melodrama for a performance intended to provide a celebratory end to the gathering on November 4. Innocuously titled Music for Press Ceremony, the score concluded with "Finland Awakens," which Sibelius reworked into an independent symphonic poem in the following year. Following the suggestion of his artistic confidant Axel Carpelan, he retitled this rousing patriotic essay Finlandia; since that time, the work has virtually become Finland's second national anthem. Because of censorship restrictions, the work was most often performed under the not-altogether-apt title "Impromptu" until Finland gained independence following World War I.

The work opens with a questioning, vaguely ominous brass progression that evokes the "powers of darkness" from Topelius' text, setting off a colorful drama that is at turns reflective, jubilant, and militant. Most famous, though, is a hymn-like theme which makes its first appearance in an atmosphere of quiet reverence; by the end of the work, it has become a powerful statement of triumph. Indeed, Finlandia is a clear precursor to the composer's symphonies, in which the orchestra so often assumes the role of an ever-strengthening, defiant juggernaut. -- All Music Guide




Lemminkainen Suite: Four Legends from the Kalevala, for orchestra, Op. 22
Composition Date 1895

Description
Four Legends from the Kalevala is scored for an orchestra of medium-size with English horn and harp in the second and bass tuba in the fourth. It was the fourth of Sibelius' orchestral works following studies at the Vienna Conservatory in 1890 - 1891 with Karl Goldmark and Robert Fuchs. Four Legends was written in 1895, based on mythic events in Finland's national folk epic. The long first and third Legends -- Lemminkainen and the Maidens of the Island (aka Saari) and Lemminkainen in Tuonela -- bewildered listeners and displeased critics at the Helsinki premiere on April 13, 1896. The second Legend, however, The Swan of Tuonela, and the concluding one, Lemminkainen's Homeward Journey, were immediately successful and published with minor revisions in 1900. Sibelius labored over the two longer ones during 1896 - 1897, then put them aside. They remained in a drawer until 1935, almost a decade after the composer had officially stopped composing. In 1939 he made "final" revisions, his last thoughts for orchestra. Lemminkainen was the handsome, hereditarily randy son of Lempi, the god of erotic love. In the first musical Legend, based on "Runo 29," he takes refuge on a remote island from a horde of Pohjolanders whose leader he beheaded in a sword fight. The island's male population has gone to war, leaving behind 100 widows and 1,000 virgins. During the next three years, Lemminkainen beds all but one before the men return, forcing him to flee again. The music's principal subject groups in E flat major characterize first the seducer and then the dance music of his overjoyed conquests without being specifically pictorial, as Richard Strauss had been a decade earlier in Don Juan. Structure here, and again in Legend No. 3, is organic rather than conventionally symphonic: it evolves from malleable materials heard early on, reworked with great ingenuity and expressive beauty leading to a powerfully dramatic climax. Sibelius prefaced the score of Legend No. 2 with lines from "Runo 14": "Tuonela, the land of death, the hell of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by black waters and a rapid current, on which the Swan on Tuonela floats majestically, singing." The mood-painting is somber in A minor (anticipating the Symphony No. 4 16 years later), with a haunting English horn solo characterizing the black swan. In the dark-hued and gripping third Legend, based on "Runo 14," Lemminkainen is told to kill the swan by Louhi, the cunning mistress of Pohjola, to gain the hand of a daughter. But a blind cowherd intuits his murderous intent and from a river reed fashions a poisonous serpent that kills the swan hunter. When the cowherd throws Lemminkainen's body into the swirling river, the son of Tuonela's ruling deity angrily hacks it into 40 pieces. Lemminkainen's supernatural mother manages, however, to retrieve the pieces and reassemble them so that her restored son in Legend No. 4 can exultantly ride home in E flat major. -- roger dettmer




Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43
Composition Date 1901 -1902

