Any Finnish choreographer who sets out to create a choreography to Jean

Sibelius’s music is well aware that they are laying hands on music that is full of national meaning Maybe that is why Finnish ballets which have been made to Sibelius’s music tend to deal with the history of the nation

Sibelius as an artist or visions of nature Can we Finns at all think of Sibe lius’s music on the stage as mere music? and Dance TIINA SUHONEN Photos: KARI HAKLI AND FINNISH NATIONAL BALLET

Jean Sibelius and dance have There were great expectations that Sibelius would compose an become a focus of attention in this year. The new director of , but his one-act experiment (1896) the Finnish National Ballet, Dinna Bjørn, commissioned new choreogra- remained his only opera composition. Sibelius composed theatre music phies to Sibelius’ music from three choreographers, namely Xin-Peng for 11 plays, including Pelléas and Mélisande (1905) and Wang from China, Stefano Giannetti from Italy and ’s Jorma Elo. (1926). (1913), which was originally characterised as a Xin-Peng Wang interpreted the Narcissus myth on the basis of Sibe- ballet pantomime, can been regarded as Sibelius’ only piece of ballet lius’ long forgotten orchestral ballad The Wood-Nymph. Stefano Gian- music. netti choreographed the entire Fifth Symphony – without a storyline, as It seems that Sibelius was not inspired to compose for the ballet he himself pointed out, although his work drew on problems that Jean – at least he managed to avoid all such commissions. In 1909 the and experienced in their marriage. Canadian solo dancer Maud Allan wanted Sibelius to compose a ballet The critics were not very enthusiastic about either ballet, but they for her with an Oriental theme. Allan had become famous with her did like Jorma Elo’s work Twisted Shadow. Twisted Shadow is representa- work The Vision of Salome at The Palace Theatre in London. Oriental tive of current contemporary ballet, its basic ideas being very Forsyth- exoticness sold very well, but Sibelius was not interested in Allan’s ian in its continuous flow of convulsive movement. The musical hooks ideas about composing Khamma, and the task later fell to Debussy. are the very familiar Swan of Tuonela from the Lemminkäinen-suite, and In late 1909, when Allan wanted to create a ballet about a bear-hunting the concerto’s intensive finale. feast, she approached Sibelius with the new theme, but, after working In addition to the first premieres, Bjørn decided to end the Ballet’s on the project for a while, he gave it up. 80th anniversary season with a Sibelius gala. The disjointed evening was The bear-feast theme was resurrected in 1914 when the Finnish extended by Giannetti’s Fifth Symphony, and extracts from ballets made pioneer of modern dance Maggie Gripenberg approached Sibelius to Sibelius’ music by John Neumeier, Imre Eck, Juri Vamos, Jorma Elo, with the same idea. In the fourth part of his Sibelius biography, Erik Jorma Uotinen, Pär Isberg and Hans van Manen were performed. Tawaststjerna presents Sibelius’ correspondence with his friend and The critics were scathing, but why? adviser Axel Carpelan, which reveals very clearly the composer’s lack Why was the combining of dance with Sibelius’ music not perceived of motivation: “Ballet suits me and would surely bring me great as a friendly gesture from the Ballet’s Danish director to us Finns? The success…but why waste themes that would make brilliant symphonies event certainly caught the spectators’ attention. On the other hand, on a few pas!” Carpelan’s comforting reply was: “Indeed, follow your part of the audience undoubtedly knows Sibelius’ music so well that genius, devote yourself to symphonic creation… The coming times are, they watched the choreographies with two critical eyes. Some might in my view, not best suited for opera (ballet). It would be rather have entertained old-fashioned thoughts that there is music that one amusing to compose pas with cannons in the background “. cannot and should not dance to. Commissioning three new first premieres means being courageous and taking a big risk, but is it also possible that the choreographers found the well-known classical music The Triumph of the Waltz of Death restrictive? Nowadays, music does not very often serve as the starting point of a choreography; at least, over the last century, new kinds of Sibelius wanted to concentrate on symphonies but, as he constantly links have been created between music and dance. Jorma Elo, whose lived above his means, lack of money forced him to compose small- work was best received by the critics, broke the silence of his ballet scale music for practical uses. His greatest success in this field was

