and finally...

[Richard Barrett]

What do others feel about Sibelius 7?

When it comes to its end I think of Beckett's words in his novella First Love: "The voice, though out of tune, was not unpleasant. It breathed of a soul too soon wearied ever to conclude, that perhaps least arse-aching soul of all."

[jayne lee wilson]

I think the real ‘problem’ with Beethoven 5 ‘s finale is the 30 bars of C major chords at the end (including the silent bars ) .
It’s over emphatic . In fact after a while I start hearing Bflat harmonics in there !

My prescription (and JEG, Harnoncourt, Savall etc)....play all the repeats in scherzo and finale, then the proportions and the coda make more sense.

I previously said this about the LvB 8th.....:

The symphonic structural innovation of its finale is at the highest level. The contrasts of mood between contented humour in the allegretto, the mindful musical serenity of the trio, the rampant energies of that finale - always happy to undercut its own bursting confidence with a polite little smile at each stop-on-a-sixpence - are as effortlessly wide-ranging, as note-sparingly elliptical, as in any comparable work of symphonic compression (assuming one might propose anything that comes close...)

We should all feel humble before it, inspired by its example, and grateful for its very existence.
But usually - I just laugh for joy when I hear it...
“this mighty symphony is essentially a work of comic genius, the Dionysian 7th’s jesting stablemate…”
RO 12/2014.

Is it too outrageous to suggest that the finale coda is Beethoven sending himself up?
Such an artist would be more aware of his own limitations and mannerisms than anyone...... his response?
That mind-blowing, eternally contemporary and controversial...9th.

[Serial_Apologist]

La mer, yes. And Tippett 3. Daphnis isn't really in movements as such though, is it? Among concertos I would mention Berg. And Henze's second piano concerto whose finale is one of the most moving things I know.

Not knowing the Henze PC () I would plump for the Double Concerto written for the Holligers, whose concluding E flat 7 minor chord sounds to me to be the one Berg used to conclude the first of the two movements of his Violin Concerto, though admittedly I don't have a recording of the latter to hand for checking purposes, or the score. Henze could certainly round of his music movingly - the heart-rending Eighth symphony another example.

[Ein Heldenleben]

My prescription (and JEG, Harnoncourt, Savall etc)....play all the repeats in scherzo and finale, then the proportions and the coda make more sense.

I previously said this about the LvB 8th.....:

The symphonic structural innovation of its finale is at the highest level. The contrasts of mood between contented humour in the allegretto, the mindful musical serenity of the trio, the rampant energies of that finale - always happy to undercut its own bursting confidence with a polite little smile at each stop-on-a-sixpence - are as effortlessly wide-ranging, as note-sparingly elliptical, as in any comparable work of symphonic compression (assuming one might propose anything that comes close...)

We should all feel humble before it, inspired by its example, and grateful for its very existence.
But usually - I just laugh for joy when I hear it...
“this mighty symphony is essentially a work of comic genius, the Dionysian 7th’s jesting stablemate…”
RO 12/2014.

Is it too outrageous to suggest that the finale coda is Beethoven sending himself up?
Such an artist would be more aware of his own limitations and mannerisms than anyone...... his response?
That mind-blowing, eternally contemporary and controversial...9th.

That’s a good thought re Beethoven 8 . The work is full of gags - the metronome parody , the sneeze in the scherzo . Beethoven’s humour is so often characterised as gruff and Germanic but there is a lot that is both playful and profound e.g. the Es Muss Sein ? in Op 135. So was Lud a better comic than Dud ?

[Mario]

So was Lud a better comic than Dud ?

Wonderful!

Mario

[jayne lee wilson]

Sibelius solved the finale problem better than most.

He fulfils the Tchaikovskian Romantic Ideal in No.1: the finale is cyclical, episodic and bases its impact upon a cathartic big tune, undercut in the tragic coda. In its extremes of mood, it works perfectly. Why repeat yourself when you've done it this well?.
The 2nd is more of a Nationalistic suite of tone poems; its Sibelian idiomatic and structural originality is fully explored by the end of the first movement. The finale could go on for ever, really, but at least the coda raises its Hymn of Finnish praise very memorably. Formal finale functions don't really apply here.

