# Sibelius Symphony no. 5, The Original 1915 version



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

*Sibelius Symphony no. 5, The Original 1915 version*

The final version was completed only in 1919. For 25 years I have had the Vänskä/Lahti version of the 1915 version, too, but I rejected the music back then.

Yesterday I took another go. For some reason the experience was rather shocking and moving.

We have all the oh so familiar elements but the music is so much more modern-sounding. The structure is not as cohesive, yet the dramatic arc clearly suggest that everything aims at the Grand Finale Theme. The Final version has more equal points of emphasis, rather than just one "crystallization of an idea from chaos".

For me this original version is an invaluable document of the composing process of a symphonic genius and the resulting masterpiece. It is also a document on Sibelius trying to balance between modernism and late-romanticism. The 5th Symphony could have gone either way, but it is obvious the musical material dictated the form we now know as the final version.

Sibelius didn´t regret his decision. He said that that 5th Symphony always brought a smile on his face afterwards. No regrets or lack of smile here, either.

Yet the sonority, textures, clusters and sounds of the original version are fascinating. The few excerpts left of the 8th Symphony (that famously was never completed) suggest something similar to the 1st version of the 5th Symphony. Tapiola also seems to be related.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Let's be thankful that Sibelius realised the work needed revising.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

If he hadn't revised it I think it would still be recognised as an excellent symphony. But that wasn't enough for him and he went for one of the greatest symphonies ever. I have long been in awe of his ability to jettison so much good music to arrive at something so much greater.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

It's fine that the original version exists and that we can study it and learn from it - but I think we should always respect the composer's wishes and acknowledge the validity of the final version. So yes, I listened to it once, and after that returned to the official version.

Scholarship really tends to run amok in these cases.
See Bruckner. We have a clear understanding of what are the best versions of the symphonies, and they coincide with the composer's final versions. Mind you, not with the bowdlerized first edition scores courtesy of Schalk and Lowe and the likes, but what Bruckner himself considered final, and that's mostly the "middle" versions. And yet there's this whole Bruckner industry based on the completely bonkers assumption that every version is of equal worth, with editions and recordings of everything. Bruckner would have torn out the few hairs he still had on his bald skull when he knew people were treating his music like this.

Sometimes composers are to blame too. Take Prokofiev's 4th symphony that exists now in a perfectly fine first "neoclassical" version and a "soviet" version, with a load of superfluous material added. Why? And if he had lived for another 5 years or so, he'd have given the 2nd and 3rd symphony the same treatment. And then there's the debate about the right ending of the 7th symphony...

I guess Brahms did it the right way. Destroying all his sketches meant there are no people today busy reconstructing a dozen early unfinished string quartets or multiple attempts at a symphony. Thank God for that.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

HenryPenfold said:


> Let's be thankful that Sibelius realised the work needed revising.


I'd almost certainly agree with you on that, even though I am afraid No.5 is my least favourite of the numbered Symphonies. Ditto En Saga. Having said that, I feel the situation is slightly less clear-cut when comparing the original and final versions of the Violin Concerto......

Great to have heard all these first thoughts, though!


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

The Vanska Lahti series, which features both versions of #5, was available as an inexpensive mp3 a few years back and so I added it to my mobile phone. I was listening to the original version of 5 and feeling disoriented, so I eventually read up on the series and discovered the reason. I prefer the more familiar revision, but it is interesting, although not as interesting as comparing the different versions of Ralph Vaughn Williams London Symphony (try Richard Hickox for the original) which sounds like two different works altogether


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Triplets said:


> The Vanska Lahti series, which features both versions of #5, was available as an inexpensive mp3 a few years back and so I added it to my mobile phone. I was listening to the original version of 5 and feeling disoriented, so I eventually read up on the series and discovered the reason. I prefer the more familiar revision, but it is interesting, although not as interesting as comparing the different versions of Ralph Vaughn Williams London Symphony (try Richard Hickox for the original) which sounds like two different works altogether


Sibelius stated later that he was proud about the fact that all his symphonies have their own style and that he worked really hard to achieve that. The comparison of the original and final version of the 5th symphony reveal this struggle for the individuality of the symphony. What a document!


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

The coda of the first movement is really weak in the first version compared to the second. But version comparisons are always interesting.



RobertJTh said:


> but I think we should always respect the composer's wishes and acknowledge the validity of the final version. So yes, I listened to it once, and after that returned to the official version.
> 
> Scholarship really tends to run amok in these cases.
> See Bruckner. We have a clear understanding of what are the best versions of the symphonies, and they coincide with the composer's final versions. Mind you, not with the bowdlerized first edition scores courtesy of Schalk and Lowe and the likes, but what Bruckner himself considered final, and that's mostly the "middle" versions.


