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Looking to kill time until tonight’s episode of “The Lost Chord?” Why not gather the family for a rollicking game of Sibelius? I’m not kidding, there really is a Sibelius board game (see below).
Then join me for “Sibelius, Incidentally” – an hour of incidental music by Finland’s most famous composer – this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Is this a drinking game?
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Only days after the arrival of Krampus, the Christmas devil, comes Emil Waldteufel. Waldteufel is German for forest devil. Emil Waldteufel was born on this date in 1837.
Though Waldteufel had long been a mainstay of Paris society balls of the Second Empire, he was nearly 40 by the time he achieved international fame. It was the Prince of Wales – the future King Edward VII – who introduced him to London, and his music came to dominate Queen Victoria’s state balls at Buckingham Palace. One of his best-known works, “Les Patineurs” (“The Skaters’ Waltz”) was introduced there in 1882. Another of his most successful waltzes, from the other end of the decade, was “Roses de Noël” (“Christmas Roses”).
The holidays are in bloom! Take time to smell the roses, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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Jean Sibelius was the composer of seven numbered symphonies that stand like granitic monoliths at the heart of 20th century music. Less well known, perhaps, is the abundant music he wrote for the stage.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll mark the anniversary of Sibelius’ birth with a selection from his incidental music.
Born on this date in 1865, Finland’s most celebrated composer was known to agonize over every aspect of his large-scale compositions. He wound up burning the unfinished manuscript to what would have been his eighth symphony and composed nothing of consequence for the last three decades of his life.
Any opportunity to work in the theater must have come as an enormous relief. Here, Sibelius could act as a kind of sketch artist, setting scenes or creating moods in the most succinct fashion. Of course, he also would have written music for the entr’actes and interludes, which could have satisfied a desire for a bit more development.
His output for the stage was fairly substantial, and yet – with the exception of the ever-popular “Valse triste” (from the play “Kuolema,” or “Death”) and perhaps some selections from “Pelleas and Melisande” or “The Tempest” – it remains stubbornly unfamiliar. When is the last time anyone heard music from “The Lizard?”
In 1905, Hjalmar Procopé wrote a play on the subject of “Belshazzar’s Feast,” dramatizing the well-worn episode from the Book of Daniel, about a Babylonian tyrant who literally sees the writing on the wall. We’ll hear a 1932 recording of a selection from Sibelius’ music, conducted by the composer’s good friend and drinking buddy, Robert Kajanus.
“Jedermann” (or “Everyman”) was the product of Strauss librettist Hugo con Hofmannsthal, an updated version of a medieval morality play. Sibelius worked at his contributions to a 1915 production, alongside substantial revisions to one of his greatest works, the Symphony No. 5. We’ll sample from the world premiere recording of incidental music to “Jedermann,” conducted by Osmo Vänskä.
That’s “Sibelius, Incidentally” – Jean Sibelius treads the boards – this Sunday night at 10:00 EST on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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For the last 30 years of his life, Jean Sibelius was gripped by what became known as “The Silence from Järvenpää.” Järvenpää is the name of the Finnish market town outside of which the composer made his home. He called that home Ainola, after his wife, Aino, who in turn was named for a character in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.
After the completion of the Symphony No. 7 and the tone poem “Tapiola” in the mid-1920s, Sibelius created no further major works. Or did he? He was known to have grappled with the composition of an eighth symphony, the manuscript of which he is said to have destroyed. I heard as much from the mouth of his own grandson, who claimed to have been present at its burning.
However a few tantalizing sketches emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, in 2011. Is it possible that more may have survived? Perhaps somewhere, among the composer’s papers, a draft could even exist. I’m not in favor of reconstruction from mere fragments, but if there is a somewhat complete version of the symphony, even in embryonic form, I would be very interested to hear it.
It makes my heart ache to listen to these sketches and contemplate that there might actually have been another Sibelius symphony, had the composer only been able to conquer his demons and hold it together one more time.
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On the morning of December 7, 1941, a Japanese strike force of 353 aircraft laid waste to the United States naval base on Oahu, Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen and civilians were killed, precipitating the country’s entry into World War II.
Though Europe, Russia, and the Far East were already at war, for the U.S. the attack on Pearl Harbor was an unwelcome surprise in peacetime. It brought with it not only the loss of life, but also a loss of innocence. It is a date that has, as President Roosevelt so memorably expressed, lived in infamy.
For Aaron Copland, in common with millions of Americans, the war was not simply an abstraction. The ripple effect from Pearl Harbor would claim the life of his friend, Lieutenant Harry H. Dunham, a pilot killed while on active duty in the Pacific.
News of Dunham’s death reached Copland just as he had put the finishing touches on his Violin Sonata in 1943. Copland’s response was to dedicate the work to the memory of his friend. While there is no way Copland could have known of Dunham’s imminent demise, for a listener, the extra-musical association lends the sonata’s central movement an added poignancy.
A graduate of Princeton University, Dunham was a familiar figure on the New York City arts scene. He was close enough to Copland to have traveled to Morocco with him and writer-composer Paul Bowles.
Virgil Thomson wrote of the Violin Sonata in the New York Herald Tribune, “I suspect it is one of the author’s most satisfying pieces… It has a quality at once of calm elevation and buoyancy that is characteristic of Copland and irresistibly touching.”
Here is Copland’s sonata at its world premiere, with violinist Ruth Posselt and the composer at the keyboard. Amazing what one can find on YouTube.
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