Besides some of the Finns that continued the work of Sibelius, are there non-Finns that were influenced?

There is a young Czech composer named Jan Hora, whose music sounds a lot like Philip Glass', but his endings have more than a hint of Sibelius in them.

A more prominant Composer, Polish-Canadian Peter-Paul Koprowski is also a Sibelius follower. He even wrote a piece called Saga.

For some parts unknown I have to add to listen this please : Coriglianos 2nd. But yes Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Mozart but to catch something... Leevi Madetoja : 2nd symphony (Oulu SO/Volmer) and after that catch 1st and the fabulous 3rd!

Oh, I have to edit.. NON-Finnish composers.. Sorry!

Sometimes Samuel Barber's music vaguely reminds me of Sibelius, but I know of no other composer that sounds a lot like the master.

Sibelius's idiom, to me, remains one of the most singular and distinctive ones I've ever encountered. Indeed, that is a credit to his genius and originality.

John Adams, in his notes to Harmonielehre, cites Sibelius as a major influence

During his long life, apart from Scandinavia Sibelius's music only
really took hold in Britain and the US when composers like Bax,
Vaughan Williams and Walton in England and Hovhaness, Roy
Harris and Howard Hanson in America all drank from the Sibelian
fountain. With conductors like Koussevitzky and Stokowski in the US and Beecham and Barbirolli, Sibelius had powerful advocates.
Their efforts were amplifyed by the critical writings of Constant
Lambert, Olin Downes and others.

All this activity did not effect the German and Latin speaking
countries who remained strangely detached from the Finnish master despite the efforts of Breitkopf and Hartel
Even has Sibelius lived, a reaction against his music set in
especially within elements of the critical establishment who set
out to denigrate his music and place him in the second rank.



Significantly during these dark years the music loving public
continued to buy records of his music and attend concerts as
never before. After Berglunds ground breaking recording of
Kullervo in 1971 the tide against Sibelius slowly began to change
as a new generation of composer's rediscovered him. In England
that doyen of modernists Peter Maxwell Davies shocked the
avant gard establishment when he cited Sibelius as a major
influence on his first symphony [1976] and composers like Malcolm
Arnold, Thomas Ades, Colin Matthews and Robert Simpson have
all cited Sibelius has a major influence.

In America Morton Feldman spoke of his indebtedness to Sibelius
in his piece 'Coptic light' [1985] his programme note explained
that 'an important aspect of the composition was prompted by
Sibelius's observation that the orchestra differs mainly from the
piano in that it has no pedal' with this in mind he set to work to create an orchestral pedal continually varying in nuance.

In France were Rene Leibowitz had once described Sibelius has 'the worlds worst composer' a Sibelius cult developed in the
1970's with figures such as Hugues Dufourt, Tristan Murail, Pascal
Dusapin and Alan Baanquart. In Germany Dr. Frank Reinisch
tells us that successful composers of the middle generation such
as Wolfgang Rihm and Manfred Trojahn have all confirmed that
Sibelius's symphonic style excerted a major influence on their
own development.


As we start to mark the 50th anniversary of Sibelius's death it is heartening to read Julian Anderson in The Cambridge companion
to Sibelius [2005] 'For there is virtually no major composer working
today who has not been directly affected by the work of Jean
Sibelius'.
kullervopete.

Leibowitz? he was a good conductor. i'm surprised he did not care for sibelius.

dj

To put Leibowitz's comment into prospective David, the German
writer on music and friend of Sibelius Ernst Tanzberger interviewed
Leibowitz in 1961 and brought up the subject of his short essay
'Sibelius, le plus mauvais compositeur du monde' of 1955. This interview was later included in one of Tanzberger's books.
Leibowitz claimed: 'I never said that Sibelius's music was worthless
...The expression that Sibelius was the worst composer in the
world was a joke. In France we had a questionnaire about who
was the best composer in the world. Sibelius was mentioned.
I reacted to this over-exaggeration by saying that he was the
very worst...I only know the Fifth Symphony and the Violin
Concerto well; those works I have conducted. I have also heard
other symphonies, such as the Fourth and the First'.
kullervopete.

ok

dj

And Leibowitz actually made a recording of Valse triste. I have only a very faint recollection of the details - I think it was with a Viennese orchestra (probably not the Philharmonic), and I certainly don't remember the label. But it was by no means a bad performance.