The real Sibelian action regarding symphonic structures and the finale function starts with the neoclassical 3rd, where the scherzo/finale sections are combined. How does the finale theme emerge from the scherzo? It is just there, effortlessly, miraculously, inevitably.
From here to the 6th, each finale is so unique, so intimately and subtly interwoven from its predecessors in form, motive and mood that it couldn’t belong anywhere else: the final, necessary development of an organic evolution, a perfect blend of resolution and release.
Yet until the 6th where the 1st movement intro returns to conclude, the finales don’t employ any obvious cyclic references. They exist with and for their companions, drawn out of emotional necessity. No.3, the Symphony of New Life, No.4, the Symphony of Threatening Death..… No.5 on another more remote Apollonian plane….
(Listening to the original 5th is very instructive in how Sibelius achieved such things: the process of simplifying and clarifying, a paring back).

But by No.7, the finale (which attains classical cyclical perfection in No.6, following which Sibelius has no further need for it) has simply disappeared. Like the Ravel D Major concerto, the final section is grown on; it evolves naturally from all of the preceding recurrent themes and is a new development in itself. (In an oeuvre that doesn't bother with conventional development much, more characterised by a continuous evolutionary flow, episodic dovetailing and thematic repeat).

A Symphony in One Movement (or a conjoining of the last two movements) may be one of the best solutions to the finale problem: as Schumann recognised in his multi-cyclic 4th. But he never found finales much of a problem anyway, as the inspirational drive, contrast and concision of the other three (and the O-S-F) illustrate.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sibelius solved the finale problem better than most.

He fulfils the Tchaikovskian Romantic Ideal in No.1: the finale is cyclical, episodic and bases its impact upon a cathartic big tune, undercut in the tragic coda. In its extremes of mood, it works perfectly. Why repeat yourself when you've done it this well?.
The 2nd is more of a Nationalistic suite of tone poems; its Sibelian idiomatic and structural originality is fully explored by the end of the first movement. The finale could go on for ever, really, but at least the coda raises its Hymn of Finnish praise very memorably. Formal finale functions don't really apply here.

The real Sibelian action regarding symphonic structures and the finale function starts with the neoclassical 3rd, where the scherzo/finale sections are combined. How does the finale theme emerge from the scherzo? It is just there, effortlessly, miraculously, inevitably.
From here to the 6th, each finale is so unique, so intimately and subtly interwoven from its predecessors in form, motive and mood that it couldn’t belong anywhere else: the final, necessary development of an organic evolution, a perfect blend of resolution and release.
Yet until the 6th where the 1st movement intro returns to conclude, the finales don’t employ any obvious cyclic references. They exist with and for their companions, drawn out of emotional necessity. No.3, the Symphony of New Life, No.4, the Symphony of Threatening Death..… No.5 on another more remote Apollonian plane….
(Listening to the original 5th is very instructive in how Sibelius achieved such things: the process of simplifying and clarifying, a paring back).

But by No.7, the finale (which attains classical cyclical perfection in No.6, following which Sibelius has no further need for it) has simply disappeared. Like the Ravel D Major concerto, the final section is grown on; it evolves naturally from all of the preceding recurrent themes and is a new development in itself. (In an oeuvre that doesn't bother with conventional development much, more characterised by a continuous evolutionary flow, episodic dovetailing and repeat).

A Symphony in One Movement (or a conjoining of the last two movements) may be one of the best solutions to the finale problem: as Schumann recognised in his multi-cyclic 4th. But he never found finales much of a problem anyway, as the inspirational drive, contrast and concision of the other three (and the O-V-S) illustrate.

