One of the more memorable lines in Four Weddings and a Funeral (my favourite rom-com – but that’s an argument for another day) is when one of the characters describes Hugh Grant’s character as a “serial monogamist”. In other words, he’s not a cheater but he has no qualms about ditching a girlfriend and moving on to new pastures when he gets itchy feet.
In musical terms, I think I’m a bit of a serial monogamist myself. I get totally absorbed in a specific act, or album, or genre, to the extent that nothing else hits the spot for me. But then I just move on to something else. Does anyone else get this?
Although a bit childish I suppose, it can also be rejuvenating. With a new obsession you hear something with the honest ears of a fresh convert. There’s a lot to be said for blind enthusiasm.
My current love affair is with Sibelius. It’s early days and I need to get to know more about him, but from what I know so far he seems like The One. (Ask me again in a couple of months). I know I’m not going to be able to convince anybody of his genius, but if the Afterword isn’t the place for waxing enthusiastical about a musical obsession, then what are we all doing here?
Jean Sibelius was an alcoholic, cigar-smoking rapscallion who seemed to live on the permanent knife edge of bankruptcy and caused no end of stress for his family until he calmed down in his later years. He was a fervent nationalist for Finland, the country of his birth and where he spent most of his days. He was born in 1865 and died in 1957, a timespan of heaving, radical change.
When his music clicks with you, suddenly a lot of cinema music sounds shallow and derivative. I can hear Bernard Hermann, John Williams and LOTS of Hans Zimmer. It makes me think that the story of Sibelius has been the establishment of a kind of aural mood board for movie composers to plunder. Great shifting slabs of brass and highly strung tension interspersed with moments of reflection.
He’s also a total tease. He’s all about building up to these gargantuan climaxes that never quite peak, leaving you itching to listen to him over and over again for another fix.
So far, I’ve done Finlandia, and the 2nd, 5th and 7th symphonies. I don’t want to be here all day so I’ll concentrate on the 5th.
Ole’ Sibe wrote his 5th symphony for his fiftieth birthday in 1915, then revised it a few times over the next few years while some little events like the Great War and the Finnish Civil War played out in the background.
For me (and for most people I suspect) it’s all about the finale, the last of three movements. The first two movements are fine, but they dance about and I haven’t really found a foothold in them (yet). It’s a short symphony though, only about half an hour, so you can just treat the first two movements as an appetiser.
Oh! That finale! There’s a minute or so of frantic, mousey scuttling that sounds like so many Christmas movies, with elves frantically getting ready for Christmas. But that cheapens it and you really have to try and put such thoughts to the side…
All of a sudden the Big Anthem lumbers into view, as the bass instruments in the orchestra slowly waken into life. Sibelius is a total master of the Big Anthem, the type of melody you can play with one finger on a piano but can still shoot an arrow right through your heart.
This Big Anthem is a great swaying ship, it’s huge bulk rolling gently from side to side as the violins (dolphins? seagulls?) continue to rush about on the periphery and try and keep up. It feels gentle and massive at the same time, like being picked up by the BFG. Also slightly off-kilter, seeming to wander drunkenly and threaten to fall over at any minute. It’s one of those instantly familiar things that will stay with you forever. And just Disney enough to be poignant without being cloying.
If I was to try and compare it to anything, I’d say the overall feel was maybe a bit like The Orb’s “Spanish Castles in Space” (Sibelius is ripe for an Orb remix). And if you played it on a piano you’d sound like Erik Satie.
In anyone else’s hands, this Big Anthem might just be played straight, and repeated for good measure. But Sibelius the Teaser is having none of that. It gets subsumed into an all together more formless and atonal (though still rousing) soundscape, reappears a second time in diluted form and then after the mother of all climaxes the whole thing ends in a series of almighty power chords. I don’t think anything sounded as epochal as this from Beethoven’s Fifth to the big chord at the end of A Day In The Life.
(Check out Leonard Bernstein conducting this beast on Youtube and you’ll probably get a good idea what his orgasm face looks like).
It baffles me how people survived before recorded music. Would you really only hear something like this once in your life (if even that), without the ability to play it over and over again?
Thats a brilliant description of the music and makes you want to dive in – almost literally. I haven’t heard much of The Sib but will definitely do so now. I had a similar classical smack round the head many years ago – although for me it was Vaughn Williams 5th Symphony (what is it about those 5ths?). It was a BBC live TV concert sometime in the very early 80s. I was not in a good place at the time, my emotions were raw and this music just connected. Interestingly VWs Fifth appeared at the height of the second world war in 1943 and yet its a work of such serene beauty so some parallels with the Sibelius piece.
