Jean Sibelius

As a long-time admirer of classical music, I was always particularly interested in symphonic descriptions of the Sea. Since several years I began taking notes of the pieces on the subject and finally it took a form of the current compilation. This program is not pretended to be comprehensive as it is based on my personal musical preferences which would equally explain the domination of the Russian composers.
I would like to address this program to my family that admires the Sea, to my shipmates of archaeological missions in Egypt and those of the sailing frigate ‘L’Hermione’, as well as to all people that love symphonic music and the Sea.
The accompanying text section (in English, Russian and French) includes general information and some curious facts concerning the creation of each piece.
I wish you a nice listening,
A.B.

This paper explores the formal structure of the final movement in Jean Sibelius’s IVth Symphony in regard to its uncommon harmonic evolution. The final Sonata-Rondo fully evolves from a tritone relationship: while the first subject is set in A Major, the second subject occurs, instead of the principal key’s dominant degree, in E flat Minor. Throughout the score, the composer explored the symmetry of these two building blocks. The development section thus follows in C Major that is located exactly between A natural and E flat and does not use any key signatures. The recapitulation reverses the succession of tonal keys, the first subject now occurring in E flat Major, the second in A Minor. Despite the fact that the composer never stepped beyond the basis of the 12-semitone equal tempered scale, this analysis suggests that the complex harmonic structure of this movement introduces basic characteristics of 11-limit harmony into the tonal idiom. The modulation to E flat thus grows out of the principal key (i.e., A Major) as if it was split from the 11th and 14th partials within the spectrum of A. Naturally, this happens within the limit of the 12-semitone scale. During the bridge between the two subjects, A and E flat appear together, either in juxtaposition or simultaneously. Some modulations, in particular during the concluding passages of the second subject, are composed of extended harmonic structures. Characteristically, their harmonic sequences combine three tonal keys that are connected by major-third (i.e., mediant) relationships. These conglomerates of three interrelated keys form another principal feature of Sibelius’s circular understanding of harmonic motion. An experimental procedure using 24-note quarter-tone temperament reveals that the tritonic relationship between the two principal keys (A and E flat) and the harmonic tendency to mediant relationships may evolve by means of the same principle: the three combined keys may merge into each other by enharmonic reinterpretation of their 11th and 14th partials, in the same manner in which E flat grows out of the 11th and the 14th partials in a spectrum over A (11th = E flat, 14th = G).

The paper is published in Between Light and Darkness: New Perspectives in Symbolism Research. The volume is the first issue in the series Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century published by the Birch and the Star. This publication builds on the 2010 Symposium Between Light and Darkness which was held at the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki. It explores issues related to religion, mysticism, and subjectivity in Symbolist art and theory, the fin-de-siècle relationship between art and science, and the continuation of the Symbolist influence after the fin-de-siècle period.

This is the first large chapter of a book published 2013 as a necessary and organic extension of my "Jean Sibelius" (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2011) and "Poesie in der Luft. Jean Sibelius" (Breitkopf & Härtel: Wiesbaden etc. 2007). Even some libraries might have thought that the texts are identical. This upload is to demonstrate that this is not at all the case!  "Jean Sibelius und seine Zeit" was written to be read by all who got fascinated by "Jean Sibelius" or "Poesie in der Luft".

‘Hardly any of our other intellectual achievements, sporting victories or state events have succeeded in penetrating the consciousness of millions of people all over the world as much as Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia. Only the heroic story of the Winter War can compete with it.’ This is how Santeri Levas, Sibelius’s secretary for almost twenty years, described the success and
significance of Finlandia. When Levas published Nuori Sibelius (The Young Sibelius) in 1957, the composer had just passed away. It is beyond doubt that Finlandia is Sibelius’s best known
composition internationally – alongside Valse triste and the Second Symphony – but it has always also occupied a special position in Finnish culture. Although one might criticize Levas’s starting point – a comparison with sporting victories or state events – it is clear that specifically Finlandia has its own, multifaceted interpretative tradition, through which we gain
a broader view of Jean Sibelius’s significance.