i Hakli with Sibelius’ hits in a postmodern way, and he managed to surprise the undoubtedly , which was originally incidental music com- audience with a combination of familiar music and weird movement. posed for Arvid Järnefelt’s symbolistic drama Death (1903). Sibelius orchestrated the waltz in 1904 and, apart from its success in other areas, it became a regular feature in solo dancers’ repertoires. Maggie Sibelius Never Composed Ballets Gripenberg became the first to dance Valse triste in Finland in 1906, and she was followed by many others. Both classical and modern At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, composing ballets was dancers became interested in Valse triste; well-known foreign dancers not regarded as a very worthy occupation for a composer. This was included Olga Preobrazenska, Lubov Egorova, Anna Pavlova, Mary explained partly by the changes that were taking place within dance Wigman and the Estonian Ella Illbak.

| Choreography Jorma Uotinen | Photo Kar art itself and partly by the prevailing ideal of absolute, ‘pure’ music that The composer Erkki Salmenhaara has pointed out that this piece is not dependent on other art forms. As ballet started to renew itself alone, which captured the spirit of its age, would have earned Sibelius in the 1910s in the repertoire of the Ballets Russes, a new interest was his place in the international history of music. As a dance piece Valse also created in ballet music. This transition only took place later on in triste stayed largely faithful to the scene in the original play: a delirious

The Glass Sonate Finland when modern ballet music arrived in the 1930s. woman dreams of being at a ball, at the end of which death asks her

up for a waltz. The eccentric painter Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa recalled ent choreography. He probably aspired for minimalistic ballet modern- how a flu-ridden Sibelius started composing Valse triste in the Kämp ism, but the critics missed the world of fairytales. One of them wrote Hotel restaurant with the help of Danish oysters and 5 grams of ruthlessly: “Creatures covered by light mist slide to and fro on the quinine. stage, forming different groups and series of movements without any Sibelius himself never profited from the wide popularity of his particular coherence. If Mr Gé aimed for some modern form whose composition as he relinquished the rights for a one-off payment to content is left totally obscure, he definitely succeeded”. his Finnish publisher, who in turn sold them on to Breitkopf & Härtel. Nearly fifty years later, in 1980, the well-established pioneer choreo- Valse triste was not only a disappointment to Sibelius financially; in its grapher of Finnish dance theatre Marjo Kuusela experimented with time it was also seen to have diminished Sibelius’ standing as a serious Dance Theatre Raatikko with a dance evening in which the genres composer of symphonies. varied from farce to great pathos and from parody to lyricism. The evening consisted of three parts; first there were eight extracts of the Scaramouche dancers’ own material under the heading There Are So Many People on Earth. The second part was Kuusela’s farcical new interpretation of Dance pantomime or ”pantomime melodrama” is a forgotten genre. the national poet Runeberg’s famous character Lotta Svärd, an army In its time it was a kind of dance theatre in which speech, and

caterer who has become a political icon of patriotism for the Finns. | Choreography Margaretha Bahr | Photo Finnish National Ballet von dance were intertwined. Sibelius was commissioned to compose The evening was brought to an end by Kuusela’s choreography Peace Scaramouche to the Dane Paul Knudsen’s . But the task was Grows from Me to Sibelius’ Second Symphony. The work dealt with the

