Sibelius was one of the featured composers at Tomoko’s
November concert. Miwako Isano sang soprano, and Tomoko accompanied her.
Sibelius is considered Finland’s greatest composer and
helped develop his country’s national identity, even though his songs were written
in his mother tongue Swedish. He drew upon the Finnish landscape in his tone poems,
and he captured the spirit of Finland in his patriotic works.
Jean Sibelius was born in 1865 and died in 1957. Sibelius’s
family vacationed on the coast each summer, which started his love of nature: picturesque,
primitive and sublime.
Although he started with piano, Sibelius turned to the
violin and considered going professional, but he chose to become a composer
instead.
Varen flyktar hastigt (Spring flies fast), Opus 13 No. 4 was
one of a set of seven songs with lyrics by Runeberg, published in 1982; the
opus was his first publication with his name on the title page. The song elegantly
captures the essence of Nordic seasons. Sibelius had just returned to Finland
from Vienna, and wanted to express Finnish culture in his music through
incorporating the tonalities of traditional folk music such as natural-minor
tonics and accentuating Finnish language rhythms. At that time Finland underwent
a national romanticism, partly in protest to Russia’s looming preoccupation of
the country.
The end of the 19th century marked the most
productive time for Sibelius in composing songs that were performed the most often
in Europe at the time and globally since then. The songs were generally melancholy
and even chilling in effect.
The duet performed two songs from the 1899 Opus 36: Demanten
pa massnon (The diamond on the March snow) and Säf, säf, susa (Reed, reed,
rustle). The former uses a diatonic approach to express the transition of seasons.
The latter bemoans the cruel treatment of a young woman in love, using a
metaphor of crashing nature.
Their final selection was the last song in the Opus 37 five-series
set, published in 1901. Flickan kom ifran sin alskings mote (The girl returned
from meeting her lover). The song expresses a traditional sense of lost
innocence and sexual change. It also became one of Sibelius’s most celebrated
pieces.
Even though Sibelius touted Finnish nationalism, his songs resonate
universally.