”Tuskinpa mitkään muut henkiset saavutuksemme, urheiluvoittomme tai valtiolliset tapahtumamme ovat voineet siinä määrin tunkeutua miljoonien ihmisten tietoisuuteen koko
maapallolla kuin Jean Sibeliuksen Finlandia. Vain talvisodan sankaritarina voi sen kanssa kilpailla.” Näin kuvasi Finlandian menestystä ja merkitystä Santeri Levas, joka ehti toimia
Sibeliuksen sihteerinä lähes 20 vuotta. Kun Levas julkaisi teoksensa Nuori Sibelius vuonna 1957, mestari oli juuri menehtynyt. Epäilemättä Finlandia on Sibeliuksen kansainvälisesti tunnetuimpia teoksia Valste tristen ja toisen sinfonian ohella, mutta sillä on aina ollut myös erityisasema
suomalaisessa kulttuurissa. Vaikka Levaksen lähtökohtaa, vertailua urheiluvoittoihin tai valtiollisiin tapahtumiin, voikin kritisoida, on selvää, että juuri Finlandialla on oma, monipolvinen tulkintaperinteensä, jonka kautta avautuu näköala Jean Sibeliuksen merkitykseen laajemmin.

Keywords: Dream, music, modern music, Finnish composers, Finnish poetry, Kalevala, Jean Sibelius, Kaija Saariaho, Tapio Tuomela, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Elias Lönnrot, Finland, Sámi, Nordic cultures.

Based on a presentation given at the international symposium of the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg ‘Europäische Traum-kulturen’ (University of Saarland, Saarbrücken, 24–25 May 2019): ‘A Gateway to Secret Existences. Dream, Body and Soul in Kaija Saariaho’s Music,’ hosted by Dr Mauro Fosco Bertola.

The friendship between Busoni and Sibelius, dating back to the years of Busoni’s professorship in Helsinki, was a long-standing one, in spite of their differences. Close in age, they came from very dissimilar musical backgrounds and experiences, and their relationship started on a striking inequality of roles (Busoni was already a famous musician and a teacher, whereas Sibelius was then only a student). Furthermore, Busoni, “the great pianist”, wished to be appreciated as a composer and conductor; Sibelius, “the great composer”, occasionally suffered from the failure of his efforts to become a concert violinist. Notwithstanding this, and the occasional disagreements or the perplexities sporadically expressed by both on each other’s works, the intensity of their friendship is abundantly documented by their letters, by the testimonies of those surrounding them, by works such as the Geharnischte Suite by Busoni where Sibelius – together with the other “Leskovites” – is the dedicatee of one movement, and by other documents which this article discusses. Among them, evidence of Busoni’s interest in Sibelius’ music is found in the former’s letters to Breitkopf, as regards Busoni’s concerts with Sibelius’ works, questions on the progress of certain works by Sibelius, and Busoni’s reactions to the positive or negative reception of Sibelius’ compositions in the contemporaneous musical world.

The painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela and composer Jean Sibelius enjoyed a complex friendship across media in the final decade of the nineteenth century as members of a group of young artist-intellectuals that called itself “The Symposium.” This article studies Gallen-Kallela’s images of Sibelius and of his work, centering on the idea of “natural music,” with which the composer was especially closely associated.

In 1987, Maynard Solomon published an article titled “Charles Ives: Some Questions of Veracity,” which challenged the priority and probity of Charles Ives’s technical innovations and ignited a scholarly firestorm. Nearly twenty years later, John McGinness ruminated on the uproar, asking, “While unquestionably of historical importance, why, in our postmodern times, should dating and/or the addition of dissonance play a crucial role in the critical evaluation of Ives’s music?” McGinness continued by questioning the effects of what he called “Modernist Criticism” on Ives studies and concluded by problematizing its usefulness to evaluations of Ives’s music.

This thesis continues the conversation that McGinness began. First, I broaden his discussion to include the reception history of Jean Sibelius and recent contributions to Sibelius studies, for throughout their respective reception histories, the musics of Ives and Sibelius have been particularly vulnerable to negative valuations based on modernist criticism. Next, I borrow Richard Taruskin’s definition of modernist criticism, which he describes as comprising three tenets: influence, innovation, and structure. Taruskin’s three tenets serve as the subjects of the central chapters of this thesis, each of which seeks to outline the origin of its subject as a criterion of musical evaluation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German philosophy and to sketch a brief narrative of its application to the reception histories of Ives and Sibelius in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Finally, I explore the ramifications of modernist aesthetic assumptions that the parallels and similarities in the reception histories of Ives and Sibelius reveal.

