Jean Sibelius

Journalist

For each Finnish person, behind each musical note, behind each scale, behind each composition composed by Sibelius, there lies the march for independence.

Journalist

Sibelius, who died in 1957, during the years following Finland's independence, in 1917, literally carried the newly liberated hopes of his fellow countrymen.

Journalist

So, still today, his glory largely goes beyond his musical works. In this country where water, trees, rocks, are both permanent sources of inspiration of and aspiration for liberty.

Journalist

Could you tell us why the Finnish people associate Sibelius with national independence?

Seppo Kimanen

I believe that Sibelius knew by his music, by his musical language, how to strengthen the feelings of national identity within the Finnish people. You have to remember that the Finnish people were governed by Sweden and by Russia for hundreds of years, and then there was a movement of national romanticism at the end of the XIXth century. Sibelius was not alone, there were painters, there were writers, who were inspired, and who formed national history, and strengthened the feeling of national identity.

Marc Vignal

Sibelius, unlike the other so-called national musicians before him or at the same time as him, I am thinking of both Aldridge or even Bartok, he was never someone who was particularly concerned with researching folk traditions. There aren't Finnish dances as there are Norwegian dances with Grieg or any Hungarian aspect as with Bartok.

Journalist

However, the Finns continued to identify with Sibelius at the time of claiming their political autonomy.

Marc Vignal

When they witnessed a kind of hardening, a tightening of the screw of a political view point on the part of the Russian authorities on Finland, Sibelius wrote some works, in particular the famous "Finlandia", which overnight became a sort of national hymn

Journalist

Is it this fact of having been transformed into