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“Above all, Sibelius's music concerns itself with the relationship between a melancholic yet ebullient mind and the wider world outside it; with the function of emotions, the imagination and the intellect in human life; with how art can survey, scrutinize and give meaning to the strangeness of existence.
“Frequently, therefore, not only do the abstract and the programmatic coalesce in Sibelius; the elemental - fire, earth, air, water - are also attached to the psychological. Nature painting in his music is never mere sonic landscaping but a penetrating examination of human mental processes, as well as insecurity and instability. The dark forests of Tapiola (1926) are the gloomy forests of the mind; the harsh, stark landscapes of the Fourth Symphony (1911) are soundscapes of spiritual, cerebral and ecological anguish; the erotic thrills and dangerous liaisons of Kullervo (1892), Lemminkäinen (1896), and the First Symphony (1899) serve as prophetic warnings not just about psychosexual licentiousness but environmental debauchery too.
“In his extraordinary symphonies and tone poems, Sibelius explores the stimulating forces and shadowy agencies lurking behind the locked doors of nature, the dense layers of myth and the misty windows of the soul. His is a captivating and increasingly pertinent musical mind we would do well to heed.”
― Sun Forest Lake: The Symphonies & Tone Poems of Jean Sibelius
“Frequently, therefore, not only do the abstract and the programmatic coalesce in Sibelius; the elemental - fire, earth, air, water - are also attached to the psychological. Nature painting in his music is never mere sonic landscaping but a penetrating examination of human mental processes, as well as insecurity and instability. The dark forests of Tapiola (1926) are the gloomy forests of the mind; the harsh, stark landscapes of the Fourth Symphony (1911) are soundscapes of spiritual, cerebral and ecological anguish; the erotic thrills and dangerous liaisons of Kullervo (1892), Lemminkäinen (1896), and the First Symphony (1899) serve as prophetic warnings not just about psychosexual licentiousness but environmental debauchery too.
“In his extraordinary symphonies and tone poems, Sibelius explores the stimulating forces and shadowy agencies lurking behind the locked doors of nature, the dense layers of myth and the misty windows of the soul. His is a captivating and increasingly pertinent musical mind we would do well to heed.”
― Sun Forest Lake: The Symphonies & Tone Poems of Jean Sibelius
