Fighting Finn

Where does Sibelius stand today? Twenty years ago, the answer would have been not very high. Today, 50 years after his death, I think it would be ‘on the up’ again, especially as we now know not just the symphonies and tone-poems but also the wonderful songs in performances by Karita Mattila, Soile Isokoski, Anne Sofie von Otter and Jorma Hynninen. In Britain during the first half of the 20th century Sibelius was regarded as the symphonic heir to Beethoven. There was no mention of Mahler and Bruckner in those days, except in very restricted circles. It almost seemed as if Sibelius was an honorary Englishman. The composer had first visited England late in 1905 to conduct in Liverpool. (On arrival at Dover he was fined on the spot by Customs for bringing an illegal quantity of cigars into the country.) His music was championed by the composer and conductor Granville Bantock, to whom the Third Symphony was dedicated, and of course by Henry Wood. Between the wars Hamilton Harty, Leslie Heward (in Birmingham), Ian Whyte (in Scotland), Thomas Beecham and John Barbirolli were all fully paid-up Sibelians.

Sibelius famously remarked that, whereas other composers were concocting strange and outlandish cocktails, he offered pure cold water. One bar of Sibelius is enough to identify him. The First Symphony is often said to be Russian in style, but it could be by no one except Sibelius. His imprint is on it from the very beginning with that long brooding clarinet melody. The Second, still perhaps the most popular, began as an ‘orchestral fantasy’, a cycle of four pieces which were revolutionary in formal treatment as well as traversing a wide emotional range from strife to idyllic calm and a final blaze of triumph which Finnish audiences immediately identified with their national aspirations.