I’ll need to bookmark VW’s 5th for when I emerge out of my Sibelius ghetto. Interestingly, I see he actually dedicated that symphony to sibelius, who inspired it in the first place!
With VW I’m still coming to terms with the London Symphony and the Antartica Symphony, so might be a while before I’m ready for something fresh.
What a thoroughly enjoyable read, Arthur.
If ever you are tempted to visit Helsinki, where Sibelius is spoken of with the same reverence as the Scots have for Burns, you should take a bus out to the Sibelius Monument.
Not only does it look splendid, on a windy day it creates music as the wind blows through the tubes.
I live in Burns Central over here (the middle of Ayrshire). Reverence? Mmm, maybe. We like Burns but also have a healthy cynicism for the kitsch that surrounds the Burns industry!
You can’t beat Tam O’Shanter though. A rollicking tale, and pure joy to hear it performed by a master orator.
I am going through a similar mini-obsession with Mahler. Helped immensely by the wonderful City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra working their way through the whole cycle of symphonies with Mirga Grazintye-Tyla. We’ve head the second and last Sunday the ‘Symphony of A Thousand’ AKA the 8th. 500 performers (approx 150 musicians and 5 separate choirs) making a truly awesome sound. Am contemplating shelling out for the Rattle recording of the complete cycle.
Sibelius and Mahler both play early starring roles in Alex Ross’ brilliant book on C20 classical, The Rest is Noise. I may have to start on the Sib though.
Quote from Sibelius: “ Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public pure cold water“ – Mahler versus Sibelius, in a nutshell….
I was also in Symphony Hall last Sunday. I was particularly moved by the idea of keeping the eighth soloist off-stage, so that when she sang, as the ‘Queen of Heaven’, this ethereal voice came from nowhere soaring above the choir “Komm, komm”. Fair brought a tear to my eye it did.
The first part I felt, nothing to do with the playing, rather the piece itself, that everything that been turned up to 11 and then left on. Exhausting but difficult to take in as music. But from the moment the second started the music started to match the sense of event. That was a lovely moment you refer to.
Another good thing about Mahler: ten symphonies, a song cycle. Boom done. Beyond the symphonies there’s a lot of Sibelius.
That’s a good thing, though, when you have music of the quality of Tapiola, the violin concerto, the “voces intimae” quartet, Kullero, most of the tone poems, especially the Swan of Tuonela …..not to mention the less popular symphonies, ie fourth and sixth (the sixth inspiring the quote above, the fourth played at his funeral). I do like Mahler’s music….but I truly love Sibelius’….
These are all delights to come for me!
Excellent stuff, Arthur. I too have been tiptoeing round ol’ Jean for a while, trying to get my head round the fact that such music emanated from a man who looked like Abel Magwitch in the film of Great Expectations.
…or Guy Evans from VdGG….
Any pointers are most welcome.
Wonderful post, Arthur.
Unlike you, I am a total music tart. I listen to all sorts all of the time. I sometimes go round in circles with half a dozen albums but rarely get obsessed with just the one.
I’ll check out my Sibelius ‘collection’ first thing tomorrow, immediately after Bunny Lee, On The Corner and a disco playlist.
Hats off to you. I just can’t share my headspace with too many different types of music at once.
I know what you mean.
Come mid-November, I eagerly await Dec 1st, when I am allowed to play the festive album A Wonderful Christmas Carol by The Retrospective Soundtrack Players. I then spend the rest of December binge-listening to the three and a half albums by the pre-TRSP band The Dawn Chrorus.
I dare not play one as I know I will have to play them all. And they’re all proper albums with a beginning, middle and end.
Sibelius’ Karelia Suite was the first classical album I bought with my own money as a pre-teen. This buy was inspired by a day in an exhibition hall where I first watched (alone) the orchestra (that my dad was in) and the conductor rehearse that piece bit by bit with stops and starts until they were on the same page, and, after a break for lunch, performing all of it in concert to a full audience. Both experiences were lightbulb moments, in different ways.
But I never bought any other recordings of works by Sibelius, and I’m definitely not a serial musical monogamist – I’m more like a musical Tinder addict… 😀
That’s interesting, Locust….Karelia suite would have been the first Sibelius that I heard, without realising, as it was the theme of the current affairs program, This Week…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpVz5GoysxA
Closely followed by The Sky at Night, which is At the Castle Gate from Pelleas & Melisande…
But the first one I bought by myself with my own money would be The Swan and the fourth symphony on one LP, von Karajan‘s recording of 1963….The Swan had been used as the theme music of a tv programme (see a pattern developing?) on a rock climb in Norway….
