SIBELIUS Symphony NO

SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO. 5 SYMPHONY NO. 6 THE SWAN OF TUONELA PAAVO BERGLUND conductor LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA SWANSONG: BERGLUNd’S LAst SIBELIUS Rehearsing with the and personal acquaintance. Berglund revealed London Philharmonic a rare physicality in Sibelius’s scores. It was Orchestra for his there in his three recorded symphony cycles, series of Sibelius but in these late London performances it performances in the emerged in a different, darker light. Berglund mid-2000s (which wasn’t as meticulous about observing marked resulted in a critically tempi as some of his younger compatriots acclaimed release of are. Instead he was impulsive, rugged and Symphonies No. 2 & 7 heartfelt. But his instincts always seemed to on the LPO Label, LPO-0005), Paavo Berglund serve the musical architecture, the curious hardly said a word. He was growing old, but his symphonic meta-flow unique to Sibelius. economy with speech was more about purpose and results than seniority or restraint. When That reaches its apex in the last three he did address the musicians, he was usually symphonies – in the natural flight of the loud and commanding – one or two words Fifth and the freefall journey of the Sixth. The hurled over the top of the music. His death in former powers forward in this performance, January 2012 was talked of as a goodbye to and towards something quite unusual. The one of the last conductors of the ‘old school’. third of its six concluding chords appears That was certainly true of his rehearsal style: relaxed, and the fourth tightened. In the no names, no discussion and few pleasantries. concert, it seemed like Berglund knew he’d acted unlawfully but felt compelled to from Despite that, and his harsh, frowning glare, within. Whatever our reaction now, it was part the musicians of the Orchestra loved to play of what made his concerts unique. for Berglund. He made them hear new things, they reported. He was a hard worker and a Profile & programme notes © Andrew Mellor straight talker. You could tell, in rehearsal even Andrew Mellor is Reviews Editor at Gramophone more than in performance, that he wasn’t in it magazine and has a special interest in the music to be liked. But liked he was. and culture of the Nordic countries. He worked The affinity Berglund felt with the music of in the marketing department of the London Jean Sibelius went beyond shared nationality Philharmonic Orchestra from 2003–08. JEAN SIBELIUS SYMphony NO. 5 in E-flat Major, OP. 82 In the early 1910s, Jean Sibelius could add four movements, Sibelius later amalgamating to his own financial and health problems his first movement and scherzo into the those of his beloved Finland itself. Russia published opener. After the initial theme on was strengthening its grip on the province, glowing horns and woodwinds, the music suspending parliament and attempting to gains momentum and folds outwards, the drive out the Finnish language. As Europe orchestra falling over itself in contrary motion slipped towards war, Finland, aligned towards the proclamation of a major fourth with Russia, faced mass slaughter and the by the trumpet. The opening motif soon annihilation of its timber exporting industry. appears again, returning in another form as ‘In a deep mire again, but already I am the Symphony is injected with optimism by an beginning to see dimly the mountain that I upward-pining theme – again in the trumpets. shall ascend’, wrote a knowing Sibelius. ‘God opens his door for a moment and his orchestra Those gestures sow the seeds for Sibelius’s is playing the Fifth Symphony.’ finale, in which the double basses are soon heard spelling out a fifth which augments as So the work was rapidly forming in Sibelius’s the bottom note drops twice, stepping back mind. Themes included the onset of spring up in the manner of an ostinato. Here are the and the spirit of the composer’s country home Järvenpää swans. As it’s taken up by the horns, at Järvenpää. Then, on 12 April 1914, Sibelius the theme gains the pace and grandeur of witnessed a sight that would affect him flight, like the graceful rise and fall of a wing. profoundly and write the Fifth Symphony’s Suddenly, the music shifts key: Sibelius’s pedal- main theme for him. It was a flock of 16 note disappears like the falling away of a swans, soaring upwards from the Järvenpää runway, and the swans – magically, gloriously lake for their migration. ‘One of my greatest – take flight. Soon thereafter they can be experiences’, Sibelius wrote in his diary, ‘the heard in the distance, returning as if for a last Fifth Symphony’s final theme … legato in the salute. Again they soar inspiringly upwards, trumpets.’ cutting through a tangling orchestral texture as if to break free from their creator’s earthly At the time of the Symphony’s Helsinki concerns. Six resigned orchestral jabs bid them première on 8 December 1915, there were a final farewell. SYMphony NO. 6 in D Minor, OP. 104 As other symphonies by Sibelius soar like broad, controlling ‘meta-flow’ to which all the gliding birds or cruise like breeze-propelled individual tempi and moods must feed – like yachts, the Sixth can feel like a swift descent small tributaries into a large river. And if the of a steep hill on a nimble bicycle. The Sixth feels somehow more luminous than its Symphony’s singular feeling of glistening predecessors – lit by a different sort of light – light and playfulness has its roots in Sibelius’s it might be connected to Sibelius’s use of the childhood in the countryside of Hämmenlinna, Dorian mode, which is overt in the Scherzo which inspired its initial sketches. But by 1922 third movement but present throughout the when Sibelius came to knit those sketches Symphony, which appears to somehow float together, dark clouds had returned to his between major and minor. life. The death of his brother Christian in July threw the composer into a sustained period What there isn’t in the Sixth is the typically of grief, and his financial situation grew ever Sibelian ‘big tune’, the hymn-like striving more precarious. But his concentration on that characterizes its companions. Sibelius the Symphony remained steadfast and on suggests why when he describes the piece 19 February 1923, the work was given its as ‘pure, cold water’ against the champagne première in Helsinki. and liqueur soundscapes offered by other composers of the time. We can hear that Though the Symphony stands apart even in purity in the Symphony’s more rhapsodic, Sibelius’s output, it does include gestures that carefree moments – in the freewheeling are unmistakably those of its creator. There’s first movement, punctuated by moments of the distinct mysteriousness of the strings, so abandon from fluttering flute and darting often busily repetitive or stepping through harp, and in the tumbling modulations of its sequences. There are typically bird-like effects kinetic poco vivace. in the woodwind, and brass gestures which are thick-set like rock formations. Also, vital to Sibelius’s late symphonies and carried forward in this example from the developments of the Fifth, is the feeling of a The Swan OF Tuonela (froM PAAVO BERGLUND conductor LEMMinKÄinen Suite, OP. 22) Finland is at the heart of nearly everything Born in 1929, Paavo Berglund enjoyed a Sibelius wrote. The country’s distinctive long association with the orchestras of his landscape and natural life infuse the native Finland, including periods as Principal symphonies included on this recording, and Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony its touchstone mythological poem, the Orchestra (1962–71) and the Helsinki Kalevala, directly shaped numerous other Philharmonic Orchestra (1975–79). He was works. One of them was The Building of the Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Boat, an opera based on Kalevala narratives, Symphony Orchestra from 1972–79 and which Sibelius started to commit to paper Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish in 1803. The project was fraught with National Orchestra from 1981–85. He also problems and eventually sank entirely, but worked with most of the major European Sibelius re-used the overture to form part orchestras, including the London, Berlin, of his orchestral suite telling the story of Stockholm and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras; Lemminkäinen, a striking blond youth who the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; and the formed one of the Kalevala’s most prominent Orchestre National de France. In the USA he (and typically unfortunate) heroes. conducted, among others, the San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland, New York Philharmonic The descriptive exactitude of the music and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras. remained unchanged in its new incarnation: it depicts the black waters above Tuonela, the Berglund’s discography includes works by Kalevala’s land of the dead, on which a single Shostakovich, Smetana and Dvo ák, and singing swan floats (the swan Lemminkäinen ř tried to catch). In a masterstroke of his Nielsen symphony cycle won the French instrumentation, Sibelius chose a twisting, Diapason d’Or award. It is for his recordings of reedy cor anglais to represent the swan’s slow the symphonies of Sibelius, however, for which passage and its brutal, curvaceous, feathered he is possibly best known. Berglund conducted neck. The instrument sings troubled melodies the world première recording of Sibelius’s above thick, muted strings, punctuated by just Kullervo Symphony, and recorded the complete one sustained moment of optimism in the symphony cycle no fewer than three times. form of a long C major chord. Paavo Berglund died in January 2012. LONDON PhiLHARMONIC ORchEstRA The London Philharmonic Orchestra is known May each year. In summer, the Orchestra as one of the world’s great orchestras with moves to Sussex where it has been Resident at a reputation secured by its performances in Glyndebourne Festival Opera for over 40 years.

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