Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik: Jean Sibelius

Showing posts with label Jean Sibelius. Show all posts

Thursday, April 18, 2024

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5

Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 5 performed by the Oslo Philharmonic conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

Monday, December 4, 2023

Composers and their Poets: Ernest Chausson

by Maureen Buja , Interlude

French Chansons Composed by Ernest Chausson

Ernest Chausson, by Guy & Mockel, Paris (ca. 1897)

French composer Ernest Chausson’s early death in a bicycle accident cut short a career just as it was beginning to flourish. His position as secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique for 13 years put him at the centre of France’s active music networks. He studied with Massenet and César Franck at the Paris Conservatoire, which he attended at the relatively advanced age of 24, was friends with Vincent d’Indy, and many other composers including Henri Duparc, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Isaac Albéniz. He also knew the poet Mallarmé, although he never set any of his poetry, and the painter Monet.

Chausson, standing, turning pages for Debussy (1893)

The poets he set include Camille Mauclair (1872-1945), Jean Richepin (1849-1926), Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894), Maurice Bouchor (1855-1929), and Maurice Maeterlinck (1849-1949), among others. If we look just at his contemporaries, Camille Mauclair, Maurice Bouchor, and Maurice Maeterlinck, we have three poets of very different sensibilities.

Camille Mauclair by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer (1896)

Camille Mauclair (the pseudonym of Séverin Faust) was not only a poet but also a novelist, biographer, travel writer, and critic. He was an admirer of Mallarmé and was most famous for his roman à clef, Le Soleil des Morts (1898). For his contemporaries, it was brilliant portrait of the leading actors in the arts of his day, including writers, artists, critics, and musicians. For us, it has become an important historical document about the French avant-garde at the end of the nineteenth century. One of the most musically relevant portraits in the novel is that of Debussy at the premiere of “Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune”. Chausson appears in the book as ‘Rudolphe Méreuse’ and is the dedicatee of the novel. He is, in the novel, praised as ‘ …the composer whose symphonies, with those of César Franck, were the only original works to appear since Wagner.’

Mauclair provided the words for Chausson’s Op. 27 lieder. The first song, Les heures, casts us directly into the shadowy decadent world of the French fin du siècle: the piano provides a mordent background to the poet, ‘singing until death’ the pale hours of the night.

Maurice Bouchor

Maurice Bouchor was a poet and playwright with an interest in music. He worked with the musician Julien Tiersot to preserve French folk songs and published a book of them for use in schools.

His poetry was set extensively, and Chausson set it a number of times, most memorably in his Op. 8 set. This set of four poems describes love in all aspects: from the young love in the first poem, the memory of a former lover in the second, to the broken heart of ‘Printemps triste’ and the memories of the happy past in ‘Nos souvenirs’.

Maurice Maeterlinck

The Belgian playwright, poet and essayist Maurice Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. At the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, he was a source of musical inspiration: Debussy set his Pelléas and Mélisande, and it inspired Gabriel Fauré, Arnold Schoenberg, Jean Silbelius and others. 13 of his other plays were also made into operas, inspired symphonic poems, or had incidental music written for them by some 40 composers. His plays forged a new style, an example of which can be seen in Pelléas and Mélisande: the setting is lean and spare and the characters have no foresight and a limited view and understanding of themselves and the world they inhabit. The forces that compel people, not the emotions that drive them, was the centre of his style.

Maeterlinck’s first collection of poetry, Serres chaudes (Hothouses) (1889), was the source for Chausson’s Op. 24 song cycle. The second song, ‘Serre d’ennui’ (Hothouse boredom), seems to capture the overly humid confines of a hothouse, where boredom is blue but is captured within a green world where all is still.

Chausson set poetry by many other poets, including Verlaine, Baudelaire, Leconte de Lisle, and Gautier. In his brief life, Chausson brought the French chanson forward out of the Romanticism found in composers such as Massenet and Franck and closer to the more introspective world found in Debussy’s work.

