SIBELIUS. Symphony No. 1 Symphony No. 4. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Arvo Volmer

Transcription

1 SIBELIUS Symphony No. 1 Symphony No. 4 Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Arvo Volmer

2 Symphony No. 1 JEAN SIBELIUS Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39 [36 18] 1 I. Andante, ma non troppo Allegro energico II. Andante (ma non troppo lento) III. Scherzo: Allegro IV. Finale: Andante Allegro molto Andante assai Allegro molto come prima Andante (ma non troppo) Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63 [34 55] 5 I. Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio II. Allegro molto vivace III. Il tempo largo IV. Allegro Total Playing Time Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Arvo Volmer conductor Who is the real Sibelius? Is he the passionate creature of the First and Second Symphonies; the lofty, clear-thinking classicist of the Third and Sixth Symphonies; the dark nay-sayer of the Fourth or the creator of those concentrated epics, the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies? Can the frequenter of warm southern breezes in The Oceanides (1914) be the same man who conjures up the almost horrific stillness of Tapiola (1926)? This very inscrutability is what makes Sibelius a fascinating figure. For beneath these apparent contradictions we can discern a trajectory which takes his music on a journey that begins in the lavish emotional world of late Romanticism and an attendant feeling of nationalist pride (for he played a part in Finland s struggle against Russian domination). But at the end of his composing life we find his music bounded by interior concerns, in which the subject at hand is not heroic struggle, other people s music, an abstract journey from darkness to light or the ironic interplay of the trivial and the profound. As the years progressed, Sibelius s imagination revolved increasingly around the idea of music itself as drama, the unfolding of musical events as a universe of narrative, parallel to our own. It is tempting to talk of the first numbered symphony entirely from the perspective of Sibelius s later music, to emphasise what is prophetic and play down whatever is not. And there is much in the First Symphony that foretells of his later achievements. But it is also the work of a man still in his early 30s, immensely gifted and skilful, but still coming to terms with many of the musical influences around him. The feature of the work that immediately marks it out as Sibelian to anyone interested in musical detail is the nature of the long, winding tune which opens the first movement. The modes in which music was created before the system of major and minor keys came into play, about four centuries ago, held a particular fascination for many composers around the turn of the 20th century, particularly those interested in folk traditions. The modal inflection in the tune which opens this symphony is Dorian, or the scale you hear when, for example, you play all the white notes between one D and the next on the piano. Although Sibelius s modal writing was to change character as he developed, it was never to leave him. This opening melody of Symphony No. 1 is characteristically Sibelian, too, in its economy of means: a solo clarinet over a timpani roll is all he needs to suggest something ancient, eternal, bard-like. As he grew older, the modesty of his instrumental forces stood in great contrast to the lavish orchestras for which Strauss, Scriabin and many of his other contemporaries were writing. 2 3

3 The manner in which Sibelius puts his material together in this movement tells us a lot about the consistency of his principles of musical organisation. It is possible to write in terms of conventional analysis, but the music comes to the listener more organically and intuitively than that. Notice, for example, how the second major theme, a dancing idea first heard on the flutes, becomes broader and more lyrical when it passes to the oboe and how it is, in any case, clearly derived from the solo clarinet theme that sets the symphony in motion. As the tempo of the movement quickens, the musical undergrowth grows thicker, combining the melodic ideas in an ingeniously devised musical tempest, at the other end of which a ringing transformation of the main theme on the brass announces that we are in a mood of summary and conclusion. This technique gradual crescendo and pulse-quickening, a short, bracing survey of the vista from the summit, then an abbreviated rounding off would become a vital part of Sibelius s musical personality. The slow movement reminds us that, however subtly he organises his material, he is still, in this work, captivated by the rhetoric of the Romantic symphony. The warm, tender opening tune is the seed from which all else in the movement derives. In the course of the movement this song-like theme (punctuated, characteristically, by answering phrases from the woodwind) takes on many guises, some subtle, some overtly operatic. The many sustained long-held notes (pedal points) Sibelius uses to intensify feeling again, integral to his composing style are particularly evident here. The short Scherzo is notable for its integration of the timpani into the main melodic material (an idea that brings inevitable comparison with the Scherzo of Beethoven s Ninth Symphony). The pastoral trio which follows suggests a bucolic calm that would be unusual in Sibelius s later music, while the gradually quickening pace of the foreshortened reprise gives the final minutes an air of hectic excitement. Sibelius s admiration for Tchaikovsky is most evident in the Finale. The very opening is a good example. Here, the tune with which the symphony began is presented afresh in a highly impassioned, Tchaikovskian manner by the strings, with brass declamations. The ferocity of the tune s subsequent development also bears some resemblance to the spirit of Tchaikovsky s more rousing symphonic moments. On the other hand, the arioso-like quality of the big tune which comes to dominate the last half of this movement is essentially operatic: after all, Sibelius had not altogether abandoned the idea of writing a major work for the lyric stage. The work s final pages are more equivocal and the symphony ends, like the first movement, with two pizzicato chords. The emotional ambivalence of this conclusion tells us how enigmatic so much of his music could be. 4 Symphony No. 4 The Fourth Symphony is a challenge to the conception of Sibelius that might be held by any intelligent listener familiar only with his most popular works. The orchestral pieces that share its dark temperament the tone poems The Bard, Luonnotar (The Nature Spirit) and Tapiola are, like this symphony, among his least performed, and in none of his other major works does Sibelius attempt anything as consistently existentialist in outlook. The application of a philosophical term to this music may seem unwarranted. After all, Sibelius was not a composer of the human comedy, and his best music seems to be shaped by natural forces the sense of cumulative power in The Oceanides, suggesting a wave s progress from ocean to shore; or the epic content but fleeting passage of the Seventh Symphony, conveying the impression of planets in orbit. Neville Cardus response to the Sibelian universe suggests a highly objective kind of art: The world of Sibelius is unpeopled; there are no men and women in it, not a single living human being. The hedges are bare and no birds sing. Nobody loves and dies like a rose in aromatic pain. The scene and drama of the music of Sibelius are nature And it is possible to talk about the later symphonies specifically the Third, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh being impressive entities but not places to live in. Sibelius may plant a tree in his wilderness, but he rarely builds a hut. Unusually, in this Fourth Symphony, we are asked to confront dark human feelings, to make an uncertain inner journey which has no real outcome as musical drama. When you mention this piece to music-loving people, the response is usually something like: Of course, it s the least played, and it s likely that fewer than ten percent of people listening to this album know the work well. When you turn to the commentaries to ascertain how this symphony became a place where so few listeners go, they usually say that it is Sibelius s most modern and difficult score, that in it he came closer to indeterminate tonality than in any other major work. But the symphony s style and manner ceased to be problematic long ago. The problem the work presents to an audience any audience is its apparent heartlessness in the face of its own tragedies, its ability to shrug its shoulders at its own despair and to compound all this to do so not in a purposefully alienating, aloof musical language, but in a communicative one. Nor is there anything unorthodox about the form of the work; the first movement, for example, can be analysed in terms of 5