Description
The genesis of the Second Symphony can be traced to Sibelius' trip to Italy in early 1901. The trip came about at the suggestion of his friend, the amateur musician Axel Carpelan, and it was there that he began contemplating several ambitious projects, including a four-movement tone poem based on the Don Juan story and a setting of Dante's Divina Commedia. While none of these plans ever came to fruition, some of the ideas sketched during this trip did find their way into the second movement of the symphony. Carpelan was also instrumental in raising money to allow Sibelius to relinquish his work at the Helsinki Conservatoire and devote himself to the composition of the Second Symphony. Despite his friend's help, Sibelius' return to Finland for the summer and autumn was not accompanied by any great burst of inspiration, and extensive revisions delayed the first performance first to January 1902, and then to March 1903. But from then on, the symphony enjoyed unparalleled success in Finland and eventually led to the major breakthrough in Germany that was so craved by Scandinavian composers of this era (one which Nielsen, for instance, never achieved). The Second Symphony has retained an extraordinary popularity for its individualistic tonal language, dark wind coloring, muted string writing, simple folk-like themes, and distinctly "national" flavor that are all Sibelian to the core. While the opening mood is pastoral, it leads to an air of instability, in which small, short gestures seem to arise at random and then trail off. Yet there is a subtle coherence to the work that counters its seemingly shapeless quality. All of the material of the first movement emerges from either the two repeated-note subjects heard in the strings and winds at the opening, or from a brooding idea first presented in the winds and brass.
Unlike the first movement, in which the gentleness of the introduction is recaptured at the conclusion, the second movement is full of turbulence and ends without consolation. Two competing subjects seem to engage in a battle: First, a dirge-like bassoon melody in D minor marked "lugubrious" builds to a towering culmination in winds and brass; then an ethereal, ruminative theme is played by divided strings in the key of F sharp major. The energetic scherzo, with its machine-gun figures in the strings, is built from a fragment of greatest simplicity: a repeated B flat followed by a turn around that note.

Following the precedent of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the Scherzo is linked directly to the finale through a grand rhetorical bridge passage. The symphony at last achieves a flowing D major melodic line that heroically shakes off the D minor preparation, in the best sense of the Romantic tradition. Also like Beethoven, Sibelius brings back the transitional material a second time so that the victory of the major key can be savored anew, after which he concludes the work with a hymn-like peroration. That said, the Second Symphony marks the end of Sibelius' early Romantic period that paid homage to his predecessors. In subsequent works, his interest rested more in pursing new formal methods based on fragmentation and recombination. -- Brian Wise





Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Composition Date 1899

Description
When, at 33, Sibelius finally composed his Symphony No. 1, he already had a portfolio of orchestral music. His harmonic vocabulary, technical apparatus, orchestral style, and thematic character (rooted in the Finnish language) were firmly in place and organized. If, as Beckmessers have carped from the beginning, the first symphony here and there echoes Tchaikovsky, so do contemporaneous works by Glazunov and Rachmaninov; Pyotr Il'yich's Pathetique Symphony was not yet six years old when Sibelius introduced his new First with the Helsinki Philharmonic on April 27, 1899.
Melodic substance and sonorities are voluptuous in the First without bursting the corset-stays of decorum or modesty. As Finnish patriotism hardened into resistance, Sibelius became emblematic both at home and abroad. His music attracted an ever-growing and appreciative following in Great Britain and the United States (but none at all in France, Italy, or Vienna). Politics aside, Russian conductors and concertgoers liked it nearly as much -- especially the First and Second symphonies. While No. 2 is technically surer and structurally tighter, No. 1 is the more memorable melodically, and the more volatile emotionally.

The whole first movement is unified by a theme heard at the outset, played by a single clarinet over a soft timpani roll, then without accompaniment. In one way or another, the abundance of themes in a tightly argued movement derives from this opening, most ingeniously so in an episode for staccato flutes playing in thirds over strings and harp, extensively developed later on but not reprised before two E minor chords at the end.

Both the slow movement and the scherzo are free adaptations of three-part form (ABA). Instead of new material, the B section of the Andante develops the main theme of A and then reprises only that theme. Here more than anywhere else, the Pathetique of Pyotr Il'yich casts an occasional lugubrious shadow on isolated string and bassoon passages.

The pounding, headlong scherzo, with an A section in C, D flat, and G major, restores the timpani to prominence. The middle part, however, is slow (Lento) and sostenuto, in E major, until a transition back to the C major song section, where the previous D flat material is reprised in G flat before an accelerating coda.

