Sibelius
ORDERBY-NAME: Sibelius, Jean
OTHER-NAME: Johan Julius Christian Sibelius (birth): Janne
BIRTH: 8 December 1865; Hämeenlinna, Finland
DEATH: 20 September 1957; Järvenpää, Finland
CATEGORY: Performing Arts & Sports
FIELD: Musical Composition
ASSESSMENT: Sibelius is remembered as Finland's most famous composer and one of the leading figures in post-romantic orchestral music. His music is known for its sense of Finnish nationalism and being intimately connected with the Scandinavian landscape.
LANGUAGE: Swedish; Finnish
EDUCATION: Helsinki University under Martin Wegelius (1885-89)
ACHIEVEMENTS: Sibelius became internationally acclaimed for his large body of compositions, including seven symphonies, chamber music, incidental music, stage music, and numerous choral works.
MAJOR-WORK: first large-scale orchestral work, the Kullervo Symphony (1892); En Saga (1893); The Four Legends of Lemminkäinen (1895) including The Swan of Tuonela; Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1898-9); Finlandia (1899); Symphony No. 2 in D major (1901-2); Symphony No. 3 in C major (1906-7); Symphony No. 4 in A minor (1910-11); Symphony No. 5 in E flat major (1914-15 and subsequent revisions in 1916 and 1918-19); Symphony No. 6 in D minor (1918-23); Symphony No. 7 in C major (1922-24). Do you want Opus numbers too?
PARENTS: Christian Gustaf Sibelius; Maria Charlotta Borg
SPOUSE: Aino Järnefelt (m. 1892)
SIBLINGS: Linda Maria; Christian
CHILDREN: Eva (b. 1893); Ruth (b. 1894); Kirsti Marjatta (b. 1898, died of typhoid in 1900); Katarina Elizabet (1903); Jeanne Margareta (1908); Heidi (1911)
DETAILS: Sibelius was no prodigy; his musicality emerged gradually through his childhood. At age 5, he was experimenting at the piano, and began lessons at age 7. He had the gift of perfect pitch: the ability to recognize and distinguish notes precisely by ear alone. By age 10, he had completed his first attempt at composition, a duet for violin and cello, which he called "Water Drops."
At age 14, Sibelius began formal violin and composition studies. He formed a trio with his siblings - his sister played the piano, and his brother, the cello.
In 1885 Sibelius enrolled in law studies at Helsinki University and as a part-time student at the Music Institute, ignoring his law studies and to focus on music.
At the Institute, he studied violin with Mitrofan Vasiliev and music theory with Institute Director Wegelius, who was confident that Sibelius would become a "great musician." Sibelius also began a lifelong friendship with <a pal of> Busoni*, an international piano virtuoso and composer, who had come to the Institute to teach piano. When Sibelius's limited potential as a solo performer became apparent, he abandoned his violin studies to focus on composition of chamber music. He graduated in 1889 with flying colors.
After graduation, Sibelius traveled to Berlin and Leipzig for further study. Busoni had suggested that Sibelius study with Rimsky-Korsakov, but Wegelius insisted that Berlin would be a better environment for the young composer. There, he practiced his violin sporadically, and <rejected by> Brahms* declined to take him as a pupil. Moving on to Vienna, he failed his audition for the Vienna Philharmonic, but tried his hand at orchestra composition, creating an overture in E.
As a young composer, Sibelius was impacted especially by contemporary composers <influenced by > Tchaikovsky* and Grieg*.
Sibelius returned home in the summer of 1891 to work on various compositions, including his Kullervo Symphony, whose inspiration he drew from the Kalevala, the Finnish mythological epic. In between his travels, he had become engaged to Aino Järnefelt, the sister of one of his Institute classmates and a member of an aristocratic Finnish family. They married in 1892, the same year in which the Kullervo Symphony was successfully premiered. Kullervo was regarded as a landmark in Finnish music at the time.
Despite mounting debts, Sibelius purchased a plot of land in Järvenpää, where he built a villa and named it Ainola, after his wife. He would live for the rest of his life.
