Jean Sibelius is a national treasure in Finland.  His image was on the currency until the Euro was adopted.  The equivalent of our Flag Day in Finland is celebrated on his birthday, December 8, every year.  The Sibelius Monument sits in Sibelius Park.  He is their favorite son and is still revered more than 60 years after his death.     

He was born in southern Finland, the middle child in a Swedish-speaking household.  His father was a physician who died when Jean was three years old.  Because of lavish spending and multiple debts on the part of his father, Sibelius’s mother moved the family to her mother’s home.  Sibelius was brought up with few male influences in his life.  He showed talent for the piano, but it was the violin that was his focus and love.  Like many mid-century composers, Sibelius considered a career in another field and actually studied law at the university for a year before turning his full attention to music.  He auditioned for a violin position with the Vienna Philharmonic, and when that failed, he turned to composition and traveled to Berlin to finish his studies.    

Many of his early orchestral works were based on Finnish stories and legends.  His Kullervo for male chorus, soloists and orchestra was an immediate hit with the Helsinki audiences.  That was followed by En Saga and the Lemminkäinen Suite.  Even his First Symphony included Finnish themes and folk tunes.  Of course his most popular orchestral work is his tone poem, Finlandia, which became the resistance piece against the Russian occupation and influence in the first half of the twentieth century.       

Shortly after the successful premiere of Finlandia, Sibelius was encouraged by a friend to travel abroad.  The friend suggested Italy, reminding Sibelius how that country inspired Tchaikovsky and Strauss.  In the winter of 1901, Sibelius stayed in a villa in the mountainous region of Rapallo, Italy.  It was there that the first sketches for the second symphony took form.  It took a full year to complete the symphony, and it received its premiere in March of 1902 in Helsinki.  The audiences connected the themes of the symphony with Finland’s struggle for independence from Russia.  It was dubbed the “Symphony of Independence.”   

The first movement grows from the simplest three-note motif, with multiple themes that interrelate, and are introduced in turn, as if a life form was being built from the single cell up.  The later style of Sibelius was of a melody-driven composer, but here in the second symphony, he molds the melodies into building blocks for the whole creation. 

The mysterious slow movement begins with a tympani roll and constantly plucked low strings supporting the bassoons in a dirge-like melody.  The entire movement is turbulent without resolution, stopping and restarting as if two factions (the strings and brass) were fiercely debating a divisive topic.  

The scherzo is fast and furious.  Twice in the movement, Sibelius suddenly and abruptly applies the brakes for an oboe solo, the first of which leads into a short transition before returning to the fast pace of the opening.  The second transition leads directly into the fourth movement without stopping.  The final movement takes the three-note motif from the first movement and transforms it into a heroic victory, but in a majestic build-up, not a rushed climax. 

Program notes by Kevin Lodge