# Sibelius et al



## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

So sebelius and the like .... The violin concerto is amazing - engaging, thrilling and gorgeous. I excitedly commenced exploring some of his symphonies - only to discover its like listening to ver pleasant and at times dramatic incidental film music i.e. all atmosphere but incoherent. Do I lack patience or sophistication ? Should I persevere or just stick with classical and baroque ???


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2015)

Persevere.

(The sense of incoherence comes from how he handles melodies, especially in symphony nr. 4 and _The Bard._ He puzzled me enormously when I was a kid, but I was intrigued by the sound, so I checked out all the Sibelius LPs from my local library (Sacramento) and listened to Sibelius over and over again for a week. It was delightful, and I've never lost my taste for his music. But the peculiar quality his music had for me when I did not quite "get it"? Well, that's pretty much gone. I get glimpses of it from time to time, but nothing like in that magical week.

I never get to hear the Carter _Double Concerto_ that so puzzled and so dazzled me in the fall of 1972, either. I love what I have, of course. It's a delightful piece of music. But it's not what I first heard. That piece is lost to me forever.

Knowledge is good. Understanding is good. But there is a downside. My suggestion would be to enjoy the incoherence as much as you can for as long as it lasts. Because that sense of things simply will not last for long. And when it's gone, it's gone.)


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Thank you. It was 4 that prompted my post. What I did not say is, there is something I find compelling about his sound. (If I do lose that sense of incoherence in Sibelius I somehow feel there may be other composers quite able to confound and frustrate yet beguile me...)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

juliante said:


> Thank you. It was 4 that prompted my post. What I did not say is, there is something I find compelling about his sound. (If I do lose that sense of incoherence in Sibelius I somehow feel there may be other composers quite able to confound and frustrate yet beguile me...)


The Fourth confounded me the first time I heard it too. I had heard the First and loved it, so I decided to jump into the other half of the disc, and ended up confused by the fact that it didn't sound like the First at all, as far as I could tell. Now it's my favorite Sibelius symphony by some margin (and I love the rest of them as well).


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

If you're just getting into Sibelius, if you have the time and inclination, you might consider looking into David Hurwitz's Sibelius book. He is a great communicator and doesn't get overly technical. It helped me to understand this unique composer.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

some guy said:


> Persevere.
> 
> (The sense of incoherence comes from how he handles melodies, especially in symphony nr. 4 and _The Bard._ He puzzled me enormously when I was a kid, but I was intrigued by the sound, so I checked out all the Sibelius LPs from my local library (Sacramento) and listened to Sibelius over and over again for a week. It was delightful, and I've never lost my taste for his music. But the peculiar quality his music had for me when I did not quite "get it"? Well, that's pretty much gone. I get glimpses of it from time to time, but nothing like in that magical week.
> 
> ...


That is an insightful post. Its good to hear how you think about and perceive music.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Thanks for this.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

For the fourth it might also help listening to individual movements so as to get familiar with them. The beautiful third movement can almost stand on itself as a tone poem or something of the sort.


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

DON'T give up on this guy. 

I too was underwhelmed at first, making the mistake of comparing him to Gustav Mahler since he was/is regarded as one the greatest symphonists. It took me a bit of patience and perseverance, and one night the 4th symphony clicked for me. I have never looked back, and Sibelius is easily a top 10 composer for me, possibly top 5 on some days. An INCREDIBLE composer; my life has been enriched since I have discovered his music. 

My suggestion: don't have any expectations on what you "think" he should sound like, go in with an open mind, become a little familiar with both the tone poems and symphonies (maybe slip in a cantata or other work as well) and you might just find yourself in my situation - which is playing his music way too often and buying way too many editions 

Good luck!


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## Proms Fanatic (Nov 23, 2014)

chalkpie said:


> My suggestion: don't have any expectations on what you "think" he should sound like, go in with an open mind,


I think this can apply to many composers; particularly contemporary music that might seem underwhelming/strange if you're not willing to put in effort to listen to the music with an open mind.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

I am reinvigorated to dive back in!


chalkpie said:


> DON'T give up on this guy.
> 
> I too was underwhelmed at first, making the mistake of comparing him to Gustav Mahler since he was/is regarded as one the greatest symphonists. It took me a bit of patience and perseverance, and one night the 4th symphony clicked for me. I have never looked back, and Sibelius is easily a top 10 composer for me, possibly top 5 on some days. An INCREDIBLE composer; my life has been enriched since I have discovered his music.
> 
> ...