My research continues a budding tradition that examines and uncovers the biases musicologists bring into their discipline. My purpose is to demonstrate the pervasiveness of modernist criticism in musicology and the related fields of theory and criticism and to challenge influence, innovation, and structure as evaluative criteria in the reception histories of Ives and Sibelius.

Интерес к описаниям моря в симфонической музыке у меня появился довольно давно. И вдруг несколько лет назад появилась мысль собрать вместе наиболее интересную, на мой взгляд, музыку по данной тематике. В результате получился сборник из трех дисков, который я и предлагаю Вашему вниманию. Данная программа, разумеется, не может охватить все существующие симфонические описания моря. При выборе произведений я руководствовался своими музыкальными пристрастиями, что, в частности, объясняет господство русских композиторов.
Мне хотелось бы посвятить данный сборник моей семье, в которой море и все что с ним связано вызывает неизменный интерес, а также моим коллегам по подводным раскопкам в Египте, товарищам-морякам с французского фрегата «Гермиона», а также всем людям, которым близко море и классическая музыка.
Ниже приводятся ссылки на музыкальные файлы, файлы графического оформления дисков, а также общее описание музыки и некоторые интересные факты, связанные с созданием некоторых произведений.
Желаю Вам приятного прослушивания!
А.Б.

I will examine the first movement of the Second Symphony in the context of the modernist movement of Sibelius and his contemporaries during the early twentieth century. This will involve an investigation of Sibelius's engagement with sonata form, the ways in which Formenlehre conventions are subverted, and the relationship of thematic and tonal sonata dialectics to rhetorical gestures of growth, decay, arrest and arrival. I will propose a non-sonata form structural reading of the movement based on these categories of gestural rhetoric, taking into account their manifestations and implications on global and local levels.

<Cette note pertinente est publiie d l'occasion du 90e anniversaire du composileur finlandais et tirde d 40 exemplaires vdlin blanc et 1l exemplaires sur hollonde antique, numdrotds 1 d 51 par l'6diteur. Le tirage a iti exicutd le I dicembre par l', nationale des invalides, de Lidge.> <Cette note pertinente> de Rend Leibowitz, d'une hostilitd inattendue dans son contextel'anniversaire d'un compositeur 6gd et silencieux depuis plus d'un quart de siecle -t6moigne du climat musical des ann6es 1950, impr6gn6 par le dogmatisme de l'avant-garde sdrielle. Eldve de Schanberg, Leibowitz avait consacrd sa vie d la cause de la musique dite progressiste, dont la sup6rioritd vis-d-vis de la musique utilisant des <moyens anciens>> lui 6tait un fait incontestable. Sibelius nous a montrd, conclut-il, (qu'en se servant de ces moyens rien n'est plus aisd que de devenir le plus mauvais compositeur du monde>r.l En lisant le pamphlet de Leibowitz, un sentiment de familiaritd s'empare de vous : c'est quelque chose que vous avez \u auparavant ailleurs, et il n'est pas trop difEcile de se souvenir du lieu. On fouille dans sa bibliothdque, et I'on trouve ce qu'on a cherchd : la <Glose sur Sibelius> de Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno. publide en 1938 dans la Zeitschrrft fiir Sozialforschung, porte-parole de l'6cole de Francfort, et qui se trouve r66ditde dans le recueil Impromptus trente ans plus tard.2

