Program Notes

October 10 , 2009

Sibelius – Symphony No. 1

It is not an exaggeration to say that Jean Sibelius had a greater impact on the character of a nation than any other composer before or since. After World War II, as Finland sought to establish its identity in modern Europe, the country launched a government-subsized campaign to build on the reputation of Sibelius and transform the country into a classical music mecca. Today, Finland, which is approximately the size of Montana and boasts a population smaller than that of Indiana, boasts no fewer than 30 professional orchestras and a slew of world-renowned musicians, composers, and orchestras -- including soprano Karita Mattila, composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Isa-Pekka Salonen (conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Most of Finland’s professional musicians were trained at the Sibelius Academy, the only university-level music academy in Finland.

It is fitting that Sibelius would be so sanctified in his native country; for he was both a devoted nationalist and an artist who attempted to address the fundamental nature of cultural identity. Sibelius's art lay largely in his ability to confront, in deeply spiritual terms, the very questions which have plagued man since he first began to ponder his own existence. Who are we, and why are we here? What makes life worth living? These questions, portrayed as musical quandaries, steep Sibelius' music with a richness and depth that transcends mere tuneplay.

Sibelius is most often recognized as composer of the short orchestral showpiece, Finlandia. However, it is in his symphonies that Sibelius shows the true range and depth of his compositional skills.

Sibelius penned his First Symphony between 1898 and 1899. This was one of the most troubled periods of Finnish history; in early 1899, Czar Nicholas II published his “February Manifesto,” declaring Russian the official language of Finland and giving himself the right to set policies for Finland without approval of the Finnish senate.

Despite Sibelius’ strong nationalism, he insisted that his First Symphony had no political or social undercurrents. “For me, music begins where words leave off,” he said. “A symphony should be music first and last.”

Certainly in this, the first of seven great symphonies by the composer, Sibelius demonstrates his ability to evoke atmospheres and build intuitive arguments that cannot possibly be matched to words. At the same time, the heroic themes and pictorial writing must have had a profound effect on his countrymen: Here was music of the finest sort, echoing the culture of a challenged nation, reverberating with hope and beauty.

In 1905, six years after the First Symphony’s premiere in Helsinki, English critic Ernest Newman wrote: “I have never listened to any music that took me away so completely from our usual Western life, and transported me into a quite new civilization. Every page of [the First Symphony] breathes of another manner of thought, another way of living, even another landscape and seascape of ours.”

Thompson – Frostiana

Randall Thompson was born just one year before Aaron Copland, in the same city; and indeed, the two composers' lives crossed many times. As co-members of the League of Composers, their works were sometimes presented together in concerts; they also served together on the Central Music Committee of the Second Festival of Contemporary American Music in 1933.

The two composers also shared a common conviction regarding the composer's relationship to the listener. "A composer's first responsibility is, and always will be, to write music that will reach and move the hearts of his listeners in his own day," Thompson once said. Thompson also shared Copland's sentiment that music should express "our own genuine musical heritage in its every manifestation, every inflection, every living example."

For inspiration, it was only natural that Thompson would turn to jazz and American folk music. Yet his music always retained its own unique personality. As Lawrence Gilman wrote in the New York Herald Tribune, Thompson "has not hesitated at times to be obvious; he has not strained, he has not constricted his fancy and his feeling; he has not been afraid to sound quite different from Schoenberg. His music has humor, and warmth and pleasantness; many will find it agreeable and solacing."

Though Thompson wrote music for many different types of ensembles, his most widely respected works are generally those that he composed for chorus. Most well-known of these works is Frostiana, a seven-part work subtitled, "Seven Country Songs by Robert Frost set to music by Randall Thompson." Commissioned by the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, for the town's Bicentennial in 1959, Frostiana features a mixed chorus of Sopranos, Altos, Tenors and Basses, along with instrumental accompaniment.

Frostiana exemplifies Thompson's style, incorporating wit, character and simple beauty. It is written in an arch form, with only the first ("The Road Not Taken") and the last ("Choose Something Like a Star") featuring the entire chorus and instrumental ensemble. The inner movements feature various combinations of voice and instrument, with the second and sixth movements featuring only male voices and the third and fifth movements featuring only female voices.

Program notes written by Joe Nickell