Arvoisat HYMSin jäsenet,

Muistutuksena, että syksyn luentokonsertti "Miten Sibeliuksesta tuli Sibelius" järjestetään huomenna pe 19.9. klo 16–18 Kielikeskuksen juhlasalissa. Alla konsertin ohjelma sekä Eero Tarastin kirjoittama alustus luennolle Sibeliuksen varhaisista säveltäjävuosista. Konserttiin on vapaa pääsy.

Nähdään siis sankoin joukoin huomenissa!
https://www.hs.fi/menokone/events/193704?movie=false&isAdvertisement=false&portal=true

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Program:
Eila Tarasti (piano) Sibelius: Barcarola in G minor, op. 24, no. 10
Romance in D flat, op. 24. no. 9
Spruce op.75, no. 5
Sebastian Silén, Elias Nyman (violin), Petrus Laitinmäki (viola), Lauri Rantamoijanen (cello) and Eero Tarasti (piano, and speech)
Sibelius: Pianoquintetto
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How Sibelius Became Sibelius
Eero Tarasti
Sibelius was encouraged to leave for studies abroad in the 1880s by his friend of the same age Ferruccio Busoni, who served as a piano teacher at the Helsinki Conservatory in 1887. Sibelius developed slowly, he was then still only a promising student under Martin Wegelius, founder of the conservatorio in 1882, and not known unlike a composer as old as he, Richard Strauss. Yet, Strauss said later about Sibelius: Ich kann mehr ...aber er ist grösser.
Young Sibelius was under influence of other composers in Berlin, particularly his Scandinavian fellows there, and Christian Sinding whose Pianoquintetto he heard two years before writing his own Pianoquintetto. That was his first major work as a student of Arnold Becker, a strict counterpoint master. Only a year later Sibelius wrote in Vienna his Kullervo, which launched the Finnish national romantic Kalevala- inspired style and made him an icon of all his compatriotes. Some music is directly moved from the quintetto to Kullervo.
On the other hand, Sibelius experienced a strong impact from Richard Wagner, which he, however, later totally denied. Nevertheless, the fact is that he was totally gone with Wagner; traces of his enthusiasm can be heard also in the Pianoquintetto. Maybe there is in both composers a little bit of l'esthétique de l'imprevue following Berlioz. Normally we consider Sibelius as a symphonist and Wagner opera composer. In any case, Wagner wanted after Parsifal write symphonies, in order to 'frei musikalisch ausrausen' (to rage musically free) as he said to Cosima. Sibelius, on the other hand, planned whole his life to write also operas, but without any words!
Pianoquintetto also reveals his 'finnougrian style', although he likewise later denied having heard any runic singing before Kullervo. Finnougrian topos is, however, also common in Russian music like at Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Prokofiev and others, Pianoquintetto was written for Busoni but he performed only its first and third movements in Turku in 1894.
Sibelius wrote a lot of smaller piano pieces in his different periods, mostly for economic reasons, But they also constituted a kind of studio to test his ideas for symphonic works. Spruce belongs to a series of pieces portraying different trees; it is his best known pianistic work, a kind of symbol of Finland; there is a 'storm' in the middle part but the spruce remains standing upright strongly. Frenchmen may hear harmonies of the chanson Feuilles mortes in the main theme.
Barcarola is in its austere sonority a counterpart to the Swan of Tuonela , but may evoke also Mendelssohn's Venetian Gondol Lieder.
Romance in D flat major has an impressive main theme which is developed into a romantic patriotic pathos in the culmination. This piece is also very popular in Finland.
Eero Tarasti
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Ystävällisin terveisin,

Gabriel Korhonen
Väitöskirjatutkija, Helsingin yliopisto
Filosofian, taiteiden ja yhteiskunnan tutkimuksen tohtoriohjelma