Monday, August 7, 2023

The Best of Sibelius

Jean Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957), was a Finnish composer and violinist of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as his country's greatest composer and, through his music, is often credited with having helped Finland to develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia. The core of his oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies, which, like his other major works, are regularly performed and recorded in his home country and internationally. His other best-known compositions are Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto, the choral symphony Kullervo, and The Swan of Tuonela (from the Lemminkäinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired by nature, Nordic mythology, and the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, over a hundred songs for voice and piano, incidental music for numerous plays, the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower), chamber music, piano music, Masonic ritual music, and 21 publications of choral music. Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s, but after completing his Seventh Symphony (1924), the incidental music for The Tempest (1926) and the tone poem Tapiola (1926), he stopped producing major works in his last thirty years, a stunning and perplexing decline commonly referred to as "The Silence of Järvenpää", the location of his home. Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts on an eighth symphony. In later life, he wrote Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works while retaining an active but not always favourable interest in new developments in music. The Finnish 100 mark note featured his image until 2002, when the euro was adopted. Since 2011, Finland has celebrated a Flag Day on 8 December, the composer's birthday, also known as the "Day of Finnish Music". In 2015, the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, a number of special concerts and events were held, especially in the city of Helsinki. Jean Sibelius 1. Allegretto 2. Andante ma rubato 3. Vivacissimo 4. Finale, Allegro moderato 5. At the Castle Gate 6. M lisande 7. By the Seashore 8. By a Spring in the Park 9. The Three Blind Sisters 10. Pastorale 11. M lisande at the Spinning Wheel 12. Entr acte 13. M lisande s Death

Monday, March 6, 2023

Top 10 Symphony Composers

After the extraordinary musical developments of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven the composition of a symphony became a daunting challenge, for many years the ultimate challenge for any composer. Many rose magnificently to that challenge, not least Brahms, Mahler, Sibelius and Shostakovich

As Richard Bratby notes in his article What is a Symphony?: 'Few musical terms carry such baggage. And to write a symphony, now as then, means engaging with Western music’s most ambitious ongoing attempt to create meaning out of sound; declaring to the world that you have something important to say – and are about to deploy all your creative powers to say it.'

We hope that the gathering of the 10 composers below serves as a informative introduction to the vast universe of symphonic writing, outlining the diverse ways that the greatest composers have responded to the task of writing a symphony, from the 18th century to the 20th. There are many outstanding symphonists to explore outside this initial list of 10 (Mendelssohn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Copland, Carl Nielsen, Florence Price, Per Nørgård, Malcolm Arnold, John Adams – to name just a few), but we hope that this guide will set you off an an inspiring listening journey.

We have recommended both a complete symphony-cycle and a recording of an individual symphony for each composer.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Haydn’s contribution to musical history is immense, he was nicknamed ‘the father of the symphony’ (despite Stamitz’s prior claim) and was progenitor of the string quartet. Like all his well-trained contemporaries, Haydn had a thorough knowledge of polyphony and counterpoint (and, indeed, was not averse to using it) but his music is predominantly homophonic. His 104 symphonies cover a wide range of expression and harmonic ingenuity.

Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra / Adám Fischer (Brilliant Classics)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

There is less than half a century between the death of Handel (1759) and the first performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio (1809). Bach and Handel were still composing when Haydn was a teenager. To compare the individual ‘sound world’ of any of these four composers is to hear amazingly rapid progress in musical thinking. Without doubt, the most important element of this was the development of the sonata and symphonic forms. During this period, a typical example generally followed the same basic pattern: four movements – 1) the longest, sometimes with a slow introduction, 2) slow movement, 3) minuet, 4) fast, short and light in character. Working within this formal structure, each movement in turn had its own internal structure and order of progress. Most of Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas, symphonies and chamber music are written in accordance with this pattern and three-quarters of all Beethoven’s music conforms to ‘sonata form’ in one way or another.

Mozart composed 41 symphonies and in the later ones (try the famous opening of No 40 in G minor) enters a realm beyond Haydn’s – searching, moving and far from impersonal.

Recommended recordings

Complete Symphonies (Nos 1-41)

Symphonies Nos 29, 31, 32, 35 & 36

Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Sir Charles Mackerras (Linn Records)

Gramophone Awards shortlist (2010)

Read the review

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Ludwig van Beethoven coupled his genius for music with profoundly held political beliefs and an almost religious certainty about his purpose. With the possible exception of Wagner, no other composer has, single-handedly, changed the course of music so dramatically and continued to develop and experiment throughout his entire career. His early music, built on the Classical paths trod by Haydn and Mozart, demonstrates his individuality in taking established musical structures and re-shaping them to his own ends. Unusual keys and harmonic relationships are explored, while as early as the Third Symphony (Eroica), the music is vastly more inventive and cogent than anything Mozart achieved even in a late masterpiece like the Jupiter. Six more symphonies followed, all different in character, all attempting new goals of human expression, culminating in the great Choral Symphony (No 9) with its ecstatic final choral movement celebrating man’s existence. No wonder so many composers felt daunted by attempting the symphonic form after Beethoven and that few ever attempted more than the magic Beethovenian number of nine.

