Jean Sibelius and His World

by Grimley, Daniel M.

  NOTES

  1. An excellent compilation of much of this repertory is The Sibelius Edition: Theatre Music, vol. 5, BIS-CD 1912/14 (2008). This set does not, however, include the music to Ödlan; for this, see The Sibelius Edition: Chamber Music, vol. 9, BIS-CD 1924/26 (2009), as well as a 1995 recording on the Koch Schwann label (3-1786-2), with Tapio Tuomela conducting the Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen.

  2. As interesting and finely performed as the recordings in the previous note are, both fundamentally misrepresent Sibelius’s conception of Ödlan by omitting the spoken text. A recording of dramatic music can never completely capture the experience of actors onstage, sets, and costumes, but it is plain that Sibelius, apart from briefly entertaining the notion of crafting a set of symphonic variations based on the concluding theme from the second movement, never intended Ödlan to be heard without the spoken text the music was meant to accompany. Later in life, he made the point directly: “Musiken till Ödlan är omöjlig för annat än teatern” (The music for Ödlan is impossible for anything other than the theater. This letter of 13 January 1936 is quoted in Fabian Dahlström, Jean Sibelius: Thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2003),27. On the same page, Dahlström cites Sibelius’s letter of 19 November 1909 to Breitkopf & Härtel, in which he mentions the idea of symphonic variations on the concluding theme.

  3. Rabbe Forsman makes the case that Ödlan marked a fundamental step for Sibelius toward the sound world of the Fourth Symphony. See “Sagan om Satu: Jean Sibelius och ett finskt kulturkomplex. Sånger kan jag, som ej konungens maka, ej son av mänska kan. (Eddan),”Ny tid, 23 June 2006, http://www.nytid.fi/arkiv/artikelnt-684-1283.html. On the “crisis” years, see James Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 10–18.

  4. Andrew Barnett’s claim that Sibelius “pandered to the taste of the dedicatee” in writing his music for the symbolist plays both downplays the importance of his artistic choices and interests—Barnett feels these choices relate more to the “dreamy, imaginative and spiritual side of [Sibelius’s] personality that had been evident since his childhood”—and denigrates the composer’s own artistic impulses, which would appear to have little to with “pandering.” See Barnett, Sibelius (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 156–57.

  For a more sympathetic overview of Sibelius’s musical engagements with symbolist drama, see Eija Kurki, “Sibelius and the Theatre: A Study of the Incidental Music for Symbolist Plays,” in Sibelius Studies, ed. Timothy L. Jackson and Veijo Murtomäki (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 76–94. Kurki focuses mainly on the music for Kuolema, Belsazars gästabud, and Svanevit.

  5. For an excellent examination of the continuities and conceptual relationships among the variety of theatrical works that Sibelius composed, see Tomi Mäkelä, “Poesie in der Luft”: Jean Sibelius, Studien zu Leben und Werk (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2007), 216–32.

  6. See Manuela Schwartz, “‘Une union encore plus intime de la poésie et de la musique’: Schauspielmusik am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts in Frankreich,” in Stimmen—Klänge—Töne: Synergien im szenischen Spiel, ed. Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002), 253–64.

  7. Silent cinema did not make serious inroads into Finland until around 1919, so any awareness Sibelius might have had about cinematic appropriations of melodrama would have derived from his travels abroad. On Finnish silent cinema, see Antti Alanen, “Born Under the Sign of the Scarlet Flower: Pantheism in Finnish Silent Cinema,” in Nordic Explorations: Film Before 1930, ed. John Fullerton and Jan Olsson (Sydney: John Libbey, 1999), 77–85; and, in the same collection, Peter von Bagh, “Silents for a Silent People,” 86–90.

  For studies of the relationships among cinema and various earlier dramatic forms that mixed media, see Manuela Schwartz, “Visualisierung der Musik—Musikalisierung der Bilder: Zur konzeptionellen Wende in Oper, Schauspielmusik und Film des Fin de siècle,” in Zeitenwenden—Wendezeiten: Von der Achsenzeit bis zum Fall der Mauer (Dettelbach: Verlag J.H. Röll, 2000), 151–68; Ben Singer, Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); and John Mercer and Martin Shingler, Melodrama: Genre, Style, Sensibility (London: Wallflower Press, 2004).

  Finally, for a fascinating study that considers early twentieth-century musical style through the lens of the cinema of the time, see Rebecca Leydon, “Debussy’s Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema,” Music Theory Spectrum 23 (2001): 217–41.

