Sakari Oramo A

SIBELIUS Lemminkäinen Suite · Spring Song Suite from ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ Sakari Oramo Jean Sibelius,1896 AKG Images, London / De Agostini Picture Library / A. Dagli Orti Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957) Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22 (1893 – 96, revised 1897, 1900, and 1939) 46:19 (Lemminkäis-sarja) Four Legends for Orchestra 1 1 Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island (Lemminkäinen ja saaren neidot). Allegro molto moderato – Allegro moderato – Largamente – Allegro molto – Vivace – Molto vivace – Vivacissimo – Poco largamente – Tempo I – Largamente – Moderato assai 15:52 2 3 Lemminkäinen in Tuonela (Lemminkäinen Tuonelassa). Il tempo largamente – [ ] – Tempo I – Largamente – Largamente assai – Tempo I – Largamente assai – Largamente – Largamente molto – Largamente assai – Vivace – Presto – Largamente – Molto lento – Più lento – Largo assai – Largamente – Largamente assai – Vivace – Presto – Largamente 14:47 3 2 The Swan of Tuonela (Tuonelan joutsen). Andante molto sostenuto – Poco a poco meno moderato – Meno moderato – Poco allargando – Tempo I 8:52 Alison Teale cor anglais • Igor Yuzefovich violin Norbert Blume viola • Susan Monks cello 4 4 Lemminkäinen’s Homeward Journey (Lemminkäinen palaa kotitienoille). Allegro con fuoco (poco a poco più energico) – Più piano – Quasi Presto – Presto – Allargando 6:32 3 5 Spring Song, Op. 16 (1894, revised 1895) 9:03 (Vårsång) ‘La Tristesse du printemps’ (The Sadness of Spring) Tone Poem for Orchestra Tempo moderato e sostenuto – Largamente – A tempo (ma poco a poco meno moderato) – Un poco più lento – A tempo 4 Suite from ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’, Op. 51 (1906 – 07) 15:55 (Belsazars gästabud) Incidental Music to the Play by Hjalmar Johan Fredrik Procopé (1889 – 1954) 6 1 Oriental Procession. Moderato 3:08 7 2 Solitude. Andante 3:32 Norbert Blume violaw Susan Monks cello 8 3 Nocturne (Night Music). Andantino 4:45 Michael Cox flute 9 4 Khadra’s Dance. Commodo 4:15 James Burke clarinet TT 71:34 BBC Symphony Orchestra Igor Yuzefovich leader Sakari Oramo 5 Sibelius: Lemminkäinen / Spring Song / Belshazzar’s Feast Lemminkäinen: Four Legends, Op. 22 nineteenth century from the narrative poems Lemminkäinen, a suite of ‘Four Legends’, is of oral tradition in the eastern province of an early work by Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957), Karelia. The four movements are based on though its later history runs all through episodes concerned with the young and the composer’s long life. Sibelius wrote headstrong hero Lemminkäinen. But there it between 1893 or ’94 and 1896, shortly is very little in the way of detailed musical after his first popular success, the music narrative; instead, the musical material is for the pageant Karelia, and a few years expanded, developed, and combined in the before his First Symphony. He conducted its abstract manner familiar from the composer’s first performance, in Helsinki in April 1896, symphonies. In a telling comment in a letter and then revised it the following year for to his fiancée in 1890, Sibelius wrote that the a second performance. He further revised Kalevala the two shorter movements, ‘The Swan of to my ears is pure music, themes and Tuonela’ and ‘Lemminkäinen’s Homeward variations; its story is far less important Journey’, for publication in 1901; ‘The Swan’ in than the moods and atmosphere particular became, and has remained, widely conveyed. popular as an independent piece. But for The first movement, ‘Lemminkäinen and many years the remaining two movements the Maidens of the Island’ (Lemminkäinen received only occasional performances. ja saaren neidot), was suggested by Canto Sibelius revised them again in 1939, during 29 of the Kalevala, which describes how his long retirement; and finally, in 1954, three Lemminkäinen travels to a distant island years before his death, he authorised the while its male inhabitants are away, and publication of the complete suite. seduces all the girls (an action considered Like several of his early works, the suite appropriate to a hero of Nordic mythology!). was suggested by the Kalevala, the national The opening, characterised by gradually epic of Finnish mythology, which had unfolding melodies and a rising scale figure been compiled during the first half of the in the horns, is presumably a portrait of the 6 young hero, while the following episode, over swan which swims on its dark river. Instead, a sustained E flat drone in the bass, must he is himself speared to death, and his body represent the innocent dances of the island is cut into pieces which are scattered in girls. The return in more expansive form of the water. But the mother of Lemminkäinen the melodies of the opening can be taken as fishes out the pieces and sews them corresponding to Lemminkäinen’s amorous together to bring her son back to life. A advances – answered by threatening brass speculative interpretation of the movement interjections as the angry