Keywords: Jean Sibelius, Viktor Rydberg, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Otto Andersson, Steinway & Sons; piano music, choral music, orchestral music, composition, creativity, improvisation; biography, music analysis, ecocriticism, history of reception; Finnish history, Swedish history; Romanticism.
A fragment for piano in A-flat major (1887), an autograph at the Helsinki University Library (Coll. 0765/1; Figure 1) by Jean Sibelius, which has so far received little attention, serves in the following as an indication of a creative process leading from a vacational inspiration to a sophisticated work for choir and orchestra more than twenty years later. The starting point of the study was the public image of Sibelius as a symphonist improvising on the piano. Before it turned out to be more, the fragment was analysed as a tiny piece in the puzzle, a possible manifestation of a moment musicaux in a warm summer evening. It illustrates the effervesce phantasy of the young artist who did not yet consider himself a full-time composer. E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Kreisleriana as well as poems by the magnificent Swedish poet Viktor Rydberg (1828–1895), August Strindberg’s youth idol that later became an artistic enemy image, are put in relation to the fragment that is – quite spectacularly – revealed as a manifestation of the musical idea that starts the Impromptu for four-part women’s choir and orchestra in E-flat major Op. 19 from 1910 (Figure 2). Not so much the fact that an unpublished idea of 1887 experiences a comeback in a masterpiece of 1910, but the unique character of the idea and its genuine context make up a sensation. The improvisatory style of this idea, 1887 in particular, would legitimate the slightly unusual title Impromptu for a work of its kind (Op. 19). The semantic and cultural context of the idea as it is used 1910 are easy to analyse in regard to the lyrics. They support the interpretation of the original creative context of 1887 that is not positively established. Even if only in terms of a theory, the later context gives the inspiration both a landscape and a cultural identity, also supported by the peculiar graphics of the fragment. Sibelius also used the generic title Impromptu conventionally, for six piano compositions from 1894: Six Impromptus Op. 5, of which No. 5–6 also exist for string orchestra. In addition, the first of the Four Pieces Op. 78 for piano and violin or cello is an Impromptu (1915). A brief overview of Sibelius’ piano work was added to provide context. In addition, Sibelius’ portraits, preferably at the piano, and anecdotes about his pianism are discussed as reciprocal aspects of public imaginary. Sibelius was trained as violinist, but as he grew older he improvised primarily on the piano, from 1915 on his own Steinway, until then on the German upright pianino (Westermayer) of his grandmother.

Texte original en français, publié en finnois "Musiikki ja hiljaisuus", dans la revue Taide-lehti 3-07, à l'occasion de l'exposition Musique et Silence. Symbolisme finlandais / Musiikki ja hiljaisuus. Suomalaista symbolismia, Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, 15.6-2.9.2007, Helsinki, Finlande. A L'ORIGINE DU SYMBOLISME, RICHARD WAGNER L'Oeuvre d'art de l'avenir 1 -la déclaration d'intention contenue dans le titre même du livre de Richard Wagner était de nature à enthousiasmer les artistes. Sans doute leur fallait-il tendre vers cet avenir radieux et se libérer des entraves du temps présent, d'un épuisement des formules ressassées à l'envie, d'une histoire en inadéquation avec les sentiments nationaux. Projetée dans le lointain, l'oeuvre d'art était amenée à jouer un rôle divinatoire. Elle donnait à voir un avenir auquel les artistes aspiraient et contribuait même à l'inventer, à lui donner une forme séduisante et convaincante susceptible de rallier les esprits. « L'artiste de l'avenir » esquissé par Richard Wagner se faisait prophète des temps nouveaux et s'engageait dans un idéalisme utopiste, que ne récusaient que des phases de découragement profond.

Sibelius’s late tone poem Tapiola is routinely held up as an exceptional example of a piece that is both monothematic and monotonal. Nevertheless, the broader notion of tonality transmitted by Tapiola invites deeper investigation, since tonality by the early twentieth century is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, a feature true especially of Sibelius’s later compositions. Sibelius’s tonal practice in Tapiola is based neither on first-practice functional harmony nor on second-practice triadic chromaticism but rather on the use of distinct scale collections and their interaction with the thematic process, whereby the network of pitch relations becomes drawn into the unfolding of the work’s motivic logic. It is argued that, under Sibelius’s extreme the-maticism, melodic organization intersects with macroharmony and scale, blurring the distinction between hierarchical levels of pitch organization and ultimately between the work’s monothematicism and its sense of tonality.