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## papsrus (Oct 7, 2014)

I've just started to dive into Sibelius' symphonies as well, listening to the Berglund-Bournemouth set. Rather than getting an impression of incidental film music, as the OP describes, I'm finding them brimming with wonderful melody, not as brooding as I'd anticipated at all, and, particularly with No. 3 and onwards, much "weightier" or perhaps more complex thematically than I anticipated.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Listen to his songs also they are very beautiful.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Thanks all, after some intense listening I am getting there, especially symph 5. Still, he's no Brahms is he


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

papsrus said:


> I've just started to dive into Sibelius' symphonies as well, listening to the Berglund-Bournemouth set. Rather than getting an impression of incidental film music, as the OP describes, I'm finding them brimming with wonderful melody, not as brooding as I'd anticipated at all, and, particularly with No. 3 and onwards, much "weightier" or perhaps more complex thematically than I anticipated.


The way he takes his themes and transforms them is just insanely brilliant. I never knew that he was "this" composer until I started to become familiar and started to hear these things in his music. And yes, melodies that stay with you for weeks - so gorgeous, deep, sometimes dark, mysterious, and foreboding, but never cliche. This guy is the real deal IMO.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

juliante said:


> Thanks all, after some intense listening I am getting there, especially symph 5. Still, he's no Brahms is he


No, he's no Brahms. One Brahms is enough (a fact which didn't dissuade Herzogenberg).

Sibelius is very much himself - one of music's true originals. Brahms always labored under the weight of his native musical tradition; I often think I can hear that weight pressing down on him, and a little of his weariness at having to bear it. Sibelius had no native tradition: if Austria-Germany had too much music, Finland, striving to emerge as a country and a culture from centuries of domination, needed music. Sibelius drank and talked with his friends into the wee hours about Finland and a new art for Finland. He became fluent in Finnish (he had grown up speaking Swedish like other middle-class Finns). He read the _Kalevala_, the Finnish national epic compiled from Finnish folklore and published as recently as 1849. From it he set the story of Kullervo's death to music, music like none ever heard before - and with that he became the musical voice of his country, still twenty-five years from its declaration of independence.

Sibelius's works are "classics" now, but they have been subject, sometimes notoriously, to the ups and downs of artistic fashion and critical opinion. During the years of his greatest productivity, musical developments on the European mainland (if we may think of the Finland of that time as a remote cultural island) were such as to marginalize a "provincial" composer whose fundamental aesthetic and musical vocabulary seemed reactionary and irrelevant. His music attained great popularity in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and North America, but for decades remained little known in Germany and France, chief centers of "modernist" trends. None of this matters now, of course, and what keeps on impressing us about Sibelius is not his traditionalism but, ironically, his originality. Each of Sibelius's symphonies and tone poems is a fresh journey and a distinctive approach to problems of musical form, especially thematic development. It won't do for us to set out on one of his symphonic journeys with expectations of what we'll see along the way, or of the musical shapes in which it might appear. He never stopped trying to find new refinements of his own developing language - new sounds, new forms, and new ways of translating his inner and outer perceptions into tone. In the latter respect he remained a Romantic: it isn't only in his tone poems, with titles drawn from Finnish mythology, but in his "abstract" symphonies as well, that his music seems to be telling us of things beyond itself. To millions of listeners Sibelius, more than any other composer, gives audible form to the spirit of the northern world: its moods and atmospheres, its subtle light, its profound cold, its soft sounds, colors, and textures, and the impersonal and sometimes frightening forces of nature. If Brahms had his ear on the heavy tread of Beethoven behind him, Sibelius had his on the aurora borealis whispering its secrets in the winter sky.

May your journeys into the world of this unique composer be rewarding.


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## Steve Wright (Mar 13, 2015)

some guy said:


> Persevere.
> 
> (He puzzled me enormously when I was a kid, but I was intrigued by the sound, so I checked out all the Sibelius LPs from my local library (Sacramento) and listened to Sibelius over and over again for a week. It was delightful, and I've never lost my taste for his music. But the peculiar quality his music had for me when I did not quite "get it"? Well, that's pretty much gone. I get glimpses of it from time to time, but nothing like in that magical week.
> 
> ...


Gosh and golly, that's good, and I don't _think_ I have quite thought about music in this way before - I tend to listen to music (Bruckner and Sibelius, currently, for me) just to enjoy but also, I think, with the latent aim of _getting to know it better_, so it becomes familiar, understandable - and at that point, so I think at least, most loved.
That it could be at its most fascinating (or just differently fascinating) in those moments _before_ I've properly understood it - I hadn't really thought of that, but I can see there could be plenty of truth in this.
I'm gonna listen with a new ear during those fascinating, early hearings now. Thank you!


