Symphony No. 4 (Sibelius)
Encyclopedia
The Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op.
63, is one of seven completed symphonies
composed by Jean Sibelius
. Written between 1910 and 1911, it was premiered in Helsinki
on 3 April 1911 by the Philharmonia Society, with Sibelius conducting
.
The work comprises four movements
:
For this work Sibelius reversed the traditional Classical
positions of the second and third movements, placing the slow movement as the third. He also begins the piece with a slow movement instead of the traditional fast opening movement (this is the same order as many baroque
orchestral works).
The interval of the tritone
dominates the melodic and harmonic material of the piece, but in a completely different way from how it dominates the Third Symphony
. It is stated immediately, in a dark phrase for cello
s, double bass
es and bassoon
s, rising C-D-F-E over a hard unison C. Most of the themes of the symphony involve the tritone; in the finale, much of the harmonic tension arises from a collision between the keys of A minor and E major, a tritone apart. The bitonal clash between A and E in the finale's recapitulation leads to tonal chaos in the coda, in which the rival notes C, A, E and F (that is, the interlocking tritone pairs C-F, A-E) each strive for ascendancy in a series of grinding dissonances with many clashes between major
and minor third
s. The glockenspiel
pathetically attempts to hail the momentary establishment of A major; but in the end it is the insistence of C natural (the note with which the work so strikingly began) that forces the movement and the symphony to close in a desolate A minor, bereft of melody and rhythm.
Many commentators have heard in the symphony evidence of struggle or despair. Harold Truscott
writes, "This work ... is full of a foreboding which is probably the unconscious result of ... the sensing of an atmosphere which was to explode in 1914 into a world war
." Sibelius also had recently endured terrors in his personal life: in 1908, in Berlin
, he had a cancerous tumour removed from his throat. Timothy Day writes that "the operation was successful, but he lived for many years in constant fear of the tumour recurring, and from 1908 to 1913 the shadow of death lay over his life." Other critics have heard bleakness in the work: one early Finnish critic dubbed the work the Barkbröd symphony, referring to the famine in the previous century during which starving Scandinavians had had to eat the bark of trees to survive.
In the year before beginning the symphony, he had met many of his contemporaries in central Europe
, including Arnold Schoenberg
, Igor Stravinsky
, and others; his encounter with their music provoked a crisis in his own compositional life. He said in a letter to his friend (and biographer) Rosa Newmarch
about the symphony: "It stands as a protest against present-day music. It has absolutely nothing of the circus about it." Later, when asked about the symphony, he quoted August Strindberg
: "Det är synd om människorna" (Being human is misery).
The first recording of the symphony was made by Leopold Stokowski
with the Philadelphia Orchestra
in 1932.
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
63, is one of seven completed symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
composed by Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
. Written between 1910 and 1911, it was premiered in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
on 3 April 1911 by the Philharmonia Society, with Sibelius conducting
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
The work comprises four movements
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
:
- I. TempoTempoIn musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
molto moderato, quasi adagio - II. Allegro molto vivaceVivaceVivace is Italian for "lively" and "vivid". It is pronounced in the International Phonetic Alphabet.Vivace is used as an Italian musical term indicating a movement that is in a lively mood ....
- III. Il tempo largoLargo-Music:* Largo, a very slow tempo, or a musical piece or movement in such a tempo* Handel's Largo or "Ombra mai fù", an aria from the opera Serse* Hugo Largo, American band from the 1980s* Strong and stately...
- IV. Allegro
For this work Sibelius reversed the traditional Classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
positions of the second and third movements, placing the slow movement as the third. He also begins the piece with a slow movement instead of the traditional fast opening movement (this is the same order as many baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
orchestral works).
The interval of the tritone
Tritone
In classical music from Western culture, the tritone |tone]]) is traditionally defined as a musical interval composed of three whole tones. In a chromatic scale, each whole tone can be further divided into two semitones...
dominates the melodic and harmonic material of the piece, but in a completely different way from how it dominates the Third Symphony
Symphony No. 3 (Sibelius)
The Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements composed in 1907. Coming between the romantic intensity of Sibelius's first two symphonies and the more austere complexity of his later symphonies, it is a good-natured, triumphal, and deceptively...
. It is stated immediately, in a dark phrase for cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s, double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
es and bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, rising C-D-F-E over a hard unison C. Most of the themes of the symphony involve the tritone; in the finale, much of the harmonic tension arises from a collision between the keys of A minor and E major, a tritone apart. The bitonal clash between A and E in the finale's recapitulation leads to tonal chaos in the coda, in which the rival notes C, A, E and F (that is, the interlocking tritone pairs C-F, A-E) each strive for ascendancy in a series of grinding dissonances with many clashes between major
Major third
In classical music from Western culture, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions , and the major third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. It is qualified as major because it is the largest of the two: the major third spans four semitones, the minor third three...
and minor third
Minor third
In classical music from Western culture, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions , and the minor third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. The minor quality specification identifies it as being the smallest of the two: the minor third spans three semitones, the major...
s. The glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
pathetically attempts to hail the momentary establishment of A major; but in the end it is the insistence of C natural (the note with which the work so strikingly began) that forces the movement and the symphony to close in a desolate A minor, bereft of melody and rhythm.
Many commentators have heard in the symphony evidence of struggle or despair. Harold Truscott
Harold Truscott
Harold Truscott was a British composer, pianist, broadcaster and writer on music. Largely neglected as a composer in his lifetime, he made an important contribution to the British piano repertoire and was influential in spreading knowledge of a wide range of mainly unfashionable music.- Life :Born...
writes, "This work ... is full of a foreboding which is probably the unconscious result of ... the sensing of an atmosphere which was to explode in 1914 into a world war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
." Sibelius also had recently endured terrors in his personal life: in 1908, in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, he had a cancerous tumour removed from his throat. Timothy Day writes that "the operation was successful, but he lived for many years in constant fear of the tumour recurring, and from 1908 to 1913 the shadow of death lay over his life." Other critics have heard bleakness in the work: one early Finnish critic dubbed the work the Barkbröd symphony, referring to the famine in the previous century during which starving Scandinavians had had to eat the bark of trees to survive.
In the year before beginning the symphony, he had met many of his contemporaries in central Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, including Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, and others; his encounter with their music provoked a crisis in his own compositional life. He said in a letter to his friend (and biographer) Rosa Newmarch
Rosa Newmarch
Rosa Newmarch was an English writer on music.-Biography:Rosa Harriet Jeaffreson was born in Leamington in 1857. She settled in London in 1880, when she began contributing articles to various literary journals. In 1883 she married Henry Charles Newmarch, thereafter using her married name in her...
about the symphony: "It stands as a protest against present-day music. It has absolutely nothing of the circus about it." Later, when asked about the symphony, he quoted August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
: "Det är synd om människorna" (Being human is misery).
The first recording of the symphony was made by Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
with the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
in 1932.