For many years JS was seen as a conservative reactionary figure and even used as a stick with which to beat Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Virgal Thomson, forgotten music critic of the Newyork Herald Tribune, decried the popular message of Sibelius's music, describing it as unprogressive and superficial. New generations of scholars have however discovered a very advanced tecnique in Sibs music and not just in the later pieces.

For example his harmonic language in En Saga, Skogsraet and the Lemminkainen suite is remarkably modern by any criterion of the 1890's, containing inversions of ninth chords before Schoenbergs 'Verlarte Nacht'. In fact the seeds of 1960's 'mimimulism' can be found in a work like 'Skogsraet', which prolongs a half-diminished [Tristan] chord built on A for over 200 measures!
Even in that little gem 'Valse Triste' almost done to death by other arrangements, Sibelius shows great originality. Hans Redlich points out how Sibelius's piece is so much at variance with earlier models of a slow waltz. 'With its nine bars of pedal-point on the wrong note in the bass : a G sharp, the most distant from the real tonic G natural, belatedly reached only at bar 23', Mahler may have heard Kajanus include this in a 'popular' concert during Mahlers visit to Finland in 1907. Redlich goes on that 'Mahler would have thought it most unusual to hear the restatement of the chromatic waltz tune, starting at bar 25 a semitone higher than the first time, and he would have been puzzled by the fact that the waltz tunes fatalistic refrain is restated in A flat major at the end of the first paragraph, returning each time in a different key until at last reaching the tonic G only in the final bars. Mahler would have been familier with the G flat major trio section of Chopins Piano sonata in B flat minor, opus 35 with a famous funeral march. This shows a structural likeness to Sibelius. The inner interval of a reiterated falling second underpinned by a pedal point on G flat, while Chopin begins his slow waltz-like trio episode unambiguously on the tonic of its new key of G flat, Sib starts his Valse Triste-ostensibly conceived in G-- very ambiguously on G sharp, first bare, later repeated with a super-imposed chord of fourths, a most unusual sound in 1903, the year that Schoenberg avoudly included chords of the fourth for the first time in his tone poem 'Pelleas et Melisande'.

It was the modernist composer Morton Feldman who remarked 'The people who you think are radical might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical', at which point he began to hum Sibelius's 5th symphony.--kullervopete.

kullervopete wrote:

In fact the seeds of 1960's 'mimimulism' can be found in a work like 'Skogsraet', which prolongs a half-diminished [Tristan] chord built on A for over 200 measures!

For my little essay on the half-diminshed 7th, click

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I have just read that for many of Sibelius's critics, he was a composer who wanted to have it both ways--To be both modern and traditional.

Is this view justified, and if so is it such a bad thing?--kp

Indeed, Sibelius was a composer who looked backwards and forwards at the same time, but sounded completely unique in doing so.

I see nothing wrong with this at all. Many other composers are credited with being of the same ilk; Mahler and Strauss come to minde instantly. And very eary Schönberg, I suppose.

Sibelius, was, however, clearly more original than either Strauss or Mahler and more inherently "musical" than Schönberg. (Any composer, not just our dear Arnold, can write cacophony and other nonesense.)

Point being, Sibelius didn't have to write grinding sound effects to be original. He could still write music and be original. And, in many ways, do Strauss and Mahler sound all that different from each other? Sibelius's style is unlike anything before, during, or since.

I think Strauss once said: "I have more skill, but he (Sibelius) is greater."

I agree with Tapkaara but also – in response to Kullervopete's mention of critical opinions - I wonder to what extent (if any) Sibb consciously aimed to be anything at all. He was such an intuitive composer that I find it hard to picture him sitting down and saying to himself: 'Hey, today I want to be modern'.

I agree with both Andrew B and Tapkaara, Sibelius was an intuitive composer. As such, music written to a formula was alien and empty. 'They have built a huge shipyard' said Sibelius of many contempory composers, 'but were is the ship'.

His roots did lie in the great classical masters, but his outlook was essentially modern. As Otto Klemperer remarked 'Sibelius follows to the traditional form of the classical symphony. But he always builds up his music with living, life-enhancing material'.--kp

Yes, yes, yes. Sibelius did not try to map out his destiny or style. What he wrote came from deep within him, without regard for if it fit into the rest of the music of his time.

I think his approcch to writing music is much like a quote he once said about the way he writes symphonies. I paraphrase:

"My symphonies are like rivers. I do not carve out the basic structure ahead of time and then fill in the water (music.) Rather, I write the music and it the music (water) that dictates the structure."

I hope my paraphrase does justice to the spirit of the origanl quote.

Anyway, Sibelius did not sit down one day and said "This is who I want to be, so let's write music that fits into this mould." He simply wrote the music he wanted and his path was carved from his music.

Sibelius simply sounds like no other composer. He is that original.

Good point, Sibelius did indeed once compare the symphony to a river. 'Its born from various rivulets which seek each other and in this way the river proceeds wide and powerful towards the sea, the musical thoughts, the motives that are, are the things that must create the form and stabilize the path'.

Looking at the Sibelius symphonies, if I had to pick out one single movement that fits this vision it would be the first movement of No. 5. Starting calmly the music flows naturaly from one theme to another, occasionaly we seem to enter a tributary and sometimes the music seems to go back on itself. Finally the symphony widens and gathers momentum, carrying all before it as it sweeps in a torrent into the open sea.--kp

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kullervopete wrote:

'Its born from various rivulets which seek each other and in this way the river proceeds wide and powerful towards the sea, the musical thoughts, the motives that are, are the things that must create the form and stabilize the path'. ... if I had to pick out one single movement that fits this vision ...

I would choose the 3rd movement of the 4th Symphony, that music sprang into my mind immediately while reading the quote, even before I got to kullervopete's "Challenge" of finding a movement that epitomizes this. His choice of 5:I certainly qualifies as well.

I'm with Kullervopete on this one - that gradual accelerando all through the second 'half' is what does the trick!

I think that in a very real sense the awe inspiring seventh also fits the bill. Especially in my view for its demonstration of the art of transition and its consumate mastery of movement.-kp