Sibelius

[ardcarp]

Well-known stuff started this week off (Finlandia and movts 2 and 3 of the Violin Concerto) plus a couple of slightly naff and deservedly little-known hymns! But what I love about this programme is what we learn (or have maybe forgotten). This time it was that Sibelius was technically a Soviet citizen until the age of 50-ish and that his mother tongue was Swedish. It is not surprising therefore that he was part of (or at least adopted by) a nationalist movement dedicated to resurrecting and maintaining Finnish culture.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well-known stuff started this week off (Finlandia and movts 2 and 3 of the Violin Concerto) plus a couple of slightly naff and deservedly little-known hymns! But what I love about this programme is what we learn (or have maybe forgotten). This time it was that Sibelius was technically a Soviet citizen until the age of 50-ish and that his mother tongue was Swedish. It is not surprising therefore that he was part of (or at least adopted by) a nationalist movement dedicated to resurrecting and maintaining Finnish culture.

Even his most casual listener cannot fail to note a strong influence from Tchaikovsky and the Russian Five on Sibelius's early works, notwithstanding the stong personality already manifest. This is probably more understandable in the nascent nationalism under the geographial circumstances of proximity than in the cases of two other slightly younger composers with musically nationalist aspirations, each from different countries from each other's and Sibelius's, if we come to consider Strauss's influence on Bartok and Szymanowsky, early in their respective careers, and before the folk influence took hold in each.

But there again, was folk music ever a strong influence on Sibelius? I have read that one of the melodies in the Violin Concerto - I can't now remember which - presents a rare instance.

Maybe a case of personality over readily definable national characteristics exerting influences? I feel a new thread coming on.

Edit: I'd never thought of Sibelius as a bon viveur. Perhaps this week's series will have something to tell us as to how he came to withdraw to his later semi-hermetic existence.

[umslopogaas]

S_A, I think Sibelius's love affair with alcohol is pretty well known. Guy Rickard's biography reproduces a painting by Axel Gallen called 'The Problem' featuring a clearly intoxicated gathering of Gallen, Oskar Merikanto, Kajanus and Sibelius round a table littered with bottles. It doesnt indicate what the problem was, but it looks like a looming king-size hangover!

The book also features a cartoon of Sibelius in his old age by John Minnion, with 'his most faithful companion' - a glass of wine.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Probably the throat cancer scare at around the time of the Fourth Symphony put a dampener on his party-going activities?

[ardcarp]

I think Sibelius's love affair with alcohol is pretty well known.

Yep.

I'd never thought of Sibelius as a bon viveur.

Nor had I, but that's one more thing learned from Episode 1 of this week's CotW.

The alcohol and depression thing is a fairly common Scandinavian trait. I'm off to Norway for Christmas so hope to enjoy the former and avoid the latter......

[richardfinegold]

Well-known stuff started this week off (Finlandia and movts 2 and 3 of the Violin Concerto) plus a couple of slightly naff and deservedly little-known hymns! But what I love about this programme is what we learn (or have maybe forgotten). This time it was that Sibelius was technically a Soviet citizen until the age of 50-ish and that his mother tongue was Swedish. It is not surprising therefore that he was part of (or at least adopted by) a nationalist movement dedicated to resurrecting and maintaining Finnish culture.

I thought that he actively embraced Finnish Nationalism. My impression was that he spoke Sweedish natively because that was the language of the Finnish elites, but then when he embraced his Finnish heritage he embraced the language of Culture of the Common People.
Regarding his Cancer treatment, alcohol has been known to be a risk factor for Throat Cancer since the 19th Century. I don't know if he temporarily suspended drinking
when he was treated, circa WWI, but he certainly drank heavily from the 1930s on. Given the sotries about his consumption of alcohol,. I suspect this was the cheif reason he never produced an Eighth symphony, because he was to soused

[ardcarp]

I thought that he actively embraced Finnish Nationalism.

He did, of course. I expressed myself badly.

[Historian]

... But what I love about this programme is what we learn (or have maybe forgotten). This time it was that Sibelius was technically a Soviet citizen until the age of 50-ish ...

Sorry to be picky, but he was an Imperial Russian citizen until 1917. Then Finland became independent of the former Czarist Empire. I agree with your point that there was a lot of interesting information in today's programme.

[ardcarp]

Sorry to mislead. This from Wiki:

From the late 12th century until 1809, Finland was part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. It was then incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, until the Russian Revolution of 1917 prompted the Finnish Declaration of Independence. This was followed by the Finnish Civil War in which the pro-Bolshevik Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic was defeated by the pro-conservative "Whites" with support from the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the country became a republic. In World War II, Finnish forces fought in three separate conflicts: the Winter War (1939–1940) and Continuation War (1941–1944) against the Soviet Union, and the Lapland War (1944–1945) against Nazi Germany. Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. It joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1969, the European Union in 1995, and the Eurozone at its inception in 1999.