Probably like a few others my first real exposure to classical music was via prog and specifically the Karelia Suite featured on The Nice album – 5 Bridges. Crossover music of all kinds often gets slated but for me it was a real way into jazz, folk , world and classical so it did its job.
Great post Art. I don’t know The Sib at all but will investigate this very morning. What should be my first?
With two disclaimers:
(1) I’m no expert and just discovering this stuff for myself, and…
(2) One man’s meat is another man’s poison…
… I’ll gently suggest you start where I started on my adventures: the third and fourth movements of his 2nd symphony (they both run into one so I don’t even know why he bothered calling it two separate movements – you won’t spot the join). About 20 minutes of listening.
The third movement is short and is a couple of frenetic passages (no more than a couple of minutes each) to clean out your ears, interspersed with the most gorgeous, simple, quiet oboe melody repeated a couple of times… Then the segue into the fourth movement is this big trademark Sibelian major key crescendo which leads to the central Big Anthem of the whole piece that (I kid you not) sounds like an elephant on a trampoline. What sounds at first comical starts to sound like heaven with repeat listening. It’s plain sailing from their as he goes through some variations and repetitions to another Big Climax.
Brilliant thanks.
Damn! Can’t unsee that now.
Free Sibelius klaxon.
On the afternoon of February 4th Eva Ollikainen conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing a programme of:
Richard Strauss Serenade in G major Op.32
Galina Ustvolskaya Piano Concerto
Jean Sibelius Symphony No. 7
at the Maida Vale studios.
Apply for tickets via the BBC Ticket unit
Wow, I’d definitely apply if I wasn’t hundreds of miles away!
There is also a performance of Sibelius’ 7th in Glasgow City Halls in April which I AM going to and which I’m very excited about.
I haven’t even talked about the 7th on here. It’s unbelievable, an intense build to something colossal.
I was brought up an an almost entirely classical music household. Pre-school, I apparently called Sibelius 2 “Dark and stormy night music”, but that may have been more to do with the picture on the LP cover than the sound of the music. In various orchestras over the years, I have played Karelia and Sib 2. Just before Christmas, I played “En Saga”, one of the early tone poems. It’s very tuneful, but it doesn’t so much move from one theme to another as jump immediately.
If you like the 7th symphony, when he seems to have progressed beyond the need for his big tunes, then Tapiola is very much in the same vein. My other suggestion for people coming new to Sibelius would be the violin concerto, but as that’s my instrument, I may be biased. Of the recent recordings, Hilary Hahn’s is highly rated, but I still go back to Heifetz. Of course, if you want the Sibelius of the big tune, then there’s Finlandia.
Great, thanks! Nice to hear from a relative expert in these things. I honestly feel really underqualified to discuss classical music -it’s easy to be put off by the snobbery. I find I just need to forget all that, follow my nose (or ears) and approach it honestly.
Karelia seems to keep getting mentioned, so that seems an obvious next step for me. I absolutely love the 7th, so if Tapiola is similar then maybe that’s one to go for as well.
By the way, you say the 7th ditches the “big tunes” – I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s mostly cacophonous (in a rousing way), but in the second half there is that lovely tune that sounds not dissimilar to Beethoven’s Shepherd’s Song…. It does sound a bit like he is just sticking it in there to prove he can still write a catchy tune, but I love it. I love the way you think it’s going to develop to a musical climax but it just seems to freeze and go into this weird, intense build for the last few minutes.
This might complete your symphonic collection, Arthur. I have the von Karajan versions and they are magnificent but I’m tempted.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/13/sibelius-symphonies-nos-4-6-review
Cheers! Will have a look for that. A glowing review there.
I’ve actually bought multiple copies of the ones I like (2, 5 and 7) because classical vinyl is cheap as chips, and it’s actually quite incredible how different conductors and orchestras interpret things differently. It’s not something I’ve ever really noticed before in classical music. I’ve always just bought one copy of something and that’s me “got” it.
So the mention of the “legendary” Karajan recordings in that review intrigues me. The ones I have so far are John Barbirolli, Simon Rattle and Alexander Gibson.
I’d definitely recommend the Karajan recordings. They are wondrous.
Here’s 4-7 on Cd. As you say, cheap as chips.