Dear lovers of music, mystery, and meaning,
🌲 This time of year, the unfiltered winter sun and the shorter days always bring to mind my favorite composer. Monday was the 160th birthday of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. I’ve been slightly obsessed with Sibelius for the last quarter century, and I’m celebrating my favorite composer all week!
So here’s a suggested listening order for his seven symphonies. (No. 3 on my list is going to be ideal for this windy day in St. Louis.)
My favorite recording set has long been Osmo Vänska’s with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, so I have included links to those recordings on Spotify.
- Symphony No. 5
If you can only hear one, make it this one. Like a lot of composers’ oeuvres, there’s something magical about the fifth. - Symphony No. 2
Did you know that Sibelius was more popular than Beethoven with concertgoers at the New York Philharmonic in the 1930s? It’s true. - Symphony No. 4
Bleak and desolate, yet it is a slow burn. Save this one for a blustery winter day if you can. - Symphony No. 6
“All the doctors who wanted to forbid me to smoke and to drink are dead.” –Sibelius, age 80 - Symphony No. 7
A symphony in a single movement. (This was a pioneering idea, and Sibelius didn’t call it a numbered symphony until the year after its premiere. But he did, and it has been famous ever since.) - Symphony No. 3
Neoclassical, but full of innovation and energy. - Symphony No. 1
From the outset, there’s something distinctive about Sibelius’s symphonic voice. The scherzo is really exciting here.
🔥 A dispatch from Advent: I’m struck this year by just how terrifying and apocalyptic all three of J. S. Bach’s Leipzig settings of the Advent chorale “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” are. (Links to Masaaki Suzuki's recordings on Spotify.)
- BWV 659 - perhaps sanitized by its modern-day familiarity, it is quietly foreboding and ominous. I’ve slowed my tempo this year.
- BWV 660 - experimental and weird. Two bass lines make it dark and very unusual. It feels like a cantata movement transcription (almost like something out of the SchĂĽbler Chorales). Arpeggiated chords at the two big cadences, and a final sustained bass note.
- BWV 661 - This initial subject careens wildly from the outset. It’s like we’ve joined a high-speed car chase in progress. I’m enjoying a 32-foot reed stop in the pedal this year for extra terror.
🚢 A Sibelius connection to Advent: This week, I’m directing “Watchman, tell us of the night” by American composer Alan Hovhaness. It turns out that Hovhaness, like me, was also obsessed with Sibelius. He traveled to Finland to meet him in 1934, and the two remained in touch afterward. Hovhaness named his first child Jean, and Sibelius was her godfather.
Until next week,
-David
-David