Jean Sibelius - Biography
Jean Sibelius was born on December 8th 1865 in Hameenlinna Finland and died on September 20th 1957 in Jarvenpaa Finland. Sibelius was the son of an army surgeon in a desolate post in Finland which then was a colony of Imperial Russia. Sibelius showed musical talent at an early age and received rudimentary training in his local town. In 1885 he attended the University of Helsinki to study law; within a year he realized he wanted to devote his career to music. He then attended the Helsinki Conservatory where he had intensive training on the violin. In 1889 he composed an early String Quartet which impressed the local officials enough to send him to Berlin and later Vienna for intensive study under the likes of Fuchs and Goldmark. Upon his return he married Aino Jarenefelt the sister of a well composer and friend of Sibelius. His first major work was the Kullervo Symphony a huge seventy minute piece based on the nationalist Kullervo legend that would be used as inspiration for his program music (Sibelius suppressed the work in later years but it has been played and recorded since his death). From 1892 for a period of eight years he taught music at Helsinki Conservatory. The first major works that were to be recognized was the tone poem En Saga from 1893, along with the popular Karelia Suite which he was to follow up a few years later with the Four Orchestral Legends based on the Lemminkainen legend and includes the well known Swan of Tuonela and the once immensely popular Valse Triste written for the play Kuolema. In the 1898 he composed his First Symphony in E minor while showing some influence of Borodin and Tchaikovsky is uniquely Sibelius. The next year he was to compose his most famous work Finlandia which is an extremely rousing eight minute patriotic work whose hymn like central section was to become the unofficial Finnish National Anthem. Russian officials seeing how it provoked nationalist sentiment often banned the work or would present it on a program with a bland title such as symphonic etude. By this time Finland was giving Sibelius an annual stipend which gave him to study and having to teach daily. His most popular Symphony the heroic Second in D major though not programmatic stirred nationalist passions and the spare textures its use of the high register and low registers of the Brass and Wind section gave it a feeling of wide open vistas. His next major work (1903) was to be the ever popular Violin Concerto in D minor.
Sibelius was to buy an estate in 1904 in the remote area of Jarvenpaa where he was to spend the balance of his life. The first decade of the twentieth century also saw the composition of his String Quartet entitled Voces Intimae in 1909, a Third Symphony in C major (1907)tone poems Pojola’s Daughter ,Night Ride and Sunrise, In Memorium, Suite Historiques and incidental music to the plays Pelleas und Melisande, Swan White and Belshazzar.
The next decade was a difficult one for Sibelius who though very secretive about his private life was known to suffer from periods of depression probably aggravated by the near Arctic conditions he lived in. No work attests to this more than the numbing alienation of his great Fourth Symphony in A minor. This harrowing, enigmatic work that needs many hearings before it gives up its secrets and ends not tragically but in utter resignation.
A wealthy American patron offered him a free trip to America plus a commission for an orchestral work which turned out to be the tone poem Oceanides which he conducted at a Connecticut music festival. Upon his return to Finland the First World War broke out the resulting carnage affected Sibelius deeply ,in addition his heavy cigar smoking precipitated what was believed to be throat cancer; he was treated successfully and in thanksgiving he wrote his radiant Fifth Symphony in E flat that concludes as triumphantly as the Fourth ends in desolation. For the next five or six years he wrote charming works almost all on a commission basis like the Humoresques for Violin, Valse Lyrique, Andante Festivo, Suite Caracterestique had the mucical world wondering if he had written himself out. With his magnificent Sixth Symphony in D minor of 1923 showed he still could write great music. The Palestrina like modal opening is the aural equivalent of breathing pure mountain air
Sibelius last gasp as a composer was short but mighty he was to compose a magnificent score for a production of Shakespeare’s Tempest his very powerful one movement Symphony number 7 in C major in 1924 and the great mystical and terrifying tone poem Tapiola in 1926 but with the exception of a Suite for Violin and Orchestra from the following year (that was not performed until 1990 ) we have nothing but silence for the next thirty years. There were rumors of an Eighth Symphony during the thirties with the premiere promised to various British conductors, but it never materialized.
During the thirties Sibelius had great popularity in the USA and the UK (he was infrequently played in Germany and almost never in France and Italy). Great conductors like Koussevitzky, Stokowski, Beecham, Barbirolli and Ormandy all specialized in the music of Sibelius. Most of them had orchestras that were broadcast regularly and the music had a popularity associated with Tchaikovsky. Sibelius at the apex of his fame was living a reclusive life at Jarvenpaa. Sibelius placid life was to be disturbed by the invasion of the Soviet Union into Finland in December of 1939. Soviet intentions were to install a pro Soviet government and annex a portion of Finland. Sibelius used his prestige to protest the invasion internationally. Unfortunately to do this his name became linked with Finnish Fascists who were pro Nazi. After the war his reputation was able to weather this guilt by association. What was more difficult to weather was the post war modernist movement who critics often took direct aim at Sibelius for his conservative musical instincts. He smoked and drank his way into extreme old age welcomed distinguished visitors and had a charming way of when receiving a recording of one his works by a famous conductor writing back that he never heard a finer performance. Sibelius died a few months before his 92nd birthday on September 20th 1957.
Sibelius tremendous popularity in the 1930’s and 40’s waned somewhat after his death particularly when Mahler replaced him as the symphonist for young progressives. The adulation of Sibelius by some thought to be the equal of Brahms or the near equal of Beethoven overstated the case. There was also the inequality of his output masterworks alternating with not very distinguished occasional music. The pendulum has swung in the past twenty years and Sibelius is recognized as a master whom if not a supreme composer was often touched by greatness. One part of his work that is now receiving proper recognition is his superb songs.