The finale begins in E minor with the same theme that opened the symphony, here played throbbingly by violins, violas, and cellos before its fragmentary development by pairs or groups of winds. This is only the introduction, however, to a sonata-form Finale. Its main-theme group of fast-moving, folk-flavored segments -- fragments, almost -- sets up a lyrical second theme played by unison violins on the G string. Thereafter, the main-theme group is developed extensively, verging on melodrama, following which the bardic G string theme returns. It, too, is developed to a passionate climax before the ending echoes the first movement: two E minor chords -- now soft, however, rather than loud, and pizzicato rather than sostenuto. -- Roger Dettmer





Romance, for string orchestra in C major, Op. 42
Composition Date 1904

Description
Sibelius wrote this miniature (five-minute) composition in 1903, between two versions of a work on a much grander scale: the popular violin concerto. Unlike the concerto, or most of the composer's popular large-scale works, the charm of the Romance comes from a simple setting of a characteristic melody, with effective and straightforward use of the string orchestra.
Sibelius was going through a turbulent period of financial difficulty while writing this work, an experience which was common during the first half of his life (the introduction of certain copyright laws later would go some way to alleviating this problem). He would look back on this period, however, as a time of happiness. He was still composing in the Romantic style of his early works, partly derived from Tchaikovsky and Grieg, and it was observed at the first performance of this piece that it owed something to Tchaikovsky. In the decade following the composition of Romance, the composer's works became more austere, a trend especially audible from the Fourth Symphony onwards. It has, oddly enough, been suggested that this austerity resulted from the composer's having being forced to give up cigars and alcohol, but deeper musical and spiritual forces were no doubt at work.

Opus 42 was originally entitled "Andante," and carried that name through the first five years of its existence. The impulse for the change to "Romance" came when a review of the piece suggested that a title such as "Nocturne" or "Romance" would have been more appropriate. Sibelius evidently took the idea to heart, changing the name to Romance when he attempted to get the work published in 1908.

Romance is formed of three main sections, a slow, Andante beginning, a more rapid middle section and finally another slow section. The middle section is set apart in tempo, but melodically this little crowd-pleaser is nicely knit together. -- Rachel Campbell





Scene with Cranes, tone poem for orchestra (from Kuolema), Op. 44/2
Composition Date 1906

Description
Scene with Cranes, Op. 44, No. 2, was composed in 1903 as part of the incidental music that Jean Sibelius created for his brother-in-law Arvid Jarnefelt's play Kuolema (Death); it is, then, a sister piece to the much more famous Valse Triste, Op. 44, No. 1. While Valse Triste was an item of almost disgusting popularity during the first two decades of the new century (especially so to Sibelius, who constantly lamented that he had sold the little work for a pittance and thus received no royalties at all when it proved to be a smash hit), Scene with Cranes has always stayed on the fringes of the repertory.
Scored for strings, timpani and a pair of B flat clarinets (who are used sparingly as representatives of the cranes themselves), Scene with Cranes -- or Kurkikohtaus as it is called in Finnish -- is a four-minute piece arranged from two consecutive bits of incidental music: specifically, incidental music items Nos. 3 and 4. Sibelius reworked the original music to form a seamless, cohesive, slow moving 59-measure whole. Misty and evocative, Scene with Cranes begins as the first violins (who, along with the rest of the strings, are con sordino -- muted) spin a beautifully aimless melody -- it seems to have no solid point of origin or goal -- in their upper-middle register. The second violins and violas slide chromatically downward as they try to find a grip on the tune and lend some kind of support.

The clarinets are heard in only eight measures in the middle of the piece. The watery pianissimo of the opening music is tossed out in favor of a series of tense sforzandos, against which the two clarinets -- indeed, the two cranes -- call out six times. Even more sparingly used is the timpanist, however, whose part consists only of two triple-piano (ppp) rolls near the end of the Scene; and few, if any, will even notice the timpanist playing at this point, for a doleful violin solo starts up at the exact same moment. -- Blair Johnston



