Sibelius: a Guide to the Symphonies

When an English critic heard Sibelius’ First Symphony shortly after it was written, he concluded that ‘every page breathes another manner of thought, another way of living.’

What was he hearing, that made the music sound so different? It might have been the distinctive folk traditions, language, culture and political history of Finland. Sibelius used the mutating patterns of Finland’s musical storytelling tradition to re-imagine the structure and grammar of symphonic music. It meant he could give his country a distinctive musical profile – handy at a time of Russian occupation.

There is plenty unusual about the sound of Sibelius’ symphonies; even the pages of their scores look different from other works of the time. Often Sibelius’ tunes repeat the same note or oscillate around three adjacent ones. Musical themes are molded as if by a potter at a wheel. Rhythmic games and gentle syncopation induce slow transformations of material. It can be hard to tell if you’re hearing foreground or background.

Eventually, Sibelius hit upon a form of music carried by the sort of natural energies that might dictate the flow of a river, however strenuous its path. He became aware that unlike the conclusive, victory-proclaiming symphonies of the past, the symphonic circle might not need to close; that a symphony could end openly or inconclusively while still being meaningful and profound.

Listen to the complete Sibelius symphonies, recorded with Sir Colin Davis for LSO Live.

Symphony No 1

Sibelius’ First dates from a peak in anti-Russian feeling in Finland. It was originally planned as a ‘storytelling’ piece focusing on the country’s history and geology. Plenty heard its first performance in 1899 as a rallying cry. The mysterious clarinet solo that opens the work demonstrates Sibelius’ modern thinking – that he was willing to let instrumental colour, not just melody and harmony, move his music forward. The shape of that melody infiltrates everything we subsequently hear in the symphony.

Of all the symphonies, the First might sound the least like Sibelius. But it does end with one of his hallmarks: a striving hymn-like ‘big tune’ (with its roots in Finland’s Lutheran hymnal). This one, though, has the distinct character and shape of rune songs through which Finnish folklore was recounted.

Symphony No 2

The Second started out as a symphonic poem – a depiction of Don Juan. After Sibelius lost his sister-in-law and very nearly lost his daughter, it became a Symphony mingling grief, cautious thankfulness and the boundless joy of simply being alive.

Sibelius started to sound more like himself here. The Symphony’s opening steps up through terraces of three adjacent notes (again, not unlike the recitations of the rune singers) – three notes which will form the basis of much of what comes. That includes another ‘big tune’ to crown the final movement. This one, borrowing the terraced three notes of the Symphony’s opening, is characterized by being played twice: in a cautious harmonization and immediately after in a triumphant one.

The framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it, regardless of the environment and circumstances.

Jean Sibelius

Symphony No 3

See Symphony No 3 live: Sunday 19 October 7pm, Barbican

Sibelius’ Third came in the wake of the composer’s ecological awakening and a sharpening of his whole concept of what a symphony could be – what he described at the time as ‘the profound logic that creates a connection between the motifs.’

In this piece, we start to hear the symphony as a seamless and inevitable flow of complementary energies generated from short musical fragments. Those fragments are carried forwards by gentle rhythmic displacements – like someone rocking a table to move a ball on top of it.

The Symphony certainly sounds different – more translucent, pure and natural. And a ‘big tune’ to end? Yup. It’s aired first by horns in the final movement, but taken up with far more commitment by tenacious violas.

Symphony No 4

See Symphony No 4 live: Thursday 23 October 7pm, Barbican

This is Sibelius’ most challenging symphony. Some consider it his masterpiece. Its sparse, pale textures have been referred to as a ‘pencil sketch’. Sibelius was in a dark place when he wrote the piece – recovering from throat operations, heavily in debt and going cold turkey on his alcohol addiction.

All that – together with the composer’s interest in the European avant-garde – delivered a Symphony that breaks down, time and again, into a silence. That seems to lay Sibelius’ emotions bare. The music we do hear is ranged as if out of reach, echoing and glinting here and there, somehow intangible. Uniquely in the history of music, the Symphony’s ending doesn’t frolic or fall into repose. This Symphony just disappears – lost in the whiteness.

Symphony No 5

In his last three symphonies, Sibelius streamlined momentum even further by mimicking improvised music. His Fifth feels like a self-perpetuating journey. The Symphony’s musical language seems to be developing even as it proceeds. The Fifth is inextricably tied up in an event witnessed by Sibelius – a flock of sixteen swans, soaring upwards for their migration from the lake overlooked by his house.

Upward-pining motifs, inspired by that sight, characterize the Symphony. The subtext is that through nature, we can transcend life’s agonies. The swans materialize again at the end of the symphony, and in the full majesty of another ‘big tune’. The bottom of the orchestra drops away, like the falling away of a runway, and the horns (the swans) take flight.

Symphony No 6

See Symphony No 6 live: Thursday 23 October 7pm, Barbican

Sibelius initially described his Sixth as a ‘fantasy’. It is the most idyllic of the composer’s symphonies – perhaps even a pastoral. Parts of it were shaped by the composer’s recollection of his childhood in rural Finland.

Much of the Sixth sounds unusually light and high for Sibelius; instruments climb up and up and there’s an unusually prominent harp. In the Poco Vivace third movement we Sibelius ‘ragging’ his orchestra: using gently syncopated rhythms in different parts of the orchestra to tease the music onward. And a ‘big tune’? Not really. Rather, echoing the Fourth, the Sixth simply drifts off into the woods from where it came.

Symphony No 7

Sibelius’ last completed symphony was born of abrasion, squalor and addiction yet manages to be profound, majestic and humbling.

In the Seventh, the levels of momentum and flow achieved in the more idyllic Sixth are given magnificent, transcendent depths. In its short, single-movement span (one movement, around twenty minutes), the Symphony appears to live a whole life. Alcohol played a part in its composition and surely influenced the outcome. The Symphony oscillates between elation and aching strain, its gait, velocity, harmony and melody all swilled and smudged.

The Symphony is structured around three renditions of a short trombone motif, first heard some way in – the Seventh’s ‘big tune’ (but in this case, short and elusive). Next, it is heard in a minor key, bated by other brass and unsettled by heaving strings. Finally, it appears in a transcendent state that sets up the Symphony’s final bid for release – a chord that combines weightless with extraordinary longing.

Our symphony guides are the perfect starting point when discovering the works of iconic composers. Each guide is written by a leading biographer and features playlists from LSO Live, along with excerpts of symphonies filmed at the Barbican.