FROM HERE TO THERE AND BACK: Jean Sibelius' Solo Songs

by Liisa Berg

“Meeting Sibelius is like being confronted by a power of nature. He looks like an old eagle in a storm, like a towering pine or an emperor hewn from granite.” (Ture Rangström)

Few composers have been so preoccupied with one medium of expression as Sibelius. His great achievements as a symphonist tend to overshadow his output in other genres. Even a superficial look at his activity in other idioms quickly reveals that he, in deed, was a man of the orchestra. It is most interesting that a composer with such "extra-ordinary powers of compression, . . . ability to evoke a mood by the most economical gesture, as well as highly developed sense of line" would not be able to transfer these qualities to smaller forms of musical expression. This is not, of course, to dispute that there are many masterpieces among his more unexplored forms as well; the truth, however, remains, that there is no even quality or development of style in them.

By the side of his larger-scale orchestral music, Sibelius' solo songs represent a far more important side of his creative activity than is generally known. He himself believed in their future and was never inclined to consider them as mere incidental piéces d’'occasion. Santeri Levas recalls his conversation with Sibelius in which the master stated that his song literature represented his "innermost self." Levas further writes:

"One evening Sibelius mentioned quite in passing that he had composed songs only during a very brief period of his life and that afterwards he had lost interest in this activity. But very soon he repented of this remark. Early the next morning—much earlier than he normally got up—my telephone rang and Sibelius again took up our conversation of the previous day. 'During the night I was annoyed about what I said about my songs,' he said and added that he did not at all wish to describe his songs as insignificant, but that he considered both his vocal and piano pieces up to standard."

Among the nearly 150 vocal pieces that Sibelius composed, there are, indeed, certain pearls in the art of song, and they deserve closer examination and familiarization on the part of the foreign audiences. But if his songs are to be examined and judged fairly, it is most important to clear our minds of all the preconceived definitions of the art songs as exemplified in the German Lied. The latter evolved from the indigenous Volkslied, while Sibelius arrived at a declamatory, simple style akin to that of Hugo Wolf, for example, a style that the old bards might have chosen. It is therefore advisable that no comparisons be drawn between the two.

Sibelius produced his song literature in a time span of about 27 years. Among the many opuses are examples of surprisingly flexible quality. They are curiously unequal: within on opus there are truly admirable compositions side by side with some that are markedly inferior. Some are not much different from each other. Later songs are not necessarily better nor essentially different from earlier ones. With the less important songs it is easy to be struck by a feeling that Sibelius wanted to rid the momentary inspiration as quickly as possible and to advance into more serious writing.

Even though it is fairly evident that in this medium, Sibelius did not achieve the heights of Robert Schumann or Franz Schubert, a number of critics agree that "many of [his songs] have the sensitivity and beauty of construction of the best of Hugo Wolf and Grieg." Layton is of the opinion that the best of Sibelius song literature equals the "quasi-symphonic epigrams of Wolf [and] the vivid characterization and intense and often heart-rendering humanity of Mussorgsky."

The strange masterpiece, Luonnotar, half song with orchestra, half symphonic poem with vocal oglibato, is evidence of highly original approach to the voice. Yet, Sibelius's most original side rarely emerges in the songs. When it does, it is in response to a natural imagery; thus it is that most of his best songs are essentially nature pieces, with the human element, when present, in the background. It is in these nature songs that his melodic lines are dressed in most boldness and individuality. Sibelius was not a lyricist. His true nature emerges in his somber, dark-timbered song.

Sibelius is very demanding of the voice in general. There are great varieties of dynamics in short passages, and wide ranges are required in many of this songs. Skips over an octave are not unusual. An example of this appears in Luonnotar, in which there is a skip from an A'' to a D#' within one word. On the other hand, there are a good number of songs which encompass a modest vocal range. Many of these are among Joululauluja ("Christmas Carols," Opus 1), most of which have become solidly traditional in Finnish Christmas celebrations. Others have been written for a specific artist, as in the case of Opus 88. It was written for Ida Ekman, whose voice at that time (1916) was rather restricted in compass. Levas reports that Sibelius produced many of his best songs for Ida, who was always suggesting that he should do something new. For his part, he inspired Ida to her highest endeavors: she recounts that "when Sibelius was in the audience, [I] sang as if upheld by a magical influence." Incidents involving Ida Ekman reveal some of Sibelius's song-writer temperament: "Ida always received his songs at the last moment, although he had promised them . . . months beforehand. For example, the program had already been printed for a long time when she got her first sight of the first three songs of Op. 26, Svarta Rosor ("Black Roses"), Men min fågel märks dock icke ("But My Bird Is Long in Homing"), and Bollspelet vid Trianon ("Tennis at Trianon"). One of his most beautiful songs, På verandan vid havet ("On a Balcony by a Sea," Opus 38), was brought, by Sibelius himself, all out of breath, to the railway station when Ida Ekman, waiting for him with a pulsing heart as she counted the minutes, was out to start a recital tour."

Shortly before her death Ida wrote a letter to Sibelius describing her visit with a great master of that time, Johannes Brahms, in Vienna, at the house of Eduard Hanslick, a music critic. She had sung one of Sibelius's songs for him, S'en har jag ej frågat mera ("For I Have Asked No More," Op. 17, No. 1). "This pleased Brahms so much that he wanted to hear it again, and he took Hanslick’'s place at the piano." When they had finished, Brahms kissed the young singer on the forehead and said: "When we next meet you must sing more Sibelius than Brahms." Brahms was very enthusiastic about Sibelius' song and hurried to tell about it to his friends. Incidentally, Brahms did not very easily show approval of the works of his contemporaries; only when he came across true talent would he express admiration.

The Linguistic Problem

Sibelius' songs are second only in importance to his orchestral works, yet, for a reason they have been largely neglected by singers. They rarely appear in recital programs and there are no comprehensive recordings extant. Other masters encounter the same inequity: Mussorgsky, for example, is only on an occasion chosen for programs, due to the existing vast linguistic barrier. The inaccessibility of the Scandinavian languages (of which, incidentally, Finnish is completely, and very importantly, separate) to non-native singers has cut off the rest of the world from some of Sibelius’' finest works. Even when translated, audiences intuitively sense the disparity in the poor representation of the original texts. As in all translated libretti, the original inflexes and meanings are altered, often producing awkward and unnatural rises and falls, to which the original text usually attends beautifully.

Poetry
It was Sibelius' contention that if a piece of poetry was complete in itself, it had no need of musical setting. Thus he sought out texts that to his point of view would be elevated through music. The ideas within a poem appeared to Sibelius as a fairly subordinate issue. What was important was the overall atmosphere: "Music illuminates and intensifies the mood and feeling of the poetry without duplicating its verbal imagery," he believed. He further stated about his estimation of the relationship of poetry and the music he assigned to it: "My songs can also be sung without words. They are not so dependent on poetry as the songs of many other composers." In any case, his songs can only suffer when translated because of the inflections and intimations present in all languages.

Though the poetry of Sibelius' songs is mostly Swedish, the language of the vogue of his time—more than half are in Swedish—they are all inspired by his fatherland. Owing to Finland’'s former Swedish rule and culture, the native poets, such as Runeberg, Rydberg, Topelius and Tavastjerna, wrote chiefly in Swedish. Perhaps the fact that Sibelius himself spoke better Swedish than Finnish further encouraged him to choose Swedish texts for musical treatment. At the same time he was remarkably sensitive to the musical inflection of the Finnish language. He also used German, French, Italian, Latin and English texts—a fact that further illustrates his ecumenical approach to life as a whole. (He also spoke all of them fluently and studied the masterworks in their original languages, including Greek).

Above all, Sibelius was deeply inspired by the lyric nature poetry of J. L. Runeberg; some of Sibelius' finest songs are to the texts of Runeberg. In the order of frequency of usage, his poets—and other sources—rank in this manner: Runeberg (30), Tavastjerna, Rydberg, Josephson (10 each), Topelius (7), Fröding, Grippenberg (5 each) Kalevala (6) and Kanteletar (4). Others are Wechsell, Franzén, Kyösti, Cajander, Kurl, Dehmel, Shakespeare, Karlfeldt, Schybergon, Leino and Maesterlinck. As to the settings of the libretti, Sibelius is always at his best with the topic of nature. In settings of love lyrics, he is seldom completely successful, though an exception is found in Till Frigga. For the most part, in the field of the lovelorn, he lacks sensitivity, occasionally bordering "dangerously on the banal and the commonplace."

The most frequent topical use includes nature—seasons, night and day—jubilee hymns, humor, the joy of love, mourning, prayer and longing for death.

Accompaniment

One of the most limiting factors in Sibelius' song literature is his apparent uncertainty at the keyboard. Sibelius was not a pianist. "In my real work, the piano does not interest me; it cannot sing," he once explained. Fittingly, then, few of Sibelius’s piano pieces—which are many—reveal any love for the instrument. It is surprising, as Cecil Gray, a Sibelius biographer, points out, "that he should have written so much for an instrument which he does not seem to understand, and even appears positively to dislike and despise." It is not unexpected then that the piano parts in his songs appear relatively inferior. Rarely does his keyboard writing complement the vocal line with the freedom that can be found in Schumann and Wolf. In many instances, the piano merely doubles the voice, or else is somber chordal accompaniment—somewhat an orchestral approach. Naturally, there are exceptions. Opus 38 contains a specially exalting piano setting, of which Nils-Eric Ringbom writes: "A highly personal form of symbolistic composition is here combined with a strangely expressive vocal part. There is no empty decoration in the accompaniments, no external miniature painting. All is rarely powerful realism, painted in broad brushstrokes, which gives completely adequate musical expression to the poet's moods."

If man's relationship with nature is Sibelius' chief springboard for inspiration, it follows that the orchestra is the desirable and essential means of fulfillment. No wonder Sibelius's piano writing is shadowed by the orchestra. There is a clear illustration of this in the two versions of Höstkväll ("Autumn Evening"): the original for voice and piano and the later orchestral version. While the former is merely competent, the latter—half song, half operatic—is supremely successful. Rydberg’'s dealing with the solitary wanderer exulting in the power and majesty of Nature "struck a responsive chord in the composer. The atmosphere of the orchestral version . . . could hardly be more powerfully evoked."

From time to time, when someone wished to orchestrate some of his songs, Sibelius would give his consent, mostly due to his kindness. He did not want his songs to be tampered with; he regarded them as definite in form. Levas tells that Sibelius at the beginning of 1946 had forbidden the Finnish Broadcasting Company to perform his songs other then in their original form, with piano accompaniment. "I don't want them orchestrated," he said, "for they completely lose their individual character. One can't express little ideas by means of a large orchestra."

Perhaps it truly is this belief, freely applied, that was the guiding ideal for Sibelius as he worked on his fascinating solo song repertoire: a small idea needed its confined realm. Thus most of these "little ideas" stayed without the fullfilment that Sibelius generally achieved for his large-scale work. The generous gestures that identify his orchestral pieces are more modest in his solo songs, though certainly not without the Sibelian stamp that endows all his works with "rememerability" and realization of intent.