einige Gesichtspunkte iiber die Volksmusik und deren EinfluB auf die Tonkunst" zu behandeln trachtetel. Die Wahl des Themas war nicht durch wissenschaftliches Interesse begrtndet; denn Sibelius war weder Musikhistoriker noch Volksliedforscher. Vielmehr nutzte er die Gelegenheit, um seine Position in einer aktuellen Streitfrage zu definieren. Die Idee des Nationalismus, dii zweifellos herrschende Uberzeugung in der finnischen Kultur des 19. Jahrhunderts, hatte die Aufmerksamkeit der Kiinstler und der Gebildeten auf die Volkspoesie gerichtet, in der mannach dem Zusammenbruch der staatlichen und kulturellen Zusammengeh<irigkeit mit Schweden und mangels einer eigenen Klassikdie nationale Identitiit zu finden glaubte. Als Musterbeispiel einer nationalen Kunst gilt das Heldenepos Kalevala, das Elias L6nnrot 1835 aus den in Karelien gesammelten Volksdichtungen zusammenstiickte. Die ideengeschichtliche Situation war aberinsbesondere in der Musikkeineswegs einheitlich. Zum Beispiel zdhlte Martin Wegelius, der einfluBreiche primus motor des finnischen Musiklebens und ehemaliger Lehrer von Sibelius, zu den Gegnern der nationalen Kunst, 9i" 9Ioffenkundig in Anlehnung an Wagners Ope,r und Dramaeiner chauvinistischen Enge und der Verzemrng des rein Menschlichen verdiichtigte2. Sibelius' Entscheidung fiir sein Thema biruhte also darauf, daB es eine apologetische Funktion erfiillen sollte; es ging ihm nicht nur darum, seine

You would greatly oblige me by printing a declaration by me to the effect that up to this day, i.e. March twenty-seventh, 1938, I have not made, or sent, any statement to the German authorities." Ibid., s. 266. 21 "There is one thing I want to add, concerning what is at this moment-at least for us-the most terrible prospect. That is the imminent danger that Hungary will surrender to this regime of thieves and murderers. The only question is-when and how? And how I can then go on living in such a country or-which means the same thing-working. I simply cannot conceive. As a matter of fact, I would feel it my duty to emigrate, so long as that were possible."

Two operas - Sibelius's 'The Maiden in the Tower' and Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Kashchei the Immortal' - utilise the motif of the Tower of Virtue, often encountered in Western literature and music. This short article (written for the Buxton Festival production in 2012) analyses both works, and considers some more general aspects of the motif.

In July–August 1892 Jean Sibelius spent his honeymoon in Karelia and then continued his trip alone to remote villages, on both sides of the Finnish-Russian border, to study kantele playing and rune singing. Afterwards he wrote a short report to the Imperial Alexander University, which had granted him a scholarship of 400 marks for the trip. In that report, he mentions the villages he visited by name and describes what he heard. He was not pleased with the quality of kantele playing in Monola, except for some of Mikko Tolvanen’s melodies. There was no hint of rune singing there. In Korpiselkä he notated some laments and in Kokkari and Suojärvi some runes, of which he gives examples, but he was most impressed by the singing of Petri Shemeikka of Korpiselkä who performed runes for him for twenty-four hours without interruption. The article (in Finnish) describes the trip and its background and offers some analytical comments on the melodies given in Sibelius’s report.

a cura di Annalisa Bini, Flavio Colusso e Ferruccio Tammaro.
Roma, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (L’Arte Armonica n.18, Serie III, Studi e testi)

Sono circa centocinquanta i film che utilizzano musica di Sibelius nella colonna sonora; in questo numero sono compresi anche film per la televisione, per cui i lungometraggi dovrebbero essere almeno un centinaio: circa cinquanta con la musica di Finlandia, trenta con la Valse triste, una decina con il Concerto per violino, cinque con la Seconda sinfonia e il Cigno di Tuonela quasi a confermare una ‘graduatoria di popolarità’ tra i pezzi più celebri del compositore. Molti di questi film sono difficili da reperire, la maggior parte sono finlandesi (almeno cinquanta) ma non mancano importanti esempi della cinematografia italiana e americana. Per quanto riguarda Sibelius ‘personaggio’ appare in otto film, tutti di produzione finlandese, di cui il più importante è il biografico Sibelius di Timo Koivusalo (2003), interpretato da Martti Suosalo.

