World Premiere: November 10, 1903
Last HSO Performance: April 15, 2012
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.
Duration: 43 minutes

Jean Sibelius

At the turn of the 20th century, Finland was experiencing a surge of nationalistic pride that called for independence and recognition after eight centuries of domination by Sweden and Russia. Jean Sibelius became imbued with the country’s spirit, lore and language, and several of his early works — En Saga, Kullervo, Karelia and Finlandia — earned him a hero’s reputation among his countrymen. He became an emblem of his homeland in 1900 when conductor Robert Kajanus and the Helsinki Philharmonic featured his music on a European tour whose purpose was less artistic recognition than a bid for international sympathy for Finnish political autonomy. The young composer went along on the tour, which proved to be a success for the orchestra and its conductor, for Finland, and especially for Sibelius, whose works it brought before an international audience.

A year later Sibelius was again traveling. Through a financial subscription raised by his friend and wealthy supporter Axel Carpelan, he was able to spend the early months of 1901 in Italy away from the rigors of the Scandinavian winter. So inspired was he by the culture, history and beauty of the sunny south (as had been Goethe, Brahms and Nielsen) that he envisioned a work based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. However, a second symphony to follow the First of 1899 was gestating, and the Dante work was eventually abandoned. Sibelius was well launched on the new Symphony No. 2 by the time he left for home. He made two important stops before returning to Finland. The first was at Prague, where he met Dvořák and was impressed with the famous musician’s humility and friendliness. The second stop was at the June Music Festival in Heidelberg, where the enthusiastic reception given to his compositions enhanced the budding European reputation he had achieved during the Helsinki Philharmonic tour of the preceding year. Still flush with the success of his 1901 tour when he arrived home, he decided he was secure enough financially (thanks in large part to an annual stipend initiated in 1897 by the Finnish government) to leave his teaching job and devote himself full-time to composition. Though it was to be almost two decades before Finland became independent of Russia as a result of the First World War, Sibelius had come into his creative maturity by the time of the Second Symphony. So successful was the work’s premiere on March 8, 1902 that it had to be repeated at three additional concerts to satisfy the clamor to hear Sibelius’ latest creation.

The Second Symphony opens with an introduction in which the strings present a chordal motive that courses through and unifies much of the first movement. A bright, folk-like strain for the woodwinds and a hymnal response from the horns constitute the opening theme. The second theme exhibits one of Sibelius’ most characteristic constructions — a long-held note that intensifies to a quick rhythmic flourish. This theme and a complementary one of angular leaps and unsettled tonality close the exposition and figure prominently in the ensuing development. A stentorian brass chorale closes this section and leads to the recapitulation, a compressed restatement of the earlier themes.

The second movement, though closely related to sonatina form (sonata without development), is best heard as a series of dramatic paragraphs whose strengths lie not just in their individual qualities but also in their powerful juxtapositions. The opening statement is given by bassoons in hollow octaves above a bleak accompaniment of timpani with cellos and basses in pizzicato notes. The upper strings and then full orchestra take over the solemn plaint, but soon inject a new, sharply rhythmic idea of their own that calls forth a halting climax from the brass choir. After a silence, the strings intone a mournful motive which soon engenders another climax. A soft timpani roll begins the series of themes again, but in expanded presentations with fuller orchestration and greater emotional impact.

The third movement is a three-part form whose lyrical, unhurried central trio, built on a repeated note theme, provides a strong contrast to the mercurial surrounding scherzo. The slow music of the trio returns as a bridge to the sonata-form closing movement, which has a grand sweep and uplifting spirituality that make it one of the last unadulterated flowerings of the great Romantic tradition. 

©2024 Dr. Richard E. Rodda