Symphonies Nos 5 & 7

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Carlos Kleiber (DG)

Read the review

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

On March 26, 1828, in the Musikverein of Vienna, there was given for the first time a programme entirely devoted to Schubert’s music. It was put on by his friends, of course, but though successful, was never even reviewed. Less than eight months later, Schubert died of typhoid, delirious, babbling of Beethoven. He was 31 and was buried as near to him as was practicable, with the epitaph ‘Here lie rich treasure and still fairer hopes’. Schubert left no estate at all, absolutely nothing – except his manuscripts.

It was only by chance and the diligence of a few musicians that some of it came to light – in 1838 Schumann happened to visit Schubert’s brother and came across the great Symphony in C (the Ninth) and urged its publication; the Unfinished Symphony was not heard until 1865, after the score was found in a chest; it was George Grove (of Grove’s Dictionary fame) and the young Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) who unearthed in a publisher’s house in Vienna Schubert’s Symphonies Nos 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, 60 songs and the music for Rosamunde. That was in 1867. Over a century later, in 1978, the sketches for a tenth symphony were unearthed in another Viennese archive.

Symphonies Nos 3, 5 & 6

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

‘I never had a more serious pupil than you,’ remarked Bruckner’s renowned teacher of counterpoint, Simon Sechter. Certainly, no one could ever accuse Bruckner of being frivolous and quite how this unsophisticated, obsequious boor came to write nine symphonies of such originality and epic splendour is one of music’s contradictions. You don’t turn to Bruckner the man or the musician for the light touch. His worship of Wagner verged on the neurotic for, really, there is something worrying about his debasement before the composer of Tristan. The dedication of his Third Symphony to Wagner reads: ‘To the eminent Excellency Richard Wagner the Unattainable, World-Famous, and Exalted Master of Poetry and Music, in Deepest Reverence Dedicated by Anton Bruckner’; before the two men eventually met, Bruckner would sit and stare at his idol in silent admiration, and after hearing Parsifal for the first time, fell on his knees in front of Wagner crying, ‘Master – I worship you’. His soliciting of honours, his craving for recognition and lack of self-confidence, allied with an unprepossessing appearance and a predilection for unattainable young girls, paints a disagreeable picture. The reverse of the coin is that of the humble peasant ill at ease in society, devoutly religious (most of his works were inscribed ‘Omnia ad majorem Dei gloriam’) and a personality of almost childlike simplicity and ingenuousness. God, Wagner and Music were his three deities.

Symphony No 9

Lucerne Festival Orchestra / Claudio Abbado (DG)

Gramophone's Recording of the Year (2015)

Read the review

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Not all composers fell under Wagner’s spell. Brahms was the epitome of traditional musical thought. His four symphonies are far nearer the style of Beethoven than those of Mendelssohn or Schumann, and the first of these was not written until 1875, when Wagner had all but completed The Ring. Indeed Brahms is by far the most classical of the German Romantics. He wrote little programme music and no operas. It’s a curious coincidence that he distinguished himself in the very musical forms that Wagner chose to ignore – the fields of chamber music, concertos, variation writing and symphonies.

Symphony No 3

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Mahler is the last great Romantic symphonist, music conceived on the grandest scale and employing elaborate forces. He wanted to express his view of the human condition, to set down his lofty ideals about Life, Death and the Universe. 'My symphonies represent the contents of my entire life.'

Symphony No 9

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

To most people Sibelius is the composer of Finlandia and the Karelia Suite; to others he is one of the great symphony composers; to the people of Finland he is these things and a national hero. While he was still alive the Finnish government issued stamps with his portrait and would have erected a statue to him as well had not Sibelius himself discouraged the project. Probably no composer in history has meant so much to his native country as did Sibelius. He still does. ‘He is Finland in music; and he is Finnish music,’ observed one critic.

Symphonies Nos 3, 6 & 7

Minnesota Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä (BIS)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Vaughan Williams emerged as an adventurous, unmistakably English composer with a distinct voice of his own. His discovery in the early 1900s of English folksong, through the recently formed English Folk Music Society, focused his style. VW and Gustav Holst, his lifelong friend whom he’d met at the Royal College, went out seeking the source of their country’s folksongs; many had never been written down before and the cataloguing and research that VW and Holst undertook in this area was of considerable cultural significance. His music now took on a different character. Apart from war service (for which he volunteered, although over 40), Vaughan Williams devoted the rest of his long life to composition, teaching and conducting.