not easy. It came out that Knudsen’s story was a plagiarism of an earlier birth of the nation, war, a wish for peace, and conscientious objection. Scaramouche pantomime, namely Arthur Schnitzler’s Pierrette’s Veil. It is a horror The critics were puzzled. Marjo Kuusela had proved her talent in story in which the demonic violinist Scaramouche arrives in Leilon’s dramaturgically intensive dance dramas based on literary topics. house and seduces the beautiful Madame Blondelaine at a ball. The In the same year she had created an excellent and sensitive interpreta- horrified Blondelaine kills Scaramouche and hides the corpse behind tion of The Seven Brothers for the National Ballet. But now that she was a curtain. Afterwards she asks her husband to play old melodies and experimenting with a new, looser structure, combining very different starts dancing until she collapses dead at the side of Scaramouche’s parts in one evening, the reception was mostly negative. The choreog- body. Leilon is shocked and goes insane. rapher was advised to take a creative break. The Second Symphony, Sibelius imagined he would get away with a few dance tunes until however, would not leave Kuusela in peace, and a renewed version of he found out that he was dealing with a through-composed piece of it returned to the repertoire in 1985. It was simply called Symphony, theatre. Scaramouche became an uninterrupted composition of a little but it still dealt with the themes of war and peace. Despite its roots in over one hour long. Sibelius was displeased with the fact that lines the nation’s history, it was a timely work in those years when the arms might be delivered as a part of the pantomime, and he was assured race between the superpowers was at its height. that this would not come to pass. In its first premiere in The latest large-scale effort to make choreography to Sibelius’ music in 1922, however, the work was performed with dialogue. Thanks to was the two-act The Glass Sonate (For Those Unknown to Me) in 1994 the music in particular it was well received by the critics, the storyline by Jorma Uotinen, who was at the time the director of the National having been perceived as clumsy to begin with. In 1924 the Danish Ballet. Uotinen collaborated with the playwright-dramatist Juha Silta- publisher Hansen gave the Scaramouche score to Sergei Diaghilev, nen, who has a thorough knowledge of music. The use of Sibelius in who apparently showed no interest in it. Scaramouche was premiered The Glass Sonate was extensive: the incidental music of The Tempest and at the Finnish National Theatre in 1923, when it was once again per- Death, , A Saga, , Belsazar’s Feast, Valse Chevaleresque formed with dialogue. The performance was directed by the choreog- and Night-ride and Sunrise all featured in it. The dramaturgy of the rapher Maggie Gripenberg and featured Sibelius’ daughter, the actress music, which consisted of tens of extracts, was very well received, and Ruth Snellman, in the leading role. the critics variously characterised the work as a stage poem, a dance Scaramouche has been performed without dialogue since the 1930s. collage, and a series of visions. Some critics found it complicated, It has been produced by Finnish National ballet four times, but its re- boring and too open to interpretation, whereas others saw in it a views give the impression that the melodramatic and muddled story- multi-layered and poetic treatment of the national composer’s life line has always thwarted its success. Nobody has had the courage to and artistic work. take enough distance from the plot’s complexities. The ballet master The dialogue between Sibelius and choreographers will continue. Alexander Saxelin choreographed Scaramouche in 1935. Maggie Gri- Even though Sibelius himself did not compose ballets, his music has penberg organised an evening of three pieces to celebrate Sibelius’ been used by e.g. Frederick Ashton, John Cranko, John Neumeier and 80th birthday in 1946; Scaramouche failed, a view shared also by Ulf Gadd. The musicologist Veijo Murtomäki puts it very well when he Gripenberg herself, but The Tempest and Festivo were well received as says: “The role of dance and other forms of movement is central and ballet works. Irja Koskinen developed the dance aspect of Scaramouche fundamental in Sibelius’ music. Even contemporary critics noticed this (1955) and Margaretha von Bahr made the most recent interpretation and wrote with delight that Sibelius had “restored movement to the i Hakli in 1974. symphony” – in other words, put back the original reason for the existence of the genre. Creating choreography to go with Sibelius’ The Conflict between music thus needs no further motivation.” D Abstract and Narrational Literature: Finnish National Ballet, programme notes. No thorough research exists of the Finnish Sibelius ballets, and several Theatre Academy Library, press cuttings.

works have been left outside the scope of this article. Many Finnish Theatre Museum, the press collection. | Choreography Marjo Kuusela | Photo Kar choreographies to Sibelius’ music seem to have contained conflict Gripenberg, Maggie: Rytmin lumoissa (1950). between the concrete, historical and nationally recognisable themes Salmenhaara, Erkki: Jean Sibelius (1984). and the more abstract dance content. George Gé’s Poéme (1931) to Sirén, Vesa: Aina poltti sikaria (2000).

Tawaststjerna, Erik: Jean Sibelius I-V (1988-1989). BrothersThe Seven ...Creating choreography to go with Sibelius’s music thus needs no further motivation.” Sibelius’s A Saga was the National Ballet ballet master’s first independ-

“The role of dance and other forms of movement is central and fundamental in Sibelius’s music.