  8. The most detailed exploration of the genesis and literary context of Lybeck’s play, and the best close reading of it, remains Erik Kihlman, Mikael Lybeck: Liv och Diktning (Helsinki: Mercators Tryckeri Aktiebolag, 1932), 389–412.

  9. As if this were not already plain in nearly every exchange of the play, Lybeck has Alban state the matter baldly: “Jag är skrämd från lifvet. Allt jordiskt är ondt. Allt jordbundet. Och ödlan är symbolen.” (I am frightened of life. Everything earthly is pain. Everything tied to the earth. And the lizard is the symbol.) Mikael Lybeck, Ödlan: Ett Skådespel (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers, 1908), 78.

  10. The written sources tell us (and Sibelius’s biographers endlessly repeat) that he tackled the commission from Lybeck with great enthusiasm, but that he grew irritated with it as he tried to finish it. Though revelatory from a biographical point of view (Sibelius grappled often with negative thoughts toward works he was composing), neither point ought to carry much weight in an informed exploration of the worth and meaning of the music that accompanies Lybeck’s play.

  Barnett’s good discussion of the music from Ödlan includes Sibelius’s glowing acceptance of the assignment from Lybeck (Sibelius, 199). Sibelius’s negative remark came in a diary entry of 23 September 1909: “Mikaels ‘ödla’ pinar mig. Måste snabbast möjligast lemna den ifrån mig.” (Mikael’s “lizard” torments me. Must hand it over as fast as possible). See Jean Sibelius, Dagbok 1909–1944, ed. Fabian Dahlström (Helsinki: Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland; Stockholm: Atlantis, 2005), 36.

  11. John Rosas, “Sibelius’ musik till skådespelet ödlan,” Suomin musiikin vuosikirja (1960–1961): 50.

  12. Jean Sibelius, Music for the Play “The Lizard” by Mikael Lybeck (Musik till skådespelet “Ödlan”), Op. 8 (Helsinki: Edition Fazer, 1994).

  13. For references to “the orchestra” in various forms, see Lybeck, Ödlan, 88 and 131

  14. Erik Tawaststerjna, Jean Sibelius: Åren 1904–1914 (Keuruu: Atlantis, 1991), 193.

  15. For the reference to “en liten stråkorkester,” see the article by K. F. Wasenius (“Bis”) published in Hufvudstadsbladet on 6 April 1910, as cited in Rosas, “Sibelius’ musik till skådespelet ödlan,” 52.

  16. For a good discussion of the Euterpist movement and its relationship to Sibelius’s music for Ödlan, see Glenda Dawn Goss, Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 306–12.

  17. George C. Schoolfield, “A Sense of Minority,” in A History of Finland’s Literature, ed. George C. Schoolfield, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 404.

  18. On the headings for each scene, Sibelius noted the relevant page numbers of the printed edition of the play.

  19. Lybeck, Ödlan, 75: “Musiken har aldrig gjort de lefvande något ondt!”

  20. Ibid., 84: “Ordet är för tungt, det hindrar, men tonerna, tonerna . . .”

  21. Ibid., 86: “Jag är violinen.”

  22. Ibid., 85.

  23. The classic examination of muteness in dramatic melodrama is Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 56–80.

  24. Lybeck, Ödlan, 80. “All musik, Elisiv, jag menar all stor musik, sträfver ut öfver gränserna . . . gränserna mellan lifvet och döden.”

  25. Ibid., 132: “Nedanför trappstegen en stor, stor ödla, med hufvudet på marken och ögone
n glimmande som eldspringor.”

  26. Ibid., 136: “Hvad här är hemskt, hemskt!” (How ghastly, ghastly it is here—hemskt also means “uncanny”).

  27. Ibid.: “Måste jag dö? Hvarför får jag inte lefva?” (Must I die? Why can I not live?)

  28. Ibid.,138–39. Amid this exchange, the motive of the crying baby returns. Alida responds to Elisiv’s pleading to know if Alban loves her by saying she hears a small, abandoned child cry, and was that Elisiv?—“Jag hör ett barn gråta—ett ensamt öfvergiftet barn. Är det du, Elisiv?”

  29. Ibid., 140: “Du får inte följa mig! Låt dina toner bära min själ bortom lifvets gränser!”

  30. The first example of “Paus—musiken fortfar” appears in ibid., 132. Lybeck’s favorite variant was “Paus—musiken starkare” (Pause—the music stronger), 133.

  31. The other option—to radically slow down the delivery of lines so that dialogue and music concluded together—seems dramatically unlikely, even if the characters are articulating their monotonal words very carefully.