I think Finland, although technically independent, maintained a possibly uncomfortable but pragmatic closeness with the USSR during theCold War. I know that Norway, which share a border with Russia in its Northern territories, was (still is?) always nervous of its proximity to the Big Bear. One of my Norwegian nephews had to do a year's National Service, part of which was spent patrolling those freezing borderlands. I think National Service is still compulsory there...strange for a land with advanced social attitudes and a peacemaking role in world politics. Still, I stray from Sibelius.....

[richardfinegold]

Sorry to be picky, but he was an Imperial Russian citizen until 1917. Then Finland became independent of the former Czarist Empire. I agree with your point that there was a lot of interesting information in today's programme.

Did the Finns have full Russian Citizenship status under the Romanovs?

[Historian]

Did the Finns have full Russian Citizenship status under the Romanovs?

To be honest, I'm not sure. As the programme (and ardcarp who was not misleading us) pointed out, Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy after being taken from Sweden. What the implications were for citizenship/subject status I do not know.

By the way, interesting sidelights on Norway, ardcarp. One of Britain's NATO roles used to be helping secure the 'northern flank'; not sure if it still is (or if we have the wherewithal anyway).

[BBMmk2]

When Sibelius had a night out on the town, he certainly knew how! There was another particularly famous figure, who he went with? (can't remember the name now?)

[Nick Armstrong]

Cheer up, mate! It's yer birthday!

[teamsaint]

When Sibelius had a night out on the town, he certainly knew how! There was another particularly famous figure, who he went with? (can't remember the name now?)

it can be a fleeting thing, Fame......

[MickyD]

One of the most unlikely and surprising Sibelius anecdotes has to be from Noel Coward, found in his autobiography:

"During my stay in Helsinki, someone suggested that I should pay a call on Sibelius, who, although he lived a life of the utmost quiet and seclusion, would, I was assured, be more than delighted to receive me. This, later, proved to be an overstatement. However, encouraged by the mental picture of the great Master being practically unable to contain himself at the thought of meeting face to face the man who had composed "A Room with a View" and "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", I drove out graciously to call on him. His house was a few miles away in the country and my guide-interpreter and I arrived there about noon. We were received by a startled, bald-headed gentleman whom I took to be an aged family retainer. He led us, without any marked signs of enthusiasm, on to a small, trellis-enclosed verandah, and left us alone. We conversed in low, reverent voices and offered each other cigarettes and waiting with rising nervous tension for the Master to appear. I remembered regretting bitterly my casual approach to classical music and trying frantically in my mind to disentangle the works of Sibelius from those of Delius. After about a quarter of an hour the bald-headed man reappeared carrying a tray upon which was a decanter of wine and a plate of biscuits. He put this on the table and then, to my surprise, sat down and looked at us. The silence became almost unbearable, and my friend muttered something in Finnish to which the bald-headed gentleman replied with an exasperated nod. It then dawned upon me that this was the great man himself, and furthermore that he hadn't the faintest idea who I was, who my escort was, or what we were doing there at all. Feeling embarrassed and extremely silly I smiled vacuously and offered him a cigarette, which he refused. My friend then rose, I thought a trifle officiously, and poured out three glasses of wine. We then proceeded to toast each other politely but in the same oppressive silence. I asked my friend if Mr Sibelius could speak English or French and he said 'No'. I then asked him to explain how much I admired his music and what an honour it was for me to meet him personally. This was translated, upon which Sibelius rose abruptly to his feet and offered me a biscuit. I accepted it with rather overdone gratitude, and then down came the silence again, and I looked forlornly past Sibelius's head through a gap in the trellis at the road. Finally, realising that unless I did something decisive we should probably stay there until sundown, I got up and asked my friend - whom I could willingly have garrotted - to thank Mr Sibelius for receiving me and to explain once again how honoured I was to meet him, and that I hoped he would forgive us for leaving so soon but we had an appointment at the hotel for lunch. Upon this being communicated to him, Sibelius smiled for the first time and we shook hands with enthusiasm. He escorted us to the gate and waved happily as we drove away. My friend, whose name I am not withholding for any secret reasons but merely because I cannot remember it, seemed oblivious of the fact that the interview had not been a glittering success. Perhaps, being a rising journalist, he had already achieved immunity to the subtler nuances of social embarrassment. At all events he dismissed my reproaches quite airily. Mr Sibelius, he said, was well known to be both shy and unapproachable. I replied bitterly that in that case it had been most inconsiderate of all parties concerned to have arranged the interview in the first place, for although I was neither shy nor unapproachable, I was acutely sensitive to atmosphere and resented being placed in a false position possibly as much as Mr Sibelius did. We wrangled on in this strain until we reached the hotel, where we parted with a certain frigidity. Later, troubled by conscience, I wrote a brief note of apology to Sibelius, who, despite the fact that his seclusion had been invaded and the peace of his morning disrupted, had at least received me with courtesy and given me a biscuit."