Jean Sibelius and His World (The Bard Music Festival Book 25)

Perhaps no twentieth-century composer has provoked a more varied reaction among the music-loving public than Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Originally hailed as a new Beethoven by much of the Anglo-Saxon world, he was also widely disparaged by critics more receptive to newer trends in music. At the height of his popular appeal, he was revered as the embodiment of Finnish nationalism and the apostle of a new musical naturalism. Yet he seemingly chose that moment to stop composing altogether, despite living for three more decades. Providing wide cultural contexts, contesting received ideas about modernism, and interrogating notions of landscape and nature, __Jean Sibelius and His World__ sheds new light on the critical position occupied by Sibelius in the Western musical tradition. The essays in the book explore such varied themes as the impact of Russian musical traditions on Sibelius, his compositional process, Sibelius and the theater, his understanding of music as a fluid and improvised creation, his critical reception in Great Britain and America, his "late style" in the incidental music for __The Tempest__, and the parallel contemporary careers of Sibelius and Richard Strauss. Documents include the draft of Sibelius's 1896 lecture on folk music, selections from a roman à clef about his student circle in Berlin at the turn of the century, Theodor Adorno's brief but controversial tirade against the composer, and the newspaper debates about the Sibelius monument unveiled in Helsinki a decade after the composer's death. The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Philip Ross Bullock, Glenda Dawn Goss, Daniel Grimley, Jeffrey Kallberg, Tomi Mäkelä, Sarah Menin, Max Paddison, and Timo Virtanen. New perspectives on the greatest Finnish composer of all time Perhaps no twentieth-century composer has provoked a more varied reaction among the music-loving public than Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). Originally hailed as a new Beethoven by much of the Anglo-Saxon world, he was also widely disparaged by critics more receptive to newer trends in music. At the height of his popular appeal, he was revered as the embodiment of Finnish nationalism and the apostle of a new musical naturalism. Yet he seemingly chose that moment to stop composing altogether, despite living for three more decades. Providing wide cultural contexts, contesting received ideas about modernism, and interrogating notions of landscape and nature, Jean Sibelius and His World sheds new light on the critical position occupied by Sibelius in the Western musical tradition. The essays in the book explore such varied themes as the impact of Russian musical traditions on Sibelius, his compositional process, Sibelius and the theater, his understanding of music as a fluid and improvised creation, his critical reception in Great Britain and America, his "late style" in the incidental music for The Tempest , and the parallel contemporary careers of Sibelius and Richard Strauss. Documents include the draft of Sibelius's 1896 lecture on folk music, selections from a roman à clef about his student circle in Berlin at the turn of the century, Theodor Adorno's brief but controversial tirade against the composer, and the newspaper debates about the Sibelius monument unveiled in Helsinki a decade after the composer's death. The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Philip Ross Bullock, Glenda Dawn Goss, Daniel Grimley, Jeffrey Kallberg, Tomi Mäkelä, Sarah Menin, Max Paddison, and Timo Virtanen. Perhaps no twentieth-century composer has provoked a more varied reaction among the music-loving public than Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Originally hailed as a new Beethoven by much of the Anglo-Saxon world, he was also widely disparaged by critics more receptive to newer trends in music. At the height of his popular appeal, he was revered as the embodiment of Finnish nationalism and the apostle of a new musical naturalism. Yet he seemingly chose that moment to stop composing altogether, despite living for three more decades. Providing wide cultural contexts, contesting received ideas about modernism, and interrogating notions of landscape and nature, Jean Sibelius and His World sheds new light on the critical position occupied by Sibelius and in the Western musical tradition. The essays in the book explore such varied themes as the impact of Russian musical traditions on Sibelius, his compositional process, Sibelius and the theater, his understanding of music as a fluid and improved creation, his critical reception in Great Britain and America, his "late style" in the incidental music for The Tempest, and the parallel contemporary careers of Sibelius and Richard Strauss. Documents include the draft of Sibelius's 1896 lecture on folk music; selections from a roman à clef about his student circle in Berlin at the turn of the century; Theodor Adorno's brief but controversial tirade against the composer; and the newspaper debates about the Sibelius monument unveiled in Helsinki a decade after the composer's death Contents Acknowledgments and Permissions Sibelius, Finland, and t he Idea of Landscape Part I. Essays Sibelius and the Russian Traditions From Heaven’s Floor to the Composer’s Desk: Sibelius’s Musical Manuscripts and Compositional Process Theatrical Sibelius: The Melodramatic Lizard The Wings of a Butterfly: Sibelius and the Problems of Musical Modernity “Thor’s Hammer”: Sibelius and British Music Critics, 1905–1957 Jean Sibelius and His American Connections Art and the Ideology of Nature: Sibelius, Hamsun, Adorno Storms, Symphonies, Silence: Sibelius’s Tempest Music and the Invention of Late Style Waving from the Periphery: Sibelius, Aalto, and the Finnish Pavilions Old Masters: Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss in the Twentieth Century PART II. DOCUMENTS Selections from Adolf Paul’s A Book About a Human Being Some Viewpoints Concerning Folk Music and Its Influence on the Musical Arts Selection from Erik Furuhjelm’s Jean Sibelius: A Survey of his Life and Music Adorno on Sibelius Monumentalizing Sibelius: Eila Hiltunen and the Sibelius Memorial Controversy Index Notes on the Contributors