Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 43
Jean Sibelius was born in Tavestehus, Finland in 1865 and died in Järvenpää in 1957. He completed his Second Symphony in 1902, and led the Helsinki Philharmonic in the first performance the same year. The Symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.
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Sibelius once described his method of composition in this way: “It is as if the Almighty had thrown the pieces of a mosaic down from the floor of heaven and told me to put them together.” When we hear the first pages of his Second Symphony the metaphor becomes clear. The strings begin with velvety chords, an accompaniment in search of a melody; the woodwinds supply a jaunty tune, but each time they begin they are interrupted by the horns’ more reflective music. The flutes’ new idea is swept aside by an impassioned tune in the strings; the woodwinds join, but are replaced with a pizzicato string figure.
The jumbled musical fragments, like scattered tiles on the floor, have yet to be assembled.
A traditional sonata form usually presents two contrasting melodies, develops them by breaking them down into smaller bits, then brings them back in their original form. But Sibelius’ sonata is utterly different. He first shows us only fragments, the individual tiles of the mosaic, one at a time. As the movement develops he combines them, fitting the tiles together in different ways. Some tiles grow in importance while others don’t seem to fit the picture and fall away. The fragments collide and evolve into bigger pieces until, at last, the picture becomes clear. Sibelius achieves the same sense of unity and order given by a traditional sonata, but by means both unique and fascinating.
Sibelius is known for his vivid tone-poems, and his second movement might stand with the best of them. As the soft, pizzicato doublebasses open up a darkly magical world, the music appears to be more linear than the first movement’s. But new fragments intercede, full of violent outbursts and dramatic pauses. These flare up and die away, their energy spent, and the music recedes into the mists that opened the movement.
The Scherzo is based on an ominous swirling figure that yields to a plaintive, almost static oboe melody in the trios. At the end, where one expects the final iteration of the Scherzo’s material, Sibelius interjects the first three notes of the Finale’s big tune and leads right into the next movement without pause. As the work unfolds this big tune is jostled by new fragments (or variants of old ones), but its primacy is never challenged. The closing pages make it triumphant. In the end the mosaic Sibelius has constructed from his scattered tiles is vivid, fresh, and powerful.