Yes I largely agree, jayne - for me Schoenberg brings off what you describe as a conjoining of the last two movements in his single-movement form Kammersymphonie No 1 - for me at any rate a wonderfully mellifluous working out in combinations of the lovely slow movement theme and the scherzo - and then triumphantly re-introducing the initial expository material to round the work off. I still feel, however, that the conclusion of Sibelius 7 leaves a sense of "I don't quite know how to conclude this, having played all my cards in that final crowning climax". That said, in answer to a question asked elsewhere, no, I haven't myself managed to think up a better ending, though I have often given it a lot of thought.

[Joseph K]

Yes I largely agree, jayne - for me Schoenberg brings off what you describe as a conjoining of the last two movements in his single-movement form Kammersymphonie No 1 - for me at any rate a wonderfully mellifluous working out in combinations of the lovely slow movement theme and the scherzo - and then triumphantly re-introducing the initial expository material to round the work off. I still feel, however, that the conclusion of Sibelius 7 leaves a sense of "I don't quite know how to conclude this, having played all my cards in that final crowning climax". That said, in answer to a question asked elsewhere, no, I haven't myself managed to think up a better ending, though I have often given it a lot of thought.

And, let us not forget that it was Liszt, specifically his B minor sonata, which, as far as I know, was one of the first works to use the sonata-within-a-sonata one movement form.

[Richard Barrett]

Not knowing the Henze PC ()

Well you really should (the Second that is), it's an enormous and powerful work that I'm sure you'd appreciate!

[Bella Kemp]

Sibelius solved the finale problem better than most.

He fulfils the Tchaikovskian Romantic Ideal in No.1: the finale is cyclical, episodic and bases its impact upon a cathartic big tune, undercut in the tragic coda. In its extremes of mood, it works perfectly. Why repeat yourself when you've done it this well?.
The 2nd is more of a Nationalistic suite of tone poems; its Sibelian idiomatic and structural originality is fully explored by the end of the first movement. The finale could go on for ever, really, but at least the coda raises its Hymn of Finnish praise very memorably. Formal finale functions don't really apply here.

The real Sibelian action regarding symphonic structures and the finale function starts with the neoclassical 3rd, where the scherzo/finale sections are combined. How does the finale theme emerge from the scherzo? It is just there, effortlessly, miraculously, inevitably.
From here to the 6th, each finale is so unique, so intimately and subtly interwoven from its predecessors in form, motive and mood that it couldn’t belong anywhere else: the final, necessary development of an organic evolution, a perfect blend of resolution and release.
Yet until the 6th where the 1st movement intro returns to conclude, the finales don’t employ any obvious cyclic references. They exist with and for their companions, drawn out of emotional necessity. No.3, the Symphony of New Life, No.4, the Symphony of Threatening Death..… No.5 on another more remote Apollonian plane….
(Listening to the original 5th is very instructive in how Sibelius achieved such things: the process of simplifying and clarifying, a paring back).

But by No.7, the finale (which attains classical cyclical perfection in No.6, following which Sibelius has no further need for it) has simply disappeared. Like the Ravel D Major concerto, the final section is grown on; it evolves naturally from all of the preceding recurrent themes and is a new development in itself. (In an oeuvre that doesn't bother with conventional development much, more characterised by a continuous evolutionary flow, episodic dovetailing and thematic repeat).

A Symphony in One Movement (or a conjoining of the last two movements) may be one of the best solutions to the finale problem: as Schumann recognised in his multi-cyclic 4th. But he never found finales much of a problem anyway, as the inspirational drive, contrast and concision of the other three (and the O-S-V) illustrate.

This is so beautifully expressed Jayne: a great pleasure to read and most enlightening. Thank you.

[Serial_Apologist]

This is so beautifully expressed Jayne: a great pleasure to read and most enlightening. Thank you.

Jayne's contributions to this forum are always hugely worthwhile - without them this would certainly be a poorer place. While I often find myself disagreeing with what she writes, I have a sneaky suspicion that this might well be down to a certain amount of enviousness at her gift with words on my part!

[Serial_Apologist]

Well you really should (the Second that is), it's an enormous and powerful work that I'm sure you'd appreciate!

Thanks to Richard's recommendation of this piece, I finally got around to listening to it today, scattered all around youtube as it is!