4 pure sonata form. This is a confronting combination of opposites for anyone who cares about the human spirit, and Sibelius recognised this when, asked why he wrote no other symphonies in this vein, he replied: Beyond that lies madness or chaos. We know that in the months before Sibelius wrote the work he had heard Debussy s Nocturnes for the first time and, at Busoni s suggestion, had bought the music for Schoenberg s Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11. He also visited the wild, bleak landscape of the Koli district in Karelia. Most crucially, he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, and was given two operations, one in Helsinki and the next in Berlin. With the failure of the first operation he confronted death for the first time. In the end, he outlived his tumour by 49 years and was even able to renew his enthusiasm for whisky and black cigars. It may be that all these experiences find their way into the Fourth Symphony, and it has been argued that the Fourth was, specifically, written in protest at the direction in which Schoenberg was pointing the future of music (Sibelius s public attitudes to the work of his contemporaries were indifference or contempt), but Sibelius always rejected suggestions that his symphonies were about anything. The tone poems with titles, he acknowledged, had a basis in literary or visual imagery, but as he once wrote, the germ and fertilisation of my symphonies have been solely musical. Yet how coincidental can it be that the tone poem for soprano and orchestra, Luonnotar, written around the same time as this symphony, opens with these lines (taken from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala): There was a maiden, a girl of the air, a slender Nature Spirit, beautiful. She sensed the strangeness of her life of always being alone in the vast voids. The grinding opening of the Fourth Symphony, for cellos, double basses and bassoons playing a dark pattern of the notes C, D, E, F-sharp, certainly speaks of something strange and vast. And while this melodic figure influences all that is to come in the work, this initial statement subsides into a kind of ghostly monastic chant, for solo cello over cellos and double basses divisi. It is as if a great wound is being nursed alone, in the vast voids. The second subject, an anguished, leaping figure for the upper strings, is followed by four rising notes from the horns, which signal that we have passed the threshold beyond which the main part of the journey lies. (In the Seventh Symphony, the initial announcement of the famous trombone motif serves the same purpose.) But this calm, aspirational idea is met by a craggy, descending figure for trumpets and trombones, the antithesis of a fanfare. We then hear a kind of quiet processional for violas divisi. By now we are aware that this music is not behaving in the manner of a traditional symphonic first movement. At this point Sibelius leads us almost imperceptibly into the development section, fragmentary and murmurous. The movement s main ideas then return, in sombre review, during the recapitulation. The movement ends with a question mark. The violins finish the movement on a held A, the same note on which the oboe now opens the scherzo. The oboe s graceful, flowing solo returns us briefly to the clear-eyed world of Sibelius s Third Symphony, until, with the arrival of the jagged second subject on the strings, the atmosphere becomes far bleaker. Two ideas one lyrical, the other essentially rhythmic now alternate, the atmosphere becoming gradually darker and more vehement, until this movement, too, ends inconclusively, with three abrupt timpani strokes. The loneliness of the Largo s opening is almost unbearable a slow, high flute solo above a sea of cellos and basses. Although this movement climaxes forcefully, in a moment of tremendous emotional power, the temperature of the remainder is very quiet and cold, and its pulse gigantically slow. It is like watching a numbing calamity from a great distance. Like the previous two movements, the Largo ends with a question, this time one of quiet desperation. The finale, like the scherzo, behaves like a continuation of the previous movement, beginning on the C-sharp held by horns and strings in the Largo s final bars. Like the scherzo, too, the Allegro begins with the promise of positive resolution. In a vigorous tune introduced by solo cello, the strings processional figure from the first movement appears here to find its optimistic twin. The symphony s dark opening seems to be answered by the finale s bright four-note figure heard on the glockenspiel. There is even a short horn fanfare that might be the answer to the first movement s craggy antifanfare. But just as these ideas are presented fully, we enter a transitional world of grey, trudging string phrases, at the other side of which the struggle for affirmation continues, with leaping figures for flutes and solo clarinet. Soon, in a string passage clearly portending collapse, the impetus slackens, then 6 7