Andrew, the recording that you mention was with The Vienna
State Opera Orchestra and dates from 1957, it was on the
Westminster record label.--maybe this was Leibowitz's tribute
to Sibelius on his death.---kullervopete.

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arenan wrote:

For some parts unknown I have to add to listen this please : Coriglianos 2nd. But yes Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Mozart but to catch something... Leevi Madetoja : 2nd symphony (Oulu SO/Volmer) and after that catch 1st and the fabulous 3rd!

I've just discovered Madetoja - the 1st and the 2nd symphonies are both terrific - make them your next stop after Sibelius'.

E.J.Moeran's Symphony in G from the 1930s has some Sibelian moments - notably several 'Tapiola' moments toward its end.

I believe that Leevi Madetoja actually had lessons from Sibelius over a two year period, but by all accounts Sibelius's methods were somewhat unorthodox. Madetoja recalled years later that the lessons were 'not teaching in the normal sense', consisting of 'short, searching comments', such as 'No dead, unnecessary notes-everything must live'.
But Madetoja did not feel inhibited in revealing Sibelian influences in his compositions unlike most of his contempories. Actually Sibelius outlived his pupil, who died in 1947.--kullervopete.

Allegedly the complete score of Madetoja's Fourth Symphony was stolen from a Paris railway station in the 1930s and has never been recovered (he did not rewrite/recompose it). Step forward Inspector Clouseau...?

Yes, something of a double tragedy for both teacher and pupil. Sibelius destroys his No.8 in the flames and poor Madetoja loses his. Apparently he did not have the energy to rewrite it.
Ekki Salmenharra still thinks that there is a slim chance that it still might exist hidden away in Paris.--kullervopete.

I believe we have stumbled upon the subject of Dan Brown's next book...

Jón Leifs (1899-1968) was an icelandic composer, he studied the piano, composing and conducting at Leibzig and, shortly after graduation, became the conductor of the Leibzig Gewandhausorchestra and the Hamburg Philharmonic. He took the HP on a tour to Iceland in 1926, making it the first orchestra to perform in Iceland. Soon after graduating he began collecting icelandic folk music, he became heavily influenced by it and began composing.
His music is very raw, loud and robust, while Sibelius is late-romantic, Leifs is neo-romantic, there are lot of parallel fifths and subito ffffortes for an example (singing in parallel fifths forms the base of icelandic folk music). He composed, among other things, tone poems about Iceland's volcanoes and heavy waterfalls, a program-symphony on old viking heroes (BIS released a recording by Vänskä and the ISO some years ago) and a string quartet on his daughter's death. A recording of his last and most enthusiastic work, the oratorio Edda I - the creation of the world, is being released by BIS this december.
What he and Sibelius have in common is the enthusiasm to capture the element of nordic nature in their music, I think admirers of the 4th symphony will find Leifs interesting. His best work (in my opinion) is without a doubt the oratorio, but the tone poems Hekla and Geysir, and the Saga symphony are also very good.

Thanks Saturnus for your very interesting information on Jon Leifs, a composer that I for one am not familar with. But from what you say, I will certainly look out for his music.
Just one small point, Sibelius was certainly a National Romantic composer at the start of his career, up until say the Violin Concerto but he moved away from late romanticism from around the time of the Third Symphony and went on to produce a body of work that by reason of its classic discipline stands in opposition to the late romantics.--kullervopete.

Tank you for your kind answer kullervopete.
I found some amusing information about the Leifs/HP tour. They gave a concert each night for two weeks, different program each night, they played, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and all the classics along with newer German music, like Brahms and Strauss. They did not fill the (only) „concert hall“ (it was a theater) because a popular Norwegian accordion player, who came with the same ship, "gigged" at some nearby pup and won the competition over audience. Not surprisingly, Leifs music never became popular in his homeland while he lived.