The 1890s were a period of creative productivity for Sibelius; he composed En Saga (1893), The Four Legends of Lemminkäinen (1895), which includes the symphonic poem The Swan of Tuonela, and his only opera, The Murder in the Tower (1896). These pieces displayed "Finnish colors" but none took as open a political stance as the 1899 set of tone-poems known today as Scénes historique I, Op. 25 and the famous piece, Finlandia.
These were Sibelius' response to the Russian February Manifesto, which attempted to deprive Finland of autonomy and curtail its citizens' freedom of speech. On a more abstract level, Sibelius's Symphony No.1 (1898-9), in which he made the Russian symphonic model his own, was interpreted as "beating the Russians at their own game."
Sibelius's music reflected not only national pride but also the cultural conflict between the native Finnish-speakers and the smaller but culturally-dominant population of Swedish-speakers. It is no coincidence that Sibelius's solo songs for piano were predominantly in Swedish while his choral works used Finnish texts more often.
By the 1900s, Sibelius's fame had begun to spread throughout Europe. In 1905, he was invited to conduct his Symphony No. 2 at one of Busoni's concert series. <conducted by> Toscanini* included some of his works in concerts in Milan. The English composer <commissioned by> Bantock* invited him to come to England and in 1907 commissioned what became Symphony No. 3, but Sibelius was so slow that the premiere, was postponed to the following year.
In 1908, suffering from throat pains, Sibelius was diagnosed with a tumor. His operation was successful, but he lived in constant fear that it would return; he even gave up alcohol and cigars for a decade. In his Symphony No. 4 (1911), for instance, one senses the closeness to death and the feeling of solitude.
From 1910-1913, Sibelius traveled extensively. The three weeks he spent in the U.S. were arguably the happiest in his life, as it brought him the public success, luxury, and attention for which he longed. The start of World War I forced him to return home.
Shortly after the start of the War Sibelius began working on Symphony No. 5, finishing it in time for his 50th birthday in 1915. He was showered with speeches, telegrams, greetings, and gifts. But despite its successful premiere, Symphony No. 5 underwent two revisions.
Political turmoil ensued following the Russian Revolution in 1917. Finland declared independence but was engulfed in a civil war when the Bolsheviks seized the government. Sibelius said: "I must be especially hateful to them as a composer of patriotic music." His home in Järvenpää was searched. He and his family relocated to Helsinki, where it was relatively safer.
At the end of the war in 1919 Sibelius was still working on Symphony No. 5 but planning two new symphonies. In 1920, the newly formed Eastman School of Music offered him a chair of composition for a year. Sibelius was eager for the money but not the idea of teaching, and delayed his trip to America for premieres of the Fifth Symphony and to work on his sixth and seventh symphonies.
After seeing his friend Busoni for the last time in England in 1921 (Busoni died in 1924), he formally accepted the Eastman post but then changed his mind. Symphony No. 6 premiered in 1923, and Symphony No. 7 was completed in 1924.
Tapiola (1926) was Sibelius's last major work, and a few small works followed in what came to be called: "the silence from Järvenpää." Alcoholism and self-doubt were taking their toll. He stopped traveling. There were rumors of an eighth and ninth symphony, but no manuscripts were ever found.
By the time of his death in 1957, Sibelius had become internationally famous, particularly in English-speaking countries. Few great composers had received such recognition and inspired such devotion in their own lifetime. His ninetieth birthday in 1955 brought no fewer than 1,000 telegrams, gifts from Scandinavian monarchs, and even cigars from <birthday present from> Churchill*.
A Sibelius Museum, as well as an annual Sibelius Festival and Sibelius Prize were founded. He died from a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in Järvenpää.
EXTRA-CONNECTIONS: Discussed composition with composer <talked music with> Gustav Mahler*
ONELINER: Jean Sibelius, great Finnish composer
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"Jean Sibelius." Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. 19 Apr. 2004 search.eb.com/article?eu=69347.
"Jean Julius Christian Sibelius." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 vols. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004. 0=galenet.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/servlet/BioRC.
Layton, Robert, Sibelius. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1965.
Richards, Guy, Jean Sibelius. London: Phaidon, 1997.
Tawaststjerna, Erik, Jean Sibelius. Translated by Robert Layton. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.