menfolk return would suggest that the opening string to the island. The return of the dance, now tremolos evoke the dark currents of Tuonela; with string tremolos, seems to have a more an extended wind melody represents frenetic quality than at first. And after the Lemminkäinen venturing below ground and, departure of Lemminkäinen on a stormy sea, later, baleful brass chords signal the danger receding echoes of the dance suggest either he is in. An acceleration and a dramatic the girls waving goodbye or the memories plunge into the low register mark the moment that the hero leaves behind him. of the death of Lemminkäinen, which is When Sibelius published the complete followed by a keening woodwind lament. High suite, he placed ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ divided upper strings, over a quiet side drum second and ‘Lemminkäinen in Tuonela’ third, roll, and an expressive melody for cellos and in accordance with the work’s narrative woodwind depict the miracle-working of his thread. But at the first performance, in 1896, mother. The closing section, less narrative he is known to have reversed the order of than recapitulation, revisits the dark waters, these two inner movements – and Sakari the moment of the hero’s death, and the Oramo has preferred this sequence for lament – followed this time by solemn brass his recording, finding it ‘a more rewarding chords, and a rising solo cello portraying order musically’. ‘Lemminkäinen in Tuonela’ Lemminkäinen awakening to new life. (Lemminkäinen Tuonelassa) was suggested ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ (Tuonelan joutsen) by Cantos 14 and 15 of the Kalevala, and is began its life in an earlier project based on set in the underground land of the dead. As the Kalevala, as the prelude to an abandoned part of his wooing of the daughter of the opera called The Building of the Boat (which Northland, Lemminkäinen has been set the may also have provided some of the material task of descending to Tuonela and killing the for ‘Lemminkäinen in Tuonela’). The scene, in 7 the suite as in the opera, is the subterranean expanding fragmentary motifs into sustained Tuonela – which, according to a preface to melodic statements, and gaining in weight the score of the piece, and pace. is surrounded by a large river with black waters and a rapid current, on which Spring Song, Op. 16 the Swan of Tuonela floats majestically, In 1894, while he was working on the singing. Lemminkäinen suite, Sibelius was asked to The swan is represented by a solo cor anglais, write a short piece for a choral festival in the projecting long, arching spans of melody city of Vaasa, on the west coast of Finland. against a background of much-divided muted He responded, reportedly at the last minute, strings. Eventually, a sustained major chord, with an (appropriately named) Improvisation picked out in harp arpeggios, provides a shaft in D major for orchestra, which he conducted of light in the gloom. But the home key of in an open-air concert at Midsummer. The A minor is restored in a dirge-like string following year, he revised the score, in the melody, before the movement ends with a process transposing it into F major, for a return to the icy darkness of its opening. concert in Helsinki in April. He gave this Describing ‘Lemminkäinen’s Homeward new version the Swedish title of Vårsång, Journey’ (Lemminkäinen palaa kotitienoille) or Spring Song, and a French subtitle, in the programme for the first performance ‘La Tristesse du printemps’, or ‘The Sadness of the suite, Sibelius quoted passages from of Spring’. It used to be thought that Sibelius two cantos of the Kalevala about homeward subjected the piece to a further revision journeys made by the hero. In the first, before it was published in 1903, but recent he ‘fashions horses out of his sorrows’; in scholarship has called this into question. the second, he catches sight of familiar In contrast to the fragmented textures of landscapes and seascapes as he gallops the Lemminkäinen suite, the Spring Song is home. This is all that is needed by way of a virtually all melody, hymn-like in character. narrative programme for a movement that The opening strain is repeated in a fuller, depicts the hero’s journey in music that warmer scoring, and extended to reach a moves from C minor through different key- strident climax over an unexpected chord. areas to reach E flat major, the opening key A more rhythmically active episode leads to of the cycle, while at the same time gradually a final sonorous reprise of the melody, bells 8 ringing out at another climactic switch of The first movement, ‘Oriental Procession’, harmony before the resonant conclusion. is a march, with skirling woodwind phrases Sibelius’s friend and patron Axel Carpelan over a drone bass and regular percussion, summed up the piece as a depiction of gradually approaching and then receding. the slow, laborious arrival of the Nordic It is the accompaniment to a procession in spring and wistful melancholy.

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