You have the knowledge what Bruckner considered final? Where you have this knowledge from?

Each first edition has its own story. Bruckner aged more and more, and the revisors like Schalk disregarded his decisions more and more. But it is not easy to say what is authentic and what is not. The scholars research that. It is not true that all first editions are not authentic.

I don't know why some people what that there is only one version of every symphony, but the claim that it is clear that the middle versions are his last will appears to be a tactical lie!

Some editions of "middle versions" even introduced new unauthentic changes in the 2nd and 8th symphony. It is discovered by scholars like William Carragan.



RobertJTh said:


> And yet there's this whole Bruckner industry based on the completely bonkers assumption that every version is of equal worth, with editions and recordings of everything. Bruckner would have torn out the few hairs he still had on his bald skull when he knew people were treating his music like this.


Bruckner saved the scores for later times for friends of his music. What is happening is what he wanted.



RobertJTh said:


> Sometimes composers are to blame too.


To blame for what? More versions means more music.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

h


Aries said:


> To blame for what? More versions means more music.


I was going to type a long reply, going into detail about each of Bruckner's symphonies and explaining why only one version of each symphony is regularly played, and justly so (the biggest exception being the 3rd, and I'm not gonna split hairs about Haas or Novak), but then I realized there's no use.
If people really think that works of art benefit from existing in multiple versions, all of which are objectively worse than the dominant versions, I'm at loss for words.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

RobertJTh said:


> I was going to type a long reply, going into detail about each of Bruckner's symphonies and explaining why only one version of each symphony is regularly played, and justly so (the biggest exception being the 3rd and I'm not gonna split hairs about Haas or Novak)


There are substantial changes between Haas and Nowak regarding the 2nd and 8th symphony. Smaller differences regarding the 4th. In the case of the 2nd symphony there are also differences _within_ the Haas and Nowak versions because many sections are marked as optional.

But there are also other versions played beside Nowak versions, Haas versions and versions of the 3rd symphony.

Such versions with more than 10 recordings:

1st Symphony:
- There are 17 recordings of the 1891 vienna version. 9 since 2000.

2nd Symphony:
- There are 13 recordings of the 1872 version. 11 since 2000.
- There are 12 recordings of the Carragan edition of the 1877 version. 10 since 2000.

4th symphony:
- There are 18 recordings of the 1874 version. 9 since 2000.
- There are 27 recordings of the 1888 version. 9 since 2000.

8th symphony:
- There are 19 recordings of the 1887 version. 12 since 2000.
- There are 20 recordings of the 1892 version. 0 since 2000.

Source: https://www.abruckner.com/discography1/
See also: https://carragan.com/composer-anton...studies/eighty-years-bruckners-symphony-no-2/

Overall early versions gain popularity and also such late versions that are more authentic than previously thought.



RobertJTh said:


> If people really think that works of art benefit from existing in multiple versions


Improvisation is art too. And Bruckner was a great improviser. The works benefit from alternation imo.



RobertJTh said:


> , all of which are objectively worse than the dominant versions, I'm at loss for words.


Can you prove that? It is just your subjective opinion.

The first, middle and late versions all have their benefits imo.

Its not a problem to find advantages of middle versions, but you can find advantages of early and late versions too. I think I will do some comparison threads in the future because this is really interesting stuff.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

This is getting off topic but I think the reason that there are surprisingly many recent recordings of "alternative" Bruckner versions is simply saturation of the market, or more precisely less saturation for these versions.

I am not sure if anyone but BIS has done the earlier versions of Sibelius 5 and violin concerto.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

Aries said:


> Its not a problem to find advantages of middle versions, but you can find advantages of early and late versions too. I think I will do some comparison threads in the future because this is really interesting stuff.


It sure is, and yes, we're going rather off topic here. Just this one thing though.

When Bruckner had his 4th symphony premiered, and it proved just as big a success as the 7th, he must have felt rewarded for the hard work he did on this piece, composing and revising no less than 3 different finales, 2 scherzos, and undertaking huge reworkings of the 1st and 2nd movement as well, resulting in a truly great symphony, one of the highlights of his oeuvre and of the entire 19th century.

What would he have thought of the present efforts to rehabilitate all those early stages, all the stuff he discarded? That horrible first finale attempt, that rambling first scherzo? I'm sure he would be in utter despair.

Or does anyone think any composer, past or present, likes to be treated like a baby or a mental case who can't be trusted with his own work and needs to be "helped"? I'm a composer myself, and I would raise hell if anyone would ever perform an inferior early draft of a piece that I published and intended to be played in its final form only.

So why can't these people treat Bruckner like any other composer? What's their morbid fascination with his insecurities and perfectionism and why do they think it's a good idea to blow those psychological traits out of proportion by presenting his work in the most schizophrenic way possible? And why do orchestras and conductors follow suit and insist on performing music that should be used for study purposes only?