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

Keep trying! Once you "get it," you'll realize that Sibelius was perhaps the most coherent symphonist of the early 20th century. His means of organic development allowed a music of stunning power and deceiving simplicity. But you have to focus. Listen to the way each instrument leads into the other, the way small cells grow into grand statements. If you don't focus, it can sound disconnected and unmelodic (after the 2nd Symphony, anyway), but if you get in the right mood and approach the symphonies on their own merits, you _will _be rewarded.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I recently read where someone described Sibelius as the first of the minimalists ... and I almost fell over laughing, but in a way he is ... just not the way that is meant by minimalism. What Sibelius manages to do is to put a maximum amount of thematic material and development into a minimal space. This is seen throughout his career but started to become most noticeable with the 4th and 5th symphonies. The 7th and _Tapiola_ demonstrate this very strongly and we can only imagine where his 8th symphony took him before he destroyed it. What this means is that coming to grips with his oeuvre can be quite challenging, but like all such works, is worth the effort.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> I recently read where someone described Sibelius as the first of the minimalists ... and I almost fell over laughing, but in a way he is ... just not the way that is meant by minimalism. What Sibelius manages to do is to put a maximum amount of thematic material and development into a minimal space. This is seen throughout his career but started to become most noticeable with the 4th and 5th symphonies. The 7th and _Tapiola_ demonstrate this very strongly and we can only imagine where his 8th symphony took him before he destroyed it. What this means is that coming to grips with his oeuvre can be quite challenging, but like all such works, is worth the effort.


That comparison of Sibelius with the minimalists probably refers to his frequent "ostinati"- figures that repeat over and over - which he uses to create a hypnotic effect. But it is an expressive device, not a basic principle of construction, as it is with the minimalists. He also develops his material through gradual metamorphosis in the course of a piece, but unlike the minimalists he doesn't develop his ostinato figures, which are generally nonthematic. Any resemblances to minimalism in Sibelius are superficial.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I've listened to a couple of his symphonies a few times, didn't really connect with them, but I was fascinated. As of today I am starting with a serious Sibelius project. I'm having listening sessions while commuting and in bed. This morning I listened to number 7. The piece had just finished when my train arrived at destination. It was a glorious start of the day.


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

DeepR said:


> I've listened to a couple of his symphonies a few times, didn't really connect with them, but I was fascinated. As of today I am starting with a serious Sibelius project. I'm having listening sessions while commuting and in bed. This morning I listened to number 7. The piece had just finished when my train arrived at destination. It was a glorious start of the day.


S7 is one of his greatest works imo. Brilliant.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

juliante said:


> So sebelius and the like .... The violin concerto is amazing - engaging, thrilling and gorgeous. I excitedly commenced exploring some of his symphonies - only to discover its like listening to ver pleasant and at times dramatic incidental film music i.e. all atmosphere but incoherent. Do I lack patience or sophistication ? Should I persevere or just stick with classical and baroque ???


Try different versions - these work for me:

Symphony 7 - 
Daniel Garding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Leif Segerstam and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Symphony 5 - 
Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia Orchestra


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I don't know what to say to Sibelius doubters. I always loved his music from my first and childish encounters - the 2nd Symphony (I can't remember who conducted - perhaps Monteux but I may be confusing it with the Franck symphony which I heard at around the same time), the Violin Concerto (Francescatti), the Karelia Suite. The 5th (Barbirolli) took me a little longer but I loved the 7th as soon as I heard it (it was the coupling with Barbirolli's 5th). The 4th (Maazel's wonderful Vienna recording) came next. I now think that the 5th is probably his greatest achievement (not quite the same as saying my favourite).


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> He became fluent in Finnish (he had grown up speaking Swedish like other middle-class Finns).


It doesn´t have to do with class. The Swedish population in Finland are descendants of people that came from Sweden in the middle ages. There are also large parts of Finland were the majority speaks Swedish. For Sibelius it is really close to how Liszt was Hungarian while he hardly spoke Hungarian and was really German.


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## nobilmente (Dec 18, 2018)

From the excellent https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Symphony_No._5_(Sibelius) :


> During the composition phase of the 5th Symphony, Sibelius wrote in his diary: "It is as if God Almighty had thrown down pieces of a mosaic for heaven's floor and asked me to find out what was the original pattern."


So, these (later) works often operate as a process of discovery, where the inner logic implied by the initial possibly somewhat fragmentary presentation reveals itself over time.

Possibly my favourite is the 6th, the pure instrumental polyphony in the early parts I find simply sublime.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

juliante said:


> So sebelius and the like .... The violin concerto is amazing - engaging, thrilling and gorgeous. I excitedly commenced exploring some of his symphonies - only to discover its like listening to ver pleasant and at times dramatic incidental film music i.e. all atmosphere but incoherent. Do I lack patience or sophistication ? Should I persevere or just stick with classical and baroque ???


5 years on, can I make an almost complete retraction?  My appreciation and ear have been transformed since this post. Also - who are 'et al'? I ask myself. I suspect any composer of orchestral works post 1830 except Brahms. I now love so many symphonies of the 20th C, particularly the first half to be fair. But not a full retraction - I feel I have now explored Sibelius enough to be pretty sure he's not my cup of tea - I experience his music as oppressively heavy.


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