5 rallies for a development section of enormous drama and eventfulness. But all the ostensibly positive ideas we ve heard in this movement are then dragged forcibly into an unsuccessful confrontation with a syncopated, downward-moving string phrase. By the final bars this phrase is reduced to not much more than its basic rhythm, and the symphony ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a shrug of the shoulders. Phillip Sametz Arvo Volmer Arvo Volmer began his professional conducting career with the Estonian National Opera in 1985, while still a student at the Estonian Music Academy. He made his debut with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in 1987, became their Associate Conductor in 1989 and was their Music Director between 1993 and Arvo Volmer was Music Director of the Oulu Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2005, and is currently Artistic Director of the Estonian National Opera. Arvo Volmer s success at the 1989 Nikolai Malko Competition in Copenhagen launched an international career that has seen him conduct almost all the symphony orchestras in Scandinavia, including the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras and Stockholm s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted orchestras in the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Israel and Iceland. Recent highlights have included concerts with the Orchestre National de France, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra of Moscow and the St Petersburg Orchestra. Arvo Volmer is also active as a conductor of opera, working frequently with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Finnish National Opera, Norwegian Opera and Oulu Opera. Arvo Volmer has recorded extensively, including the complete symphonies of Eduard Tubin and the complete orchestral works of Leevi Madetoja, as well as discs of Swedish and Estonian contemporary music. He made his Australian debut in 2001 and has conducted the Adelaide, Tasmanian, West Australian and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and The Queensland Orchestra. He has been Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra since

6 Adelaide Symphony Orchestra With a reputation for youthful vitality and superb artistry, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra plays a central role at the heart of the South Australian community. In 2011, the ASO celebrates its 75th anniversary season under the leadership of Music Director and Chief Conductor Arvo Volmer. It is the largest performing arts organisation in South Australia, each year performing over 100 concerts across a diverse musical spectrum. The ASO also provides the orchestral support for the State Opera of South Australia and Adelaide performances by the Australian Ballet and Opera Australia, and is the most prolific contributor to the biennial Adelaide Festival. The ASO s commitment to artistic excellence has also strengthened its reputation within the international community. Following its groundbreaking 1996 tour to China, the ASO won world acclaim in 1998 with Australia s first production of Wagner s Ring cycle. This monumental project was repeated in 2004 under the baton of Israeli conductor Asher Fisch. In 2009 the ASO performed at Carnegie Hall, New York as part of the G Day USA celebrations. The ASO excels as a dynamic, versatile orchestra, performing with such outstanding artists as Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Burt Bacharach, José Carreras, Tony Bennett, Pinchas Zukerman, Dionne Warwick, Andrea Bocelli, kd lang, Lalo Schifrin, Ben Folds and Herbie Hancock. The ASO reaches out to all sections of the community with music experiences that are accessible, world class and entertaining. Executive Producers Martin Buzacott, Robert Patterson, Lyle Chan 5-8 Recording Producer, Editing and Mastering Thomas Grubb Recording Engineers Andrea Hensing & Steve Fieldhouse 1-4, Wayne Baker & Andrea Hensing 5-8 Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb Publications Editor Natalie Shea Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Cover Photo Woodlands near the village of Muurame in central Finland Kari Liimatainen Kari Liimatainen lives in Jyväskylä in central Finland a land he describes as easy to photograph because its four clearly distinct seasons are all equally beautiful! Photography is both a hobby and a form of meditation for Kari, who often spends hours at a time in the woods with his camera. His other interests are music and sport, and he is also a wrestling coach. For Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Chief Executive Rainer Jozeps Artistic Administrator James Koehne Orchestra Manager Karen Frost Recorded October and July in the Adelaide Town Hall. Sibelius s Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 4 are published by Breitkopf & Härtel. ABC Classics thanks Alexandra Alewood, Claudia Crosariol, Katherine Kemp and Virginia Read Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited