After years of picking up literature I understand the 3rd movement of the 4th symphony as "In a slow Tempo". How come it is always really fast? Think about the 16ths of the flutes introducing the solemn procession to the grave. And LARGO in itself has to do with dances of the Galantical eras and means "Sadness". If you take a look at it it is really slow. Just a thought I have had since my early Sibelian performances as a listener. It sounds easily and very often so hasty!
Listen to the tranquil whole-tone opening and the cyclic ending. It is a strange movement but one of the best that beats them all. Sibelius at his absolute prime time.

np. 4th Segerstam/ Helsinki PO

First of all, I like the distinction that Sibelius suggests between a marking of Largo and Il tempo Largo. Very subtle but different. How different? I guess that's for each performer to decide, but I know my idea of this movement would be different if it were simply marked "Largo".

As far as performances are concerned, I have never heard this piece live, and I don't want to comment on tempos taken in recordings, because recordings and live concerts are two different animals with different possibilities.

But in my immagination, I hear this music really as "slow as possible", whatever that means for each interpreter.

As slow as any interprerer can. The solemn process of "Il tempo Largo" would give us the whole intake of this very strange movement. I think the key is to open "Pohjolan tytär" and quartett "Sisäisiä ääniä". It will never settle. But my personal point is to ask all of you: Is it really this fast? I think not. Just a Gloom to my personal partiture fixed and autographed by the master of the Sibelius-Universe Paavo Berglund I think this is more slower than your master would accept! As a "at the slowest tempi" I am totally mad about it!!!!!!

In choosing a tempo for very slow music, the conductor is faced with a very important question: should the slow tempo still have a perceptible and even pulse, or should it be... nebulous?

I think this movement from the 4th symphony can indeed be "pulse-less" at times (but of course not rhythmless), and should create the feeling of floating in a continuous stream.

Vapaapulsatiivinen, Free-pulsative is a good word for this movement. It is ethereal if we get philosophical. Oh by the way, Mahler is a Czech! I just found out!

If you fancy hearing the Il tempo largo really slowly in concert (and in an acoustic where you can really hear all the details) why not beam yourself up to Lahti in early September 07? At the concluding concert of the Sibelius Festival, Osmo Vänskä is playing Night Ride and Sunrise and the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies.

Osmo is not slow and natural for my taste. Sorry. But I have a set of tickets booked. Then I shall know more...

And I have to get back on the subject. Largo is kinda Slow. Il tempo Largo is more "You know how slow it must be". And it has to be Il tempo Largo. How it is?

In general, about Italian tempo indications...

As a conductor, I appreciate very much exactly what Sibelius does, in that he gives a very specific or perhaps even expressive Italian tempo marking, and does not give a metronome marking to specify it. This not only allows us but forces us to use our imagination and artistry to find the "right" tempo, forces us to think and put this tempo in context with the tempos of other movements that have the same or similar markings.

Also, these markings are eternal and stand the test of time, while paradoxically, I believe metronome markings may not. As society develops and the human psyche is influenced by all kinds of events, developments and new forms of art and media, our concepts of what is "Sad", "Happy", "Furious", "Calm" etc. etc. change. So while a composer in writing "Sad" music may put a metronome marking that he feels sets the "right" mood, he may have been setting the right mood for 1907 or 1807, but in 2007, maybe this marking will not convey the "right" feeling anymore.

This issue is certainly a grey area, and I am not claiming that composers who use metronome markings are "wrong"... I just appreciate the ones like Sibelius who do not.

Context is indeed a crucial point here - also the context of an individual movement's tempo and position within a symphony or suite as a whole. I'm sure we have all heard performances where one movement is so out of sync with the rest of the interpretation that it just throws the whole performance out of balance. Just look at all those performances of the Third Symphony in which the slow movement is played as a jaunty waltz or even tries to assume a scherzo character!

I'd even say that in Sibelius's case this can be extended to those opus groups that were not initially conceived as a single entity but gathered together from pieces composed separately - for instance the piano sets Op.34 and Op.40, or the violin/piano Op.79 and Op.81. I do enjoy hearing these works played in Sibelius's chosen sequence (and condemn the habit of re-ordering the pieces for reasons of a performer's vanity - which seems to be the case with Olli Mustonen's recording of Op.34 and Op.76 on Ondine - but I am sorry to say that those are performances which, for all their sensitivity and pianistic brilliance, are distractingly wayward anyway - and just look at the spin on the cover: MUSTONEN in huge letters and Sibelius in much smaller ones...).

For the record, here it is:

"That guys tempo! His huge remarkings on the legato! Her antimasculine ritartando! The most omnious woodwinds conducted by X..." by critics. I am lightly stalking the critics here.. Who cares. You know the partiture? Let us go with it and enjoy the marvelous artistic performaces by the likes as Olli Mustonen. As Berglund once put it : "We are performers and we have to make our own and our very own idea about this piece composed by someone very very else but it just has to be done in trust to our human instincts in this time. We are the players. We are the ones bringing all this to life". It happened to be Sibelius 7th.

In light of this , I think I can keep the score out of the performances. But I think I cannot keep the performances out of the score. That is my problem. That is why I may do the critics! And I think I will continue to have some critisism. I can.

But in this Tellus where all Sibelius music is already in alphas I think we just have to accept the new tailor made market to his music. MUSTONEN playes Sbelius is ok by me. Just a fact.

And going back to the not too fast topic. Could it read in English : "In a very sad tempo" ? And here I do not mean that it should read there on the left upper side of the partiture but just the general emotion. "In a very sad tempo, tranquil and hollow. And full of..." Oh sorry , that was me, a Finn. Being a critic.

I have this old Bernstein/NPO disc and that is very close to a tempo I thought it should be on 4th 3rd. But then again .. I am just a consumer, not a creator. Let Sibelius flow...
The best in those terms is Segerstam/HPO. It is slow. It has something to be sad about..

Interesting that you say SAD, arenan...

I have actually never thought of the 4th symphony as "Sad". It is certainly serious, austere and perhaps even "bleak"... but I do not feel sadness, not even in the expansive 3rd mvmt.

I feel that in the 3rd mvmt, Sibelius is very carefully searching for and building a statement which he finally achieves on the 4th attempt... but the soaring multi-octave theme does not strike me as sad, I hear it as a huge statement of the eternal and the universal, something capturing a deeper truth that is beyond human emotions.

Sad is not enough with Sibelius.. Here is something I found out from Wiki:

Bipolar disorder, often referred to as manic-depression in the general literature, is a psychiatric condition defined by periods of extreme mood. These moods can occur on a spectrum ranging from debilitating depression to unbridled mania. Individuals suffering a bipolar disorder generally experience fluid states of mania, hypomania or what is referred to as a mixed states in concert with clinical depression. These clinical states typically alternate with a normal range of mood, which is termed euthymia. Bipolar disorder can range in severity from a mild annoyance to a serious lifelong disability.

There are many variations of this disorder. Moods can change quickly (4 or more times in one year) or more slowly. In psychiatric terms, this is called rapid cycling or slow cycling, respectively. Ultrarapid cycling, where moods change several times per week, is very rare. These mood patterns are associated with distress and disruption, and a relatively high risk of suicide.[citation needed]

Bipolar disorder is usually treated with medications and/or therapy or counseling.

As well as being linked to disability, studies have suggested a correlation between creativity and bipolar disorder, although the relationship between the two is unclear. [1][2][3] Studies have also indicated increased striving for, and sometimes obtaining, goals and achievements more generally; in other words, many with bipolar disorder tend to be more driven, extremely goal oriented, and hard working.

Well now, go work with your Alla Marcia kontra Nightly Ride...

As Sibelius put it.. the 4th was his psychological symphony..
There?

-Arenan

Edit: I know few people that suffer this disease. Hendrix, Churchill etc. I think you will accept the SAD as I did put it here as the ultimate goal of death and life. Could it be so? Someone would be MORE OVER THE TOP than you in human emotions? Sibelius was.. So was Lutoslawski. So was Berg. Could it be so?

The utmost hollow sounds, the bleaking harmony with a total harsh vision of the Koli-trip, the very near to-emotion themes, and very hollow climaxes that surround this 4th symphony...
I heard that Maestro A wanted it to be "Lively", Maestro B wanted it to be "Deadly". I think 3rd movement is just as hollow as it can be, and yes... also a humane one. One of the most difficult movements. I like Nielsen very much when he writes stuff like 5th and 6th's "the most serious stuff"! But then again it is my own howl to get this right...

-M

Koli-trip?

This sounds intriguing... can you tell us what this is?

Koli trip -

that would be the visit that Sibelius made to the Koli mountain by Lake Pielinen (across the water from Lieksa where he had spent his honeymoon seventeen years earlier) in late September 1909. He went there with his brother-in-law, the painter Eero Järnefelt. It’s well worth a visit if you're ever in the area. Koli was then a popular destination among artists with an interest in the Kalevala and Karelianism. JS wrote in his diary: ‘On Koli! One of the greatest impressions in my life. Planning “La montagne”.’ This visit to Koli is generally regarded as the impulse for the composition of the Fourth Symphony – but the links can easily be overstated (and often are!). Motifs associated with mountains are frequently encountered in Sibelius’s diaries, both in relation to his music and to his state of mind. ‘A psychological symphony’ hits the spot very well.

You have no doubt seen images of (or usually from the top of) Koli on the front of various recordings.

Thanks for the tip, Andrew B... so for the others following this thread, here are some scenes from Koli.

Vodka anyone?

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Andrew B wrote:

This visit to Koli is generally regarded as the impulse for the composition of the Fourth Symphony – but the links can easily be overstated (and often are!). You have no doubt seen images of (or usually from the top of) Koli on the front of various recordings.

I know what you mean. But I have to admit that the associations that come to me are more "Tapiola"-like. The nature pictures on the album covers are quite pretty kontra the ones that when you are actally there, biten by mosquitos, the utmost dry air. In winter the frostbitten stillness... But still so huge.
I am getting off the topic more and more.
Well some Vodka will do!