Jean Sibelius

• Born: December 8, 1865, Hämeenlinna, Finland
• Died: September 20, 1957, Ainola, Järvenpää, Finland

Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 82

• Composed: 1915
  
• Premiere: December 8, 1915 in Helsinki, conducted by the composer 
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings 
• CSO notable performances: First: October 1932, Eugene Goossens conducting. Most Recent: April 2019, John Storgårds conducting. Other: January 2005 at Carnegie Hall, Paavo Järvi conducting.
• Duration: approx. 30 minutes

For the three years after he issued his brooding Fourth Symphony in 1911, Sibelius was largely concerned with writing program music: The Dryad, Scènes historiques, The Bard, The Océanides, Rakastava. He even considered composing a ballet titled King Fjalar at that time, but rejected the idea: “I cannot become a prolific writer. It would mean killing all my reputation and my art. I have made my name in the world by straightforward means. I must go on in the same way. Perhaps I am too much of a hypochondriac, but I cannot waste on a few ballet steps a motif that would be excellently suited to symphonic composition.” As early as 1912, he envisioned a successor to the Fourth Symphony, but did not have any concrete ideas for the work until shortly before he left for a visit to the United States in May 1914 to conduct some of his compositions at the Norfolk (Connecticut) Music Festival. (The Océanides was commissioned for the occasion.) He returned to Finland in July; war erupted on the Continent the next month. In September, he described his mood over the terrifying political events as emotionally “in a deep dale,” but added, “I already begin to see dimly the mountain I shall certainly ascend…. God opens the door for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.” He could not begin work on the piece immediately, however. One of his main sources of income—performance royalties from his German publisher, Breitkopf und Härtel—was severely diminished because of the war-time turmoil, and he was forced to churn out a stream of songs and piano miniatures and to undertake tours to Gothenburg, Oslo and Bergen to pay the household bills.

Early in 1915, Sibelius learned that a national celebration was planned for his 50th birthday (December 8) and that the government was commissioning from him a new symphony for the festive concert in Helsinki. He withdrew into the isolation of his country home at Järvenpää, 30 miles north of Helsinki (today a lovely museum to the composer), to devote himself to the gestating work, and admitted to his diary, “I love this life so infinitely, and feel that it must stamp everything that I compose.” He had to rush to finish the work for the concert in December, even making changes in the parts during the final rehearsal, but the Symphony was presented as the centerpiece of the tribute to the man the program described as “Finland’s greatest son.” Sibelius’ birthday was a veritable national holiday, and he was lionized with speeches, telegrams, banquets, greetings and gifts; the Fifth Symphony met with great acclaim. The concert, which also included The Océanides and the two Violin Serenades, was given three additional times during the following weeks.

Although the Fifth Symphony pleased its first audience, it did not completely please its composer. Sibelius regarded it as one of his most important scores, and he expended enormous effort on polishing the work during the four years after its premiere. He first returned to the piece in 1916 with “a view to [its] still greater concentration in form and content.” This version, intended for a Stockholm performance in 1917, which was cancelled because of the deteriorating political situation, was first presented under Sibelius’ direction in Helsinki on December 14, 1916. Sibelius again took up the score in 1918, despite the miserable times spread throughout the country by the civil war that erupted in Finland in the wake of the Russian Revolution: the composer’s isolated home was broken into twice by combatants searching for weapons (Sibelius played piano during the episode to calm his family); his brother, a physician, was killed in the hostilities. Convinced by friends to move to the relative safety of Helsinki, Sibelius continued the Symphony’s revision, noting on May 20, 1918, “[It is] in a new form, practically composed anew; I work at it daily.” (The Sixth and Seventh symphonies were first mooted that same year.) The Symphony No. 5 achieved its definitive form the following year, and was first heard in that version on November 24, 1919 in Helsinki; Sibelius conducted.

While working on the final revision of the Fifth Symphony, Sibelius wrote that the ending was “triumphal,” a description that seemed to invite programmatic interpretations of the score. When asked to be more specific, however, he said, “I do not wish to give a reasoned exposition of the essence of the Symphony. I have expressed my opinion in my works. I should like, however, to emphasize a point that I consider essential: the directly symphonic [i.e. abstract] is the compelling vein that goes through the whole. This in contrast to its being a depiction.” For the London premiere in 1921, he asked that a note appear in the printed program stating, “The composer desires his work to be regarded as absolute music, having no direct poetic basis.” Though no specific story or program can be reconciled with the Fifth Symphony, it is impossible to deny the life-giving, heroic optimism with which it ends, especially when compared with the introspective Symphony No. 4, so it is understandable that some critics and listeners heard here an affirmation of the human spirit at a time when the First World War was threatening the very foundations of Western culture. Time has not diminished the work’s overwhelming emotional impact.

Theorists have long debated whether Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony is in three or four movements; even the composer himself left contradictory evidence on the matter. The contention centers on the first two sections, a broad essay in leisurely tempo and a spirited scherzo, played without pause and related thematically. The opening portion is in a sort of truncated sonata form, though it is of less interest to discern its structural divisions than to follow the long arches of musical tension and release that Sibelius built through manipulation of the fragmentary, germinal theme presented at the beginning by the horns. The scherzo grows seamlessly from the music of the first section. At first dance-like and even playful, it accumulates dynamic energy as it unfolds, ending with a whirling torrent of sound. The following Andante, formally a theme and variations, is predominantly tranquil in mood, though punctuated by several piquant jabs of dissonance. “There are frequent moments in the music of Sibelius,” wrote Charles O’Connell of the Symphony’s finale, “when one hears almost inevitably the beat and whir of wings invisible, and this strange and characteristic effect almost always presages something magnificently portentous. We have it here.” The second theme is a bell-tone motive led by the horns that serves as background to the woodwinds’ long melodic lines. The whirring theme returns, after which the bell motive is treated in ostinato fashion, repeated over and over, building toward a climax until it seems about to burst from its own excitement—which it does. The forward motion abruptly stops, and the Symphony ends with six stentorian chords, separated by silence, proclaimed by the full orchestra.

Dr. Richard E. Rodda