  32. Lybeck, Ödlan, 135: “Alban! Är det du, som spelar?”

  33. Ibid., 139: “Alla hans tankar, alla hans ord, hela lifvets dröm—det är flykt allenast. Men han vet det icke.”

  34. “Elisivs storslagna uppoffrande av sig själv då hon sager ‘Ensam, ensam måste jag möta förklaringen’ och ‘låt dina toner bära min själ bortom livets gränser’ har inspirerat Sibelius till en formligen förklarad musik med en melodik, som i exalterad flykt under ljuvlig harmonik svingar sig uppåt till allt högre glans, tills den från sin sublima kulmen, vid Elisivs ord ‘Jag är så trött’ i underbara gånger sjunker ned för att vid orden: ‘men du—du, måste bli lycklig—min älskade’ dö bort.” I derive this quote of Wasenius’s review from Otto Andersson, Jean Sibelius och Svenska Teatern (Åbo: Förlaget Bro, 1956), 36, but the date of publication has been corrected from that presented in Rosas, “Sibelius’ musik till skådespelet ödlan,” 52.

  35. An excellent critical survey of the cultural and aesthetic evolution of the melodrama from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century is Jacqueline Waeber, En musique dans le texte: Le Mélodrame, de Rousseau à Schoenberg (Paris: Van Dieren, 2005).

  36. Two important exceptions are Grevinnans konterfej (Countess’s portrait), an exquisite melodrama for voice and orchestra from 1906, and the orchestral accompaniment to the dialogue between Good Works and Jedermann in the eponymous work from 1916.

  37. Quoted in Andersson, Jean Sibelius och Svenska Teatern, 35, as “det melodramatiska tonpoemet,” but incorrectly identifying the newspaper as Hufvudstadsbladet. Rosas, “Sibelius’s musik till skådespelet ödlan,” 52, gives the correct attribution.

  38. “I hela denna stora scen med dess svåra musikaliska uppgifter skall man förgäves söka ett dödt eller chablonmässigt behandladt moment. Den utgör ett enda förklarande, ja förhärligande af författarens syner och ord. Musiken står ingenstädes stilla utan undergår städse pyskologiska omgestaltningar i en vidd som förlänar den en enastående rangplats inom melodramats område.” From the review in Hufvudstadbladet, as quoted in Rosas, “Sibelius’s musik till skådespelet ödlan,” 52.

  39. “Mode of excess” derives from the full title of Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination. See also the admirable concluding chapter in Waeber, En musique dans le texte, 405–26.

  The Wings of a Butterfly:

  Sibelius and the Problems of Musical Modernity

  TOMI MÄKELÄ

  The closer I nestled, with all the fibers of my being, to the animal—the more enfolded my innermost soul became—the more this butterfly, in action and deed, assumed the color of human resolution; and finally, it was as if its capture was the price I had to pay to gain my humanity again.

  —Walter Benjamin

  And the highest enjoyment of timelessness—in a landscape selected at random—is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone.

  —Vladimir Nabokov

  At the beginning of his essay on music theory in secondary schools, Ernst Hofmann presents these beautiful lines as the translation of an authentic quotation from Jean Sibelius.: “I could, dear distinguished friend, introduce you to my work, but as a matter of principle I do not do so. Compositions to me are like butterflies. Once you have touched them, their magic is gone. They can still fly but they are not as pristine as before.”1 Sibelius’s attitude, as presented here, is a provocative motto. In contrast, Hofmann courageously pleads for more music theory in the classroom: “It is not analytical methodology—applied sensitively and skillfully—that takes away young people’s joy of music. Rather their lack of preparation denies them the understanding for analysis, which aims to unlock their understanding of the work.”2

  The editorial problem with Hofmann’s Sibelius quotation is that no document with these words appears to exist.3 Although the general attitude sounds like Sibelius, some of the details do not. As a matter of fact, Sibelius wrote to Axel Carpelan in a similar vein on 6 March 1901, but there are a few significant differences between his actual text and the quotation translated by Hofmann:

  I would surely like to introduce you, understanding man, to my work, but as a matter of principle I do not do so. To my mind, compositions are like butterflies: touch them once and the dust [stoftet] is gone—they may be able to fly but they are no longer so wonderful.4

