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Music in a Nutshell x Sibelius

Where does the music of Sibelius fit into the timeline of classical music? What does it mean in terms of listening? Or in terms of Finnish music?

The classical music timeline is very long. It is considered to have begun when the oral tradition developed into written musical notation. Musical expression changed with the development of more precise notation methods towards today’s classical music.

What impact do historical trends have on how the music of Sibelius sounds?

The music of Sibelius is situated in the decades before and after the turn of the 19th century. This was a time when the Romantic style had been dominant for a long time. Compared to the strict formal ideals of Classicism, its experimental influence, which developed and expanded the musical language in so many ways, had changed music in many different ways.

At the beginning of the 20th century, musicians drew inspiration from Impressionism in the visual arts and boldly tested the extreme limits of tonality: why settle for just major and minor or the laws of these seven notes when a composer could use all twelve tones in his compositions? Sibelius too faced these questions and explored the musical possibilities in his own musical language.

The music of Sibelius compared to previous eras

The tone language of Sibelius’s music can be examined by comparing it to 18th-century art music, Classicism, on which the theory of composition during Sibelius’s student years was largely based. You can listen to the differences from two different perspectives: on the one hand, there is another era in the music, yet on the other hand, Sibelius as a composer is searching for his own paths.

Listen to:

Mozart: Symphony No. 40 G minor, KV. 550: I Allegro molto
Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 C major, op. 52: III Moderato - Allegro (ma non tanto)

The differences between the music of the Classical period and that of Sibelius can also be addressed by examining the different elements of music. The elements of music are harmony, melody, rhythm, tonal colour, form, and dynamics. Compared to Mozart’s music, in Sibelius’s music:

The harmony is varied. The music may not have clear major or minor chords.
The rhythm is more complex. It might be difficult to tap along with this.
The melody is difficult to distinguish. It is here and there in small pieces.
The tonal colour is boldly used as an effect.

The world, Finland and Sibelius at the turn of the 20th century

What was music like in Sibelius’s time and what kind of music did he himself compose? And what about the period in which Sibelius lived and worked in Finland? Next, we will examine the significance of Sibelius’s music from an international and national perspective.

The world

Drawing on the idea of nationality had been a common trend around the world since the 19th century. In the spirit of the Romantic era, efforts were made to explore the national past and find both heroic stories and great emotions. The ideal was to bring folklore into art and create a national high culture of its own.

In the late 19th century, Sibelius could hear works by Tchaikovsky, Bruckner and Brahms, for example. Composers who were contemporaries of Sibelius in the 20th century included Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Stravinsky and Bartók.

Finland

Johan Christian Julius “Jean” Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was born in the Grand Duchy of Finland during the period of autonomy under Russian rule. He was 52 years old when Finland gained independence.

Finns, dreaming of independence at the turn of the century, feverishly collected concrete examples of its own identity. The underdog nation, which had lived under both Swedish and Russian rule, wanted to prove – not least to itself – that it belonged to the ranks of civilised nations. Its own culture and art were seen as proof that we too had the right to our own independent state. The need to strengthen the Finnish identity grew during the periods of oppression under Nicholas II.

The desire to find our own place in the world created fertile ground for the birth of Finnish National Romantic art. The period 1890–1914 is considered the Golden Age of Finnish art, when many of our significant artistic pillars were established. In the field of music, an orchestra and an orchestra school were founded in Helsinki in 1882. Today, we know them as the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki.

Against this background, many of Sibelius’s early orchestral works, such as Kullervo (1891), the Karelia Overture (1893) and Karelia Suite (1894), the Lemminkäinen Suite (1895), Finlandia (Finland Awakes, 1899) and Pohjola’s Daughter (1906), are connected within a larger context to the themes of the Kalevala and Karelia.

Sibelius

The historical context largely explains why the composer who achieved international fame in symphonic art music was so important, respected and loved in Finland and why our national voice is still largely considered to belong to Sibelius and his music.

Sibelius proved with his world-wide fame that Finland is a nation with a civilised culture and an equal among other countries. Accordingly, Finns too had the right to their own state. With his international landmark works such as his Violin Concerto – still the most performed violin concerto in the world – Sibelius joined the ranks of great composers in the canon of classical music.

Sibelius was one of the first composers to receive his musical education in Finland at the newly founded Helsinki Music Institute (founded in 1882, now the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki). Its purpose was to offer higher music education for the first time in Finland.

While completing his studies, Sibelius still composed in the tradition of classical music. His further studies in Germany and Austria then pushed him to search for his own origins, and the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, provided a fascinating cadence from which he drew inspiration for his compositional work. Over the years, his style matured into its own voice, finding his own paths on the fringes of traditional art music and Finnish culture, while also keeping in line with the international stylistic shift.

Sibelius gained influences from abroad both during his studies and during his numerous trips, during which he met many well-known composers. The most famous of these meetings must have been with Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Sibelius also met French composer Claude Debussy, who greatly influenced Impressionist music, and Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg, who developed the 12-tone system that led to the emergence of atonal music.