Pieces (5) for violin & piano, Op. 81
Composition Date 1915 -1918

Description
"I was at an age where one chases chimeras," said Jean Sibelius of his resigned abandonment of a career as a violin virtuoso. He had given that career a healthy try, for as a young student he became competent enough to perform the Mendelssohn E minor Concerto. But Sibelius had begun study of the violin at age 15 and perhaps lacked the total assurance that goes beyond accomplishment. Nonetheless, his understanding of the instrument served him in good stead not only in his own Violin Concerto, but also in his numerous chamber works. That he could write with understanding for the virtuoso may be divined from his five Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 81.
While this collection not as highly regarded from a purely musical standpoint as the composer's other efforts in this medium, there are occasional glimpses of the characteristic Finn in Op. 81. The first of the set, "Mazurka," alternates a typically Sibelian melody, brooding and Nordic-flavored, with virtuoso leaps and slides. The second of the set, the brief, charming "Rondino," alternates a melody curiously anticipatory of Prokofiev's lighter moments with trills and fermatas; a cello arrangement of this piece also exists. No. 3, "Waltz," and No. 4, "Aubade," are more solidly in the salon tradition. However, the last in the set, "Menuetto," is a bit less conventional in a subtle way. Although the title would seem to hearken back to the age of Rococo elegance, the main melody has an icy fragility to it, a Mozart-in-furs quality. The trio is more hearty yet unpredictable. Even when writing with an eye to what is lucrative (as salon music still was in 1918), Sibelius still chose to stroll, however briefly, from the well-worn path. -- Wayne Reisig




Pieces (5) for piano ("The Flowers"), Op. 85
Composition Date 1917

Description
The "Flowers" suite is one of the many small scale works Sibelius composed during his long work on the various versions of the Symphony No. 5, the second revision of which was completed in 1916, the year "Flowers" was written. Op. 85 is by no means among Sibelius' best works for the piano, but it does have its charm. Like so many of Sibelius' instrumental miniatures, "Flowers" seems to have been written with the drawing room, not the concert hall, in mind. Those looking for the cragginess and power of Sibelius' best-known works will likely be disappointed with "Flowers." But if one is a fan of Grieg's "Lyric Pieces" or the salon-oriented music of composers like Edward McDowell, one may find some enjoyment here.
The opening piece, "The Daisy," is ornate and rather dainty; its unusual, unresolved ending comes as a bit of a surprise. "The Carnation" features a lilting tune over a rolling, obsessive left-hand. Perhaps the most interesting of the five is "The Iris," with its almost Debussyan harmonies. A touch of Sibelius' humor arises in "The Snapdragon." And some of the abruptness of gesture one finds so typically in Sibelius' Symphonies lends to the searching quality of "The Campanula," which also features a memorable, ascending minor key ending. -- chris morrison






Pieces (5) for piano ("The Trees"), Op. 75
Composition Date 1914

Description
Sibelius published his first piano music in 1893, and, seldom heard as the results are, wrote piano music (for the most part miniatures of two or three minutes duration) at regular intervals for the remainder of his composing career. Often he would take refuge in such small, comparatively unambitious pieces while struggling with a larger composition. Such was the case with the collection "Trees," Op. 75, written in 1914 while Sibelius was hard at work on the Symphony No. 5. The publication of "Trees," as well as the similar but weaker Op. 74 and 76 piano collections, also provided a little extra income for the Sibelius family during this difficult early period of the Great War.
Much has been written about Sibelius love of nature. Although he also enjoyed the bustle and social atmosphere of larger cities, he consistently sought refuge in the countryside, going so far as to purchase a log house (which he named Ainola after his wife Aina) miles away from Helsinki, where he lived for the last 53 years of his life. One can appreciate his feelings in such a collection as "Trees"--one can practically hear the wind blowing through the branches in a piece like "The Lonely Pine." "When the Rowan Flowers" is slightly angular melodically and harmonically, with just enough of the characteristic Sibelian sound to maintain interest. "The Aspen" is a sweet and oddly memorable little trifle, while "The Birch" is almost exultant at first, but with a quiet, pensive ending. There is a genuine wistfulness at the core of "The Spruce," bringing to a quiet close one of the best of Sibelius' piano collections.

