JEAN SIBELIUS Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 Humoresques, Opp. 87 & 89 NORS S. JOSEPHSON Celestial Voyage FENELLA HUMPHREYS violin BBC NATIONAL ORCHESTRA OF WALES GEORGE VASS conductor Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Violin Concerto, Op. 47 Humoresques, Opp. 87 & 89 Nors S. Josephson (b. 1942) Celestial Voyage Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor, Op. 47 Fenella Humphreys violin 1. Allegro moderato [16:34] BBC Naonal Orchestra of Wales 2. Adagio di molto [8:55] Nick Whing leader 3. Allegro, ma non tanto [8:12] George Vass conductor Humoresques, Op. 87 4. Humoresque I: Commodo [3:46] 5. Humoresque II: Allegro assai [2:20] Humoresques, Op. 89 6. Humoresque III: Alla gavoa [4:24] 7. Humoresque IV: Andanno [3:32] 8. Humoresque V: Commodo [3:12] 9. Humoresque VI: Allegro [3:26] Nors S. Josephson (b. 1942) 10. Celesal Voyage [8:52] About Fenella Humphreys: Total playing me [63:16] ‘Strong-toned, easy fluidity and immaculate technique’ Gramophone ‘Golden precision and effortless virtuosity’ The Scotsman Jean Sibelius Violin Concerto never clapped eyes on a vast, fir-tree- in D minor, Op. 47 surrounded Finnish lake at dawn with the mist resng over it, this music would be As spellbinding concerto openings go, painng something similar in your mind’s Sibelius pulled some proper magic out of eye; and it was exactly this quality, heard the bag for the first few bars of his Violin in previous works such as the tone poems Concerto in D minor: orchestral violins Finlandia and En Saga, which by 1902 had alone, mutes on and split four ways, rocking already won Sibelius status as his country’s back and forth over pairs of notes from foremost composer; not least because it the D minor triad, one group undulang offered the Finns a much-needed cultural onto a note as another undulates off it, all identy at a me when they sat under the of which conjures up a soly shimmering, rule of the Russian Empire. It also expectantly hovering world over which the represented a world which was about to solo violin then floats out a coolly mysterious, save Sibelius from himself. In 1900 he and harmonically ambiguous, long-lined his wife Aino had lost their youngest child melody beginning in its upper registers, to typhoid, aer which his always-heavy answered briefly in kind by a single low, drinking transformed into a darker and dark clarinet. financially ruinous alcoholism. This was reaching crisis point by the me the That’s a lot of nuts and bolts score concerto was being penned, fuelled by the analysis with which to begin a supposedly constant temptaons of living in Helsinki, accessible sleeve note, but in this instance but thankfully Sibelius knew this too. it feels more than warranted given the So, shortly before he finished the degree to which those exquisite first few concerto in early 1904, he bought a moments represent a perfect disllaon plot of land for a new family home of everything to be celebrated about this close to Lake Tuusula, where he could concerto. Also indeed about Sibelius be both inspired and protected by nature. himself as he began work on it in 1902, in his late thires. Equally important is the opening’s celebraon of the violin and its colourisc capabilies, For starters, there’s the degree to which because Sibelius knew and loved this these bars evoke Finland’s natural landscape instrument with a passion, to the extent and ancient folklore. Indeed even had you that his original career plan hadn’t been as a composer at all, but as a virtuoso making on the violin wring, because to use of the darker, more elemental-mbred, roll of mpani, before the violin enters violinist, before studies at Helsinki say that Sibelius the Frustrated Virtuoso brooding instruments. Take the way the with a tender, sensual, long-lined theme Music Instute revealed composional didn’t hold back on pung the soloist first movement cadenza concludes not with which is accompanied by a four-part chorale talents that outstripped his violinisc through their paces is something of an the full orchestra crashing in, but instead from the horns, combined with gentle ones. In fact the concerto’s very understatement, and not simply in terms with a dark bassoon creeping in to entwine pluckings from the cellos and violas. existence feels like a minor miracle of the technical challenges presented by itself into the soloist’s dark recasng of the in itself – that far from leng this its outer movements – feats such as double- opening floang theme. Or earlier on, The highly rhythmic and energec finale disappointment drive an eternal wedge stopping in octaves, or the formidable before the cadenza, when the violinist then mirrors the folk-dance flavour heard between him and his instrument, he fingering, bowing and intonaon level suddenly finds itself fighng in the dark, in the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky, instead went on to gi to it