Noteson the Program

01-07 Owens.qxp_Layout 1 12/21/15 2:55 PM Page 26 NOTES ON THE PROGRAM By James M. Keller, Program Annotator The Leni and Peter May Chair En saga (A Fairy Tale) , Tone Poem for Large Orchestra, Op. 9 Jean Sibelius lthough he is revered as the central emi- have gone missing, it is impossible to know A nence of music in Finland, Jean Sibelius how closely these works are allied, but it is cer - (whose 150th birthday year has just begun) drew tain that the flute and, especially, the clarinet on the resources of both his own country and play important solo roles in En saga, and the other, more musically central lands during his string writing demands the sort of precise col - formative years. He studied composition and vi - oration one might well find in the exposed olin at the Helsingfors (Helsinki) Conservatory parts of a chamber piece. and then received a grant from the Finnish Gov - The genre of the symphonic poem is classi - ernment that enabled him to study counterpoint cally an orchestral work inspired by a specific and fugue in Berlin. From there he continued to literary or pictorial source. Most of Sibelius’s Vienna for further work in composition. compositions in the genre fit the bill, typically Armed with this internationally grounded being derived from Finnish folk legends. How - technique, he then turned his sights back to - ward his native Finland and, in the early 1890s, IN SHORT began writing works inspired by Finnish folk legends. These quickly established him as the Born: December 8, 1865, in Tavastehus most important of his nation’s composers, a rep - (Hämeenlinna), Finland utation that was clinched with the premiere of his stirring patriotic composition Finlandia in Died: on September 20, 1957, in Järvenpää, 1900. The seven full-scale symphonies Sibelius Finland composed between 1899 and 1924 staked his place as one of the most imposing symphonists Work composed: summer and autumn of of the 20th century. But his orchestral catalogue 1892 (completed in December); revised 1902 also comprises numerous less extended pieces, World premiere: original version, on February 16, including more than a dozen symphonic poems. 1893, with the composer conducting the En saga was one of Sibelius’s earliest purely Hel sinki Orchestral Society; revised version, on orchestral compositions, preceded only by an November 3, 1902, by the Philharmonic Society overture and a ballet scene in 1891. His five- in Helsinki, Robert Kajanus, conductor movement cantata Kullervo scored a substan - tial success in April 1892, and on the heels of New York Philharmonic premiere: July 9, that triumph the conductor Robert Kajanus 1926, Willem von Hoogstraten, conductor commissioned the 26-year-old composer to write a new orchestral piece. The result would Most recent New York Philharmonic be this first of Sibelius’s symphonic poems. performance: December 11, 2004, Colin Sibelius said that in En saga he drew on mater- Davis, conductor ial originally envisioned as an octet for flute, clarinet, and strings. Since the octet sketches Estimated duration: ca. 20 minutes 26 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC 01-07 Owens.qxp_Layout 1 12/21/15 2:55 PM Page 27 ever, he chose to keep the relationship between on the right (see sidebar, below). Gallen-Kallela his music and its source inexplicit, as he did in left a bit of canvas blank, intending that his symphonic poem The Bard and in En saga . Of Sibelius would fill it in with a quotation from the title — its original Swedish can be translated his tone poem — which the composer never did. as “A Fairy Tale” — Sibelius said, late in life: Sibelius was given to revising his composi - tions, often returning to a piece some years En saga is an expression of a state of mind. I after he wrote it to effect cuts or other emenda - had undergone a number of painful experi - tions, almost always yielding a shorter, tighter, ences at the time and in no other work have more cohesive work. This was the case with En I revealed myself so completely. It is for this saga , which he rethought when Ferruccio Bu - reason that I find all literary explanations soni arranged for a performance in Berlin in unreasonable. 1902 (with a tryout first in Helsinki). The re - vised version, heard here, is 150 measures Certainly that state of mind was northern: even shorter than the original. That still makes it in this early work one senses the frigid chill — among the longest of Sibelius’s symphonic the skittering figurations of strings and the poems, but its loose-knit, generally dark-hued growling of brass — that would become his episodes never flag, thanks to the composer’s hallmark, and the melodies themselves employ subtly changing orchestration and mysterious scales that are folkloric in their modality. injections of surprising ideas. If En saga was not directly inspired by a non- musical source, it did instigate the creation of a Instrumentation: two flutes (one doubling pic - painting — a diptych by the composer’s artist- colo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, friend Akseli Gallen-Kallela, with a fantastical four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, landscape on the left and a por trait of Sibelius tuba, cymbals, bass drum, triangle, and strings. Listen for … sul ponticello In En saga, Sibelius displays masterful writing for the strings, sometimes dividing his sections to achieve as many as 12 independent lines or to extract solo lines from the larger texture, sometimes calling for such special effects as pizzicato (plucking the strings), muting, and multiple stopping. Practically at the work’s mid-point he presents an extraordinary passage in which all the strings play pianissimo, tremolando, and sul ponticello — very softly, moving the bow quickly back and forth, and with the bow attacking the string next to the instrument’s bridge. The result is a brittle, somewhat nasal sound that a listener is likely to hear as eerie and, in the context of Sibelius, down - right icy. Sibelius as the Composer of ‘En Saga,’ by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1894 JANUARY 2016 | 27.

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