# How do you program Tapiola?



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

In an extended interview that Sir Simon Rattle about the Sibelius symphonies as part of the cycle that he performed this week in Berlin, he made the interesting comment about Tapiola that "I almost don't know how to program it." He went on to say that it would overwhelm anything else and should almost be a concert of it's own. How would you program it? Either with other Sibelius works or with music of other composers.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Played after Sibelius's 4th Symphony or Schoenberg's Five pieces/Violin concerto or Bartok's Music for strings percussion and celesta.

Played before Hindemith's Mathis der Maler or Messiaen's L'ascension or Ligeti's Lontano/Melodien.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

If it's about pudding it should be last, like a dessert.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I have heard it on the first half of programs, probably because of it's relative brevity. I wouldn't mind it in conjunction with other Sibelius works, but for some listeners it can be to much of a good thing. I remember many years ago attending a Detroit SO performance alll Sibelius of the First Symphony and the VC (Kwung Wha Chung) with my sister. I loved it but she thought the two pieces sounded to similar and should not have been programmed together.
Rattle has a point that Tapiola could overwhelm anything that follows it, but is that so unusual? A few weeks ago at the Chicago SO we heard Brahms PC2 in the first half followed by Tchaikovsky Winter Dreams. I love both pieces but did have to concede the Tachaik being somewhat anticlimatic after the magnificence of the Brahms


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

1.) Sibelius ~ Tapiola
2.) Ligeti ~ Lontano
_intermission_
3.) Debussy ~ La Mer

I think you've mistaken a typical bit of hyperbole, i.e. "Tapiola is a strong work," with a literal bent as if Rattle was saying it was near impossible to program in any sort of balanced or intelligent way -- and that from an intelligent conductor... so at least a bit of a little problem, exaggerated perhaps to praise the Sibelius piece.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I don't see a problem. Just put it against something strongly contrasting and equally singular. How about on the first half of a program preceded by the Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes or Debussy's Nocturnes; or followed by Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto or Barber's Piano Concerto?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I program it just before I go to sleep and it almost always has its desired effect.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

I saw _Tapiola _programmed with Salonen and L.A. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion some years back.

The concert opened with the exotic caressing elegances of _Tapiola_- which, for me at any rate, perfectly set the mood for the topography of verdant islands and sub-Arctic fjords shrouded in early morning mist.

The _Kullervo_ symphony with the Estonian National Men's Chorus followed and was the _pièce de résistance_ for the concert. The sweeping drama of "Kullervo and His Sister" and "Kullervo Goes Off to War" were the perfectly conclusory statements for a perfectly Sibelian afternoon.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

hpowders said:


> I program it just before I go to sleep and it almost always has its desired effect.


:lol:..................


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