  In this case, the articulation of the idea is characteristically brilliant. And even more important, its details are typically Sibelian—stoftet, for example, suggests eternal dust, a phrase also used to refer to a person’s ashes or mortal remains as well as a more domestic meaning. The composer was a master of aphorisms and metaphors, and had a refined vocabulary. This must be the letter Hofmann actually wanted to quote. The metaphor in Sibelius’s original is significantly more plausible than in the text used by Hofmann. Sibelius was well acquainted with butterflies, and collected them as a schoolboy.5 In his letter to Carpelan, he demonstrates his knowledge. He was not interested in “magic,” whether in butterflies or music. But in the literature on Sibelius, magic and magicians are a favorite topic, not least in Bengt de Törne’s 1937 volume, Sibelius: A Close-Up, a problematic book which for many years was regarded as one of the primary sources of information about the composer’s life and his musical beliefs.6

  The butterfly, a common metaphor for the passing moment and a creature with a terribly short life, is an interesting point of reference for a work of art. Music, of course, is the most transient art form of all. Looking for butterflies in Sibelius’s writings and compositions, one finds love between a flower and a butterfly in “En blomma stod vid vägen” (A flower stood beside the road), a song based on Ernst Josephson’s poem “Annas sagor” (Anna’s Story) from his 1896 collection Gula rosor (Golden roses). The eight Josephson songs, op. 57, of early 1909, are among the most harmonically adventurous in Sibelius’s whole output. In Josephson’s poem, a girl destroys the “love,” the beautiful and fragile balance in nature, as she places the butterfly in a box with a bird. Like the metaphor that Sibelius employed in his letter to Carpelan, a human being therefore destroys the sense of beauty, even if it is hard to see how her touch actually damages the delicate dust on the surface of the butterfly’s wings.7 Perhaps simply knowing the butterfly is no longer in its original natural state is sufficient to compromise its aesthetic appeal. The fascination for untouched beauty of any kind is popular in Western cultures and beyond.

  In March 1901, Carpelan was closely interested in Sibelius’s progress on his Second Symphony. Carpelan’s concern was legitimate, since he had helped to finance the composer’s trip to Berlin and Italy that winter. One of the reasons Sibelius, an enthusiastic high school entomologist, was thinking about butterflies may have been that some particularly beautiful species were already flying in Rapallo and Rome during
his stay. But even in its authentic version, Sibelius’s letter also expresses a lifelong antipathy toward musical analysis and scholarship in relation to the arts. He did not want to teach composition, develop a method, or write essays on music (as had been the fashion among progressive artists throughout the later decades of the long nineteenth century, the era of the avant-garde and self-reflection).8 He was rarely willing to explain his art (except in 1896, as he was applying for a position at the University of Helsinki, where a presentation could not be avoided). He generally preferred short (but often brilliant) aphorisms to more detailed accounts of the secrets of creativity. This attitude contrasts with the idea of twentieth-century modernism as a praxis defined by rationality and explication, and places Sibelius on a radically different cultural path from that taken by a figure such as Arnold Schoenberg, who despite his music’s expressivity and emotional power, searched intensively for a rational foundation, a system of beautiful but profound subliminal structures. For Sibelius, any rationalization of art and its creation was foreign; for him, works of art were not exemplars of a particular method: an attitude common to many modernists after Schoenberg, and even among Wagnerians who believed in leitmotifs as a system. Sibelius gives more the impression of a god-like creator than a head of school. And like a god, he preferred not to reveal his secrets to any external authority. Beyond that, he was afraid his creations would be destroyed by the scrutiny of others, like the butterfly that was fatally vulnerable to the simple touch of another being.

  High standards of general education were a matter of course for the pre-1914 elite, not an object of desire as for earlier generations (or a rare luxury, as they arguably became later). Sibelius belonged to this elite. His relationship to academic learning and tradition was comparable to that of Friedrich Nietzsche a few decades earlier. For a while Nietzsche earned his living as a professor of ancient languages in Basel (in the 1890s, Sibelius was teaching in Helsinki), but in his later masterpieces, particularly Also sprach Zarathustra, his “Buch für Alle und Keinen” (A book for all and none), of 1883–85, Nietzsche created a more idiosyncratic synthesis of literature and academic philosophy. In this era, formal academic practices were criticized by sophisticated, well-trained individuals who had lost their respect for the title of “Professor.” Sibelius himself hardly ever used the title except in a pejorative sense—his own accolade (from the University of Helsinki in 1916) was an “honores causae” only. Ironically, criticism of academic traditionalism soon opened the doors for the new academicism of Schoenberg and his “School.” Though Sibelius reacted mostly negatively to academic practices and institutions, he was nevertheless interested in Schoenberg. In a diary entry dated 9 February 1914, written in Berlin, for example, Sibelius revealed that Schoenberg’s string quartet, op. 10, really gave him “a lot to think about,” and that he developed a “terrific interest in Schoenberg.”9