The Sibelius Forum

David Revilla

I'm writing about the First Symphony in my blog. Studying the information, I found the former plans for a symphony: a programmatic symphony, a finnish tale for the first tempo, Heine for the second one, Shakespeare for the third one and Juhani Aho for the last one. But then he changed his mind: a formal symphony.

But I thought: Sibelius began a lot of his symphonies and tone poems with a different plan than the definitive plan. Now, I can remember:

- A programatic symphony --> Overture JS.145 & Scène de ballet Js.163.

- A symphony with folk melodies --> Kullervo.

- A septet? --> En saga

- Veneen luominen --> Lemminkäinen

- Don Juan + Christus --> 2nd symphony

- Luonnotar --> Pohjola's Daughter

- Marjatta --> 3rd symphony?, Andante festivo?

- A string quartet + The raven --> 4th symphony

- Suite for orchestra (Scènes historiques III?) --> The bard? + The oceanides

- Kuutar + Violin concert "lyrique" --> 6th symphony

There were more examples...

The question is: why the projects became into other works?

- Did Sibelius reject the original plans because of they were bad plans?

- Did Sibelius think only in musical matters? So he put the tag after the composition was made.

- Did the work grow by itself? So, the Sibelius' works had life, and they grew in an organic way. He created the seed motivs, the grew and grew, and the Sibelius's plans had to be changed.

My answer is the last one. What do you think about?

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I'm sorry, my english isn't quite good! My blog about Sibelius in spanish:

Andrew B · Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:45 am Post subject:

In some cases there were specific reasons for the changes - for instance the Raven song was a victim of time pressure as much as of artistic considerations. And in the case of Pohjola's Daughter the title remained undecided right until the last moment. But in general I would strongly agree with you that the third option is the most convincing. And as regards the naming process, I think it can be applied to the smaller works as well.

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kullervopete · Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:12 pm Post subject:

I also tend to agree with your last option David. Sibelius once remarked that musical themes were the most precious property of a composer and he jotted down themes and ideas in his note book which he would return to and develop further in later works. Interestingly many ideas for his three final symphonies moved from one work to the other. This is pretty incredible when one considers how profoundly organic these works are.--kp

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Peter Frankland