Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1 And 3

Description

Jean Sibelius(1865-1957) Symphony No. 1 in Eminor, Op. 39 Symphony No. 3 in Cmajor, Op. 52The Finnish composerJean Sibelius was born in 1865, the son of a doctor, in a small town in thesouth of Finland. The language and culture of his family, as with others oftheir class and background at the time, was Swedish. It was at school thatSibelius was to learn Finnish and acquire his first real interest in the earlylegends of a country that had become an autonomous grand-duchy of the Tsar ofRussia in the period after the defeat of Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava in1709. Throughout the later nineteenth century there were divisions between theSwedish-speaking upper classes and the Finnish-speaking people, the cause ofthe latter embraced by influential nationalists, and accentuated by therepressive measures instituted by Tsar Nicholas II, before the revolution of1905. In this society Sibelius was deeply influenced by his association withthe family of General Jarnefelt, whose daughter Aino became his wife.Nevertheless Swedish remained his mother tongue, in which he expressed himselfwith greater fluency than in Finnish.The musical abilitiesof Sibelius were soon realised, although not developed early enough to suggestmusic as a possible profession, until he had entered university in Helsinki asa law student. His first ambition had been to be a violinist. It later becameapparent that any ability he had in this respect - and here his own violinconcerto would have offered insurmountable technical difficulties for him - wasfar outweighed by his gifts as a composer, developed first by study in Helsinkiwith Martin Wegelius, then with the pedantic Becker in Berlin and withGoldmark, and more effectively, with Robert Fuchs in Vienna.In Finland once more,Sibelius won almost immediate success in 1892 with a symphonic poem, Kullervo,based on an episode from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala. Therefollowed compositions of particular national appeal that further enhanced hisreputation in Helsinki, including the incidental music to the student patrioticpageant Karelia, En Saga and the Lemminkainen Suite.During this periodSibelius supported himself and his wife by teaching, as well as by compositionand the performance of his works, but it proved difficult for him to earnenough, given, as he was, to bouts of extravagance, continuing the practice ofhis days as a student. In 1896 he was voted the position of professor at theUniversity of Helsinki, but the committee's decision was overturned in favour ofRobert Kajanus, the experienced founder and conductor of the first professionalorchestra in Helsinki. As consolation for his disappointment, Sibelius wasawarded a government stipend for ten years, and this was later changed into apension for life. The sum involved was never enough to meet his gift forimprovidence, inherited, perhaps, from his father, who, at his death in 1868,had left his family bankrupt.Sibelius continued hisactive career as a composer until 1926, his fame increas