The history of programme music stretches back centuries, but only in the nineteenth century did it enter into widespread use. Indeed, seminal compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven and Frédéric Chopin to Arnold Schoenberg and Jean Sibelius have helped programme music to secure a position within the artistic pantheon, albeit not without bringing a significant amount of controversy in tow. Yet despite its ubiquitous presence in the nineteenth century, scholarship has not adequately articulated the full extent of programme music’s range and impact. This volume explores the diverse ways in which programme music was defined, historicized, practiced, disseminated, and judged. It considers how biography, tradition, and function informed the compositional approaches taken by Beethoven, Joseph Joachim, Ethel Smyth, and Zygmunt Noskowski, among others. It draws on extra-musical elements—novels, poems, lithographs, and other forms of creative expression—to determine the ontological profile of works by Chopin, Franz Liszt, Antonio Pasculli, Piotr Tchaikovsky, and Leoš Janáček. It situates compositions by Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Sibelius, and Schoenberg within the ongoing discourse around Hanslickian absolute and Lisztian programme music. And it visits major European cities to highlight the critical streams of reception toward the end of the century. Throughout, it repeatedly engages with questions of generic identity (with special attention given to the symphonic poem), issues of narrativity and topicality, and considerations of form and structure.

Sibelius composed for the piano throughout his productive life, over 100 opus-listed works. However, Sibelius's piano music is often disparaged, even condemned in Sibelius literature. Usually Sibelius's piano pieces are compared with his orchestral works and considered a marginal and unimportant area.
    In the first part of the present essay it is proposed, that it seems as if it might be inappropriate and embarrassing that "a giant of absolute music", hammering out his symphonical themes in the heavyweight class of composing, wrote also so many brief piano pieces, music which in our tradition of Western art music has been associated with "feminine".
    The second part of the essay analyses Kyllikki from a psychoanalytico-semiotic point of view, applying also theories from feminist and gender studies. Kyllikki is analysed as a musical productivity representing the registers of subjectivity, the adventures of desire on the border of self and other.

In this paper, I propose that the “postmodern traits” that contemporary musicians have perceived in the music of Jean Sibelius can be described instead as manifestations of early twentieth-century ultramodernism. I link ultramodernist concepts to the radical ideas of Sibelius’s friend, Ferruccio Busoni, which he outlined in the 1907/16 pamphlet, Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music. Both Busoni and Sibelius rejected the modernists’ systematic exploration of atonal pitch structures in order to investigate the properties of sound itself, together with those of musical time and space. I will illustrate my discussion with examples from Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony (1919), Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto (1970), and works by Busoni and Rud Langgaard.

Sibelius’s only balletic pantomime, Scaramouche, composed in 1913, remains one of his least-known works, even though it is one of his longest dramatic scores and belongs to his period of compositional re-evaluation. This article explores the pantomime in the context of its first production, performed in 1922 in Denmark and 1924 in Sweden. It argues that the pantomime’s reception both illuminates the importance of dance as a formative ‘modern’ genre within the Nordic countries during this period, and demonstrates that the score is defined by stylistic plurality, which was key to its theatrical success. The article calls for increased musicological attention to Nordic theatrical music, a genre that was extremely popular among early twentieth-century Nordic composers. It provided musicians with musical spaces that were more liberating than the concert hall or the opera house for the purposes of cultivating their musical language.

Historically,  depictions  of  Finnish  landscape  in  Sibelius’s  music  have  been  attributed  to Klangflächen,  'sound-sheets’, or  other  processes  that  involve  harmonic  stasis  and  expansive ostinato patterns. Through  detailed  analysis, this paper will reveal  that Sibelius sometimes instead employs techniques of tonal distance to evoke spatially remote landscapes. 'Sydämeni Laulu', which lies in almost total musicological obscurity, is one such example, and it thus warrants analytical attention as a counterpoint to established critical approaches within Sibelius scholarship. Sibelius’s song associates tonal relatives and static Kopftons with the spatial subject positions expressed  by  Alexis  Kivi’s  lyrics.  The  lullaby-like  poem  is  sung  at  the  end  of  Kivi’s  novel, Seisemän Veljestä,  by a mother to her baby as he dies, to reassure him that the afterlife – Tuonela of Finnish mythology – will be peaceful.

Sibelius sets the lullaby as a miniature ternary form of  five  strophes  (ABABA),  which  end  in  C  minor  or  E♭  major  according  to  the  alternating poetic content of the stanzas. The relative major is associated with a desired, but ultimately  unobtainable  landscape  of  Tuonela,  while  the  minor  is  associated  with  the  sorrowful  tonal
‘reality’ of the mother’s position in the realm of the living. My paper foregrounds these tonally and  poetically  distant  positions  within  a  voice-leading  analysis  to  understand  Sibelius’s syncretic dialogues with Finnish-Karelian and Central-European nineteenth-century musical traditions.