An addendum: the "Trees" suite originally had a sixth piece, titled "The Lilac," which Sibelius later fashioned into the orchestral Valse lyrique Op. 96a (1919). -- chris morrison





Impromptu(s)
Composition Date 1893 -1918

Description
Jean Sibelius produced a surprisingly substantial body of piano music, which includes nine Impromptus, six of them making up his 1893 set of Impromptus (6), Op. 5. His large chamber music catalog includes but one Impromptu, the Op. 78/1 (1915), from Pieces (4) for violin (or cello) and piano. The Impromptus (6), Op. 5, are light pieces, each having a duration of two or three minutes, except for the Sixth, which lasts around seven minutes. The first two are in G minor, the first one brooding and austere, but with gentle harmonies, the second brighter and livelier. The A minor Third, though marked Moderato (alla marcia), has the spirit of a colorful peasant dance, while the ensuing Impromptu in E minor exudes a folk-ish melancholy. The Fifth is permeated with swirls and descending cascades of notes perhaps suggesting a waterfall or pastoral scene. The final piece offers a lovely, folk-like melody (Commodo) in relatively simple, tranquil writing. The 1895 Impromptu No. 1 from Pieces (10), Op. 24, begins ferociously, but only partially settles, presenting a stormy, agitated theme that leads back to a reprise of the opening material. The two lone piano efforts from the latter part of the composer's career, from the Opp. 97 (1920) and 99 (1922), are also light, the former offering a lovely melody in a slightly Ravelian nocturnal setting, the latter a brighter, playful piece of almost childlike character. The Impromptu for violin (or cello) and piano, Op. 78, is chipper and also quite light, exuding a folk-ish charm in its march-like character. -- Robert Cummings



King Christian II (Kung Kristian II), incidental music & orchestral suite for voice & orchestra, Op. 27
Composition Date 1898

Description
Jean Sibelius' great love for, and understanding of the theater led to the composition of twelve scores of incidental music for various plays. Some of these scores, such as the music for Kuolema (which contains the famous Valse Triste), consist of a handful of individual numbers to be inserted into the drama at appropriate moments -- either when the drama demands musical reinforcement, or when music is specifically called for by the story-line (again the Valse Triste is a prime example). Other entries in the genre, such as the extensive score for a 1925 Copenhagen production of Shakespeare's The Tempest, go more in the direction of full-length, continuous accompaniment. Sibelius' very first work of incidental music, the music for King Christian II, composed in 1897 and 1898, falls into the former category.
The play King Christian II concerns the love of the historical King Christian, ruler of all Scandinavia, for a commoner named Dyveke. During late 1897 Sibelius composed four numbers to accompany the successful February 14, 1898 theatrical premiere; three additional numbers were added to the score during the following summer.

The "Elegy," scored for strings alone, was originally meant to serve as a prelude to the entire production, and is not at all the kind of grim music that one so often associates with the title, "elegy." The charming "Musette" that follows, originally intended as a dance piece for Dyveke, the King's love-interest, was somewhat well-known during the early years of the century. Although string parts were later added to the score, the piece was originally played by just a pair each of clarinets and bassoons -- street musicians in the play.

Following the "Musette" is a Minuet, scored lightly for flutes, clarinets and strings, and then the touching and witty "Fool's Song of the Spider," the colorful instrumentation of which (voice, harp, strings, and triangle) serves to immediately establish its composer's identity.

The three works that follow are distinguished from their predecessors in several regards: they are all somewhat later compositions, they are all scored for full orchestra, and -- with the possible exception of the "Serenade" -- they are all sewn from musical silk that is at least one grade lower in quality than that of the original four pieces. The "Nocturne" is a lyrical movement that makes striking use of the tambourine. The "Serenade" is intended to preface the third act of the play; its sweeping melody looks forward to the lush ideas in the Finale of the First Symphony. The boisterous "Ballade" that concludes the incidental music is the kind of stormy scene that dramatic composers so often attempt and so rarely succeed at; a quick comparison of this effort with one of Verdi's, or, sure enough, Sibelius' own Tempest a quarter-century later, will reveal the Ballade's shortcomings. While the main, rhythmic idea, has something of the physical drive that we find in the Finale to the First Symphony, the working-out of this movement is far too repetitive and generally uninspired to succeed very well. -- Blair Johnston