with the required of its many rapid, leaping passages. its fast, leaping and falling figuraons Brahms, Beethoven and Bruch, while also only concerto he would ever write, and There’s also the issue of how to hold securely played out against a hushed, menacing being a disnctly darker and heavier indeed throw himself into the process and musically to your lines through orchestral sllness from slowly snaking low clarinets beast, especially with its off-kilter as much as a violinist as a composer. textures that oen give you lile to hold and bassoons, underpinned by held notes syncopaons. Certainly you can hear why ‘Janne has been on fire…’ wrote Aino onto from either a rhythmic or melodic from rumbling mpani, horns and double the tweneth-century musicologist Donald at the beginning of 1904. ‘He has perspecve. What’s more, the version we bass. In the context of this being only Tovey described it as ‘a polonaise for polar such a multude of themes in his head know today is slightly easier than what three years before Mahler would premiere bears’. For the solo violin, it’s a sink-or-swim that he has been literally quite dizzy. He Sibelius first premiered in 1904, when an his ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ – so named technical fireworks display, swooping and stays awake all night, plays incredibly unconvincing soloist, and the realisaon because of the number of performers diving at speed from its highest to its beaufully, cannot tear himself away that the score needed ghtening up, demanded of its lavish scoring – this was lowest registers by means of double-stopping, from the delighul melodies.’ prompted him to replace it with a 1905 disnctly counter-cultural. pizzicato and glissandi, with no lifelines revision. coming from the orchestra’s direcon, Moving on from those first bars, the That lucid, colouriscally-genius scoring is right up to the triumphant finish where it violin is also placed centre stage in the Then, while the work’s mighty orchestral then directed towards enrely different eventually climaxes on one triumphant, concerto’s unusual first movement tu climaxes sound very much of their ends for the Adagio – a movement which, sforzando high D, joined in affirmaon by structure, because whereas the soloist’s Romanc-era me, it’s also full of strikingly while it carries the odd note of darkness, unison horns, strings and mpani. cadenza would usually fall near the end – lucid chamber-weight passages which is ulmately an unabashedly ardent love where its funcon is chiefly one of themselves pull an equal dramac punch, leer to the violin. This opens with a hushed Jean Sibelius: Two Humoresques, Op. 87 & virtuosic display – this one instead falls especially for Sibelius’s harnessings of the pair of clarinets, whose wisully rising and Four Humoresques, Op. 89 at the movement’s middle, actually various instruments’ ranges and mbral falling figure in thirds is imitated by a pair taking the musical argument forwards colours to his theatrical advantage. of oboes, before a further, suddenly In terms of solo violin wring, the concerto by acng as a sort of solo development asserve upwards reach from the oboes appears to have largely scratched the itch secon, albeit one sll high on virtuosity. We’ve already discussed the shimmering is affirmed by the two flutes. However, this for Sibelius for the following decade. However, Indeed virtuosity is the final point worth violins at the opening, but there’s also his is soon tempered by the hushed, brooding 1915 saw a sudden flurry of works for solo violin and piano, with his Four Pieces, Op. 78 leer was a slightly bier one, connected to (completed 1919), Six Pieces, Op. 79, Sonana feeling under-appreciated by audiences in E, Op. 80, and Five Pieces, Op. 81. It also saw outside Finland). a dream, recorded in his diary, that he was a twelve-year-old concerto soloist. So perhaps On to the detail, and the first, leisurely- it was inevitable that the following year he tempo’d opening Humoresque feels almost began work on a second work for violin and like a fond backwards glance to the concerto. orchestra – his Six Humoresques, completed Firstly due to its D minor tonality. in 1917, which as with the concerto Secondly due to its scoring, because required a formidable level of technique. while this is the only one of the set which features the full orchestra, as with the Although these miniatures are spread over concerto it’s the upper strings alone who two opus numbers, this was actually a mistake. are tasked with seng the stage for the In reality they were conceived as a set and soloist, albeit this me lower down and intended to be performed as a whole; and with the violas also in the mix, matching while each can stand on its own, when the darker and more sultry tone we then heard as a group they do end up sounding hear from the soloist entering on their surprisingly akin to a sort of mini concerto, lowest string.