I can't think of another composer who gets treated by musicologists and performers in an equally dismal way, ans as an admirer of Bruckner's music, it saddens me.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

RobertJTh said:


> When Bruckner had his 4th symphony premiered, and it proved just as big a success as the 7th, he must have felt rewarded for the hard work he did on this piece, composing and revising no less than 3 different finales, 2 scherzos, and undertaking huge reworkings of the 1st and 2nd movement as well, resulting in a truly great symphony, one of the highlights of his oeuvre and of the entire 19th century.
> 
> What would he have thought of the present efforts to rehabilitate all those early stages, all the stuff he discarded? That horrible first finale attempt, that rambling first scherzo? I'm sure he would be in utter despair.
> 
> Or does anyone think any composer, past or present, likes to be treated like a baby or a mental case who can't be trusted with his own work and needs to be "helped"? I'm a composer myself, and I would raise hell if anyone would ever perform an inferior early draft of a piece that I published and intended to be played in its final form only.


When he finished the symphony the first time in 1874 he wanted it to be performed too. The positive feelings of other surely rewarded him, but this reward is based on the aesthetic feelings of others. If other would have liked the 1874 version initally, he would have felt rewarded too. The 1874 version is in a way the most unadulterated version. But I agree that the Finale was improved in the later versions. The scherzo is entirely different however. A different piece. The whole 1874 version is half a different symphony.

The final form of the symphony isn't the version of the first performance in 1881. Bruckner changed some things in the very same score after the first performance. In 1886 wrote the symphony again with changes at least in the finale. And then in 1888 he wrote the final version for the first publication. There was an influence of Schalk and Löwe but at this point but Bruckner had still the last word, and they did not override his final decisions yet like later in the 1890s.

There are some changes in the 1888 version I don't like. Others are good, but overall I prefer earlier versions. The 1874 version is really different with a lot of value in the first, second and third movement. The scherzo is maybe not as good as the later Scherzo, but it is an entirely different thing, and the whole version is somewhat of a different thing. So I don't see the tight competition situation with the later versions. We can just play both. Playing the 1874 version does not mean that it should replace the later versions. We also play the 0th symphony, although Bruckner annuled the symphony and reused some ideas for the 3rd symphony.



RobertJTh said:


> So why can't these people treat Bruckner like any other composer? What's their morbid fascination with his insecurities and perfectionism and why do they think it's a good idea to blow those psychological traits out of proportion by presenting his work in the most schizophrenic way possible? And why do orchestras and conductors follow suit and insist on performing music that should be used for study purposes only?


For me the reason is that I like the music. I also hear different performances of works, like we all do I guess. If not only the performance is a bit different but also the score, it makes it even more interesting for me. Performances also have different strengths, and you can not have all possible strengths in one performance imo. For example a faster performance has other advantages than a slower performances. So the diversity of different performances actually add value compared to one supposedly but impossible perfect performance. And its the same with the versions for me, because they almost all have advantages imo. I also like to hear the different versions of Beethovens Leonore Overtures for example.

PS. Regarding Bruckner 4th symphony the first version does not only have many concrete changes, but the whole composing paradigm seems to be different. The first version is more about sound surfaces. Some have compared it to minimalist like Philip Glass. I remember that I once was really in the mood for it and even loved the 4th movement of the first version very much. But most of the time I am more under the impression of the later finale which works different and by that standard the finale of the first version just seems weak. But my experience is that it depends on my mood.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

It took a while for me to realize that in Rattle’s version of Mahler’s 1st Symphony, an extra movement Blumine is placed as the first movement. I do not approve and neither did Mahler.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It's interesting that except for Bruckner (and it is a rather recent phenomenon, I think the first well known recordings of early/alternative versions are Inbal's from the 1980s) alternative versions have rarely caught on. There are a few of Mahler's 1st (more bad hybrids with "Blumine" tucked into the final version) but not many and the Sibelius 5th is only a curiosity.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Kreisler jr said:


> It's interesting that except for Bruckner (and it is a rather recent phenomenon, I think the first well known recordings of early/alternative versions are Inbal's from the 1980s) alternative versions have rarely caught on.


The versions that are now the "main versions" were once alternative versions. The first published versions of the 9th, 8th, 6th, 5th and 2nd aren't played anymore (or very rarely) but they were the main versions for a long time. Haas tried to replace these versions with authentic original versions in the 30s and 40s. But he tried to only publish one version per symphony and mixed multiple versions together for this purpose and introduced new inauthentic changes. But the conductors did not take them over immediately. For example Knappertsbusch played none of the Haas versions. Furtwängler did not play the Haas version of the 8th (he thought what Haas did was worse than what Schalk did), but created his own version. Nowak began to publish multiple versions per symphony one generation after Haas. Now Korstvedt has rehabilitated some of the first published versions. But version competition exists since the 1930s.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Kreisler jr said:


> This is getting off topic but I think the reason that there are surprisingly many recent recordings of "alternative" Bruckner versions is simply saturation of the market, or more precisely less saturation for these versions.
> 
> I am not sure if anyone but BIS has done the earlier versions of Sibelius 5 and violin concerto.