Vaughan Williams worked on into old age with undiminished creative powers – his Eighth Symphony appeared in 1955 (the score includes parts for vibraphone and xylophone) while his Ninth, composed at the age of 85, uses a trio of saxophones.

A London Symphony (original 1913 version)

London Symphony Orchestra / Richard Hickox (Chandos)

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Following his death, the government of the USSR issued the following summary of Shostakovich’s work, drawing attention to a ‘remarkable example of fidelity to the traditions of musical classicism, and above all, to the Russian traditions, finding his inspiration in the reality of Soviet life, reasserting and developing in his creative innovations the art of socialist realism and, in so doing, contributing to universal progressive musical culture’. The Times wrote of him in its obituary that he was beyond doubt ‘the last great symphonist’.

Symphony No 10

Boston Symphony Orchestra / Andris Nelsons (DG)

Sunday, February 5, 2023

Jean Sibelius - Finlandia

10,004,925 views  Jul 23, 2012

Finlandia, Op. 26 is a symphonic poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The first version was written in 1899, and it was revised in 1900. The piece was composed for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, as the last of seven pieces, each performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history.

The premiere was on 2 July 1900 in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus. A typical performance takes anywhere from 7½ to 9 minutes.

A recurrent joke within Finland at this time was the renaming of Finlandia at various musical concerts so as to avoid Russian censorship. Titles under which the piece masqueraded were numerous, a famously flippant example being Happy Feelings at the awakening of Finnish Spring.

Most of the piece is taken up with rousing and turbulent music, evoking the national struggle of the Finnish people. But towards the end, a calm comes over the orchestra, and the serenely melodic Finlandia Hymn is heard. Often incorrectly cited as a traditional folk melody, the Hymn section is of Sibelius's own creation.

Although initially composed for orchestra, in 1900 Sibelius arranged the entire work for solo piano.

Sibelius later reworked the Finlandia Hymn into a stand-alone piece. This hymn, with words written in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, is one of the most important national songs of Finland (though Maamme is the national anthem). With different words, it is also sung as a Christian hymn (Be Still, My Soul), and was the national anthem of the short-lived African state of Biafra (Land of the Rising Sun).

Created by
Wild Scandinavia / Wildes Skandinavien / (2011) 
Directors: Oliver Goetzl
Writers: Oliver Goetzl
Cinematography: Ivo Nörenberg, Jan Henriksson and Rolf Steinmann
Gulo Film Productions 
http://www.gulofilm.de/en/wildes-skan...

"This film shows animal behaviour that has never been filmed before: Oliver Goetzl and Ivo 
Nörenberg got the first ever made shots of a wild lynx in the finish wilderness, they did highspeed shots of Goldeneye chicks jumping out of their tree nest, they filmed exciting encounters of bears and wolves.  The documentary was shot with more than 650 shooting days."

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Jean Sibelius, Valse Triste (orch.Herbert von Karajan)

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Sarah Chang plays Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor (full)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Jean Sibelius - His Music and Life

Jean Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865 in Tawastehus/Finland and passed away September 9, 1957 in Helsinki.

Many of his in-laws and forefathers were well-known doctors, artists and clergy members. Sibelius began to study law at first. But unsatisfied, he changed his mind soon and shifted courses to music.

In 1890, his real composition works started. The first decade had been the most fruitful and successful period of Sibelius' whole career and life.

Finland's history and its wonderful ferry tales and legends had been inexhaustible source for symphonies and incredible orchestral suites such as "En Saga" (1892, revised in 1901), "Karelia" (1893), "Four Legends for Orchestra" (1895) and "Finlandia" (1900). Sibelius took most of his musical ideas from his native land Finland with Finnish longing and melancholy.

One might ask, whether Sibelius' "Violin Concert" was the composer's carefully planed revenge on the deities of this instrument.

In his childhood, Sibelius had first played the piano, but after a few years he switched to the violin. He later confessed: "The violin took me over completely. From then on for the next ten years or so my profoundest wish, the loftiest aspiration of my ambitions, was to become a great violin virtuoso." But Sibelius never quit managed to reach these goals.

As I mentioned earlier: Sibelius took most of his musical ideas from his native land Finland. In this respect, the music that he wrote in 1906 for Hjalmar Procope's play "Belshazar's Feast" represents a rare excursion for the composer into the exotic and the oriental.