Right. And the differences between the original and the final versions of the Sibelius pieces are huge. Sibelius made very major revisions to arrive at the works we know and love. I can't think of another example where we have been able to hear such major revisions ... perhaps the Vaughan Williams London Symphony comes closest (Hickox recorded an earlier version which in that case some people actually preferred) but the various Bruckner revisions (which were not Bruckner's anyway) certainly don't.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

One question deriving from an orchestral detail comes to my mind rather often.

Why did Sibelius score a part for Bass Clarinet for the original version and then remove it from the final score?

The bass clarinet suits the 6th Symphony perfectly, bringing darker velvety tone to the colour palette of the polyfony. Also, I do not feel the need for the bass clarinet in the 5th — it is colourful enough as it is.

The original version is more about orchestral colours than the final version. That is the only explanation I can come up with.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> We have a clear understanding of what are the best versions of the symphonies, and they coincide with the composer's final versions


no we don't -- Hurwitz notwithstanding, there are many conductors who don't share your view, including one of the greatest Brucknerians, Georg Tintner. I happen to agree with him that the original versions are in general the best but I'm perfectly aware there is a huge debate over all this -- which is not necessarily unhealthy. With the Sibelius 5, I would definitely say that Sibelius knew what he was doing though on the whole (the original does have some thrilling and atmospheric moments) when he revised it


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

I'm not gonna start this whole discussion all over again. Every time this issue is raised, it gets bogged down in details and technicalities, while the elephant in the room (Bruckner's own wishes getting disrespected) is not being addressed.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> I'm not gonna start this whole discussion all over again. Every time this issue is raised, it gets bogged down in details and technicalities, while the elephant in the room (Bruckner's own wishes getting disrespected) is not being addressed.


But would you care to give your insight (or guess) on why The Great Bass Clarinet was left out? 

There is an interesting interview with Saraste on the original version.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> I'm not gonna start this whole discussion all over again.


on the contrary, you did start it -- in a thread about Sibelius moreover. (Even if Bruckner did make it clear which versions he preferred, as far as I know that wasn't necessarily solely because they were the best but because they were the most practical to perform. And anyway, a composer isn't always the best judge of his own music)


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

dko22 said:


> on the contrary, you did start it -- in a thread about Sibelius moreover.


I quoted Bruckner as an example of scholarship running amock, in relationship to Sibelius 5 - and I mentioned Prokofiev and Brahms as well. It was all pretty much on-topic.
Then I replied to Aries, who's kind of my (well respected) antagonist in these matters, and a discussiion started - one that we already had 1 or 2 times earlier in other Bruckner threads.
And I did even mention that it was becoming increasingly off-topic. So yeah, let's not.



dko22 said:


> And anyway, a composer isn't always the best judge of his own music)


An a priori assessment like that doesn't seem to be fertile ground for a discussion to me.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

RobertJTh said:


> An a priori assessment like that doesn't seem to be fertile ground for a discussion to me


I'm not sure actually - but I certainly agree this isn't the place for it (and I'll leave poor Bruckner in peace as well)


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

dko22 said:


> (and I'll leave poor Bruckner in peace as well)


If only the Bruckner scholars did that as well...
Sorry, I'll shut up now.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

RobertJTh said:


> It's fine that the original version exists and that we can study it and learn from it - but I think we should always respect the composer's wishes and acknowledge the validity of the final version. So yes, I listened to it once, and after that returned to the official version.
> 
> Scholarship really tends to run amok in these cases.
> See Bruckner. We have a clear understanding of what are the best versions of the symphonies, and they coincide with the composer's final versions. Mind you, not with the bowdlerized first edition scores courtesy of Schalk and Lowe and the likes, but what Bruckner himself considered final, and that's mostly the "middle" versions. And yet there's this whole Bruckner industry based on the completely bonkers assumption that every version is of equal worth, with editions and recordings of everything. Bruckner would have torn out the few hairs he still had on his bald skull when he knew people were treating his music like this.
> ...


 Actually, I prefer the revised version of the Prokofiev 4th . But the original is certainly interesting .


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

*Einaudi, Underwater*

This is peaceful music. I haven't figured out whether it is "great" or not. My ears are a little jaundiced; I'm afraid I've been to too many weddings, and it reminds me of pre-wedding piano music. But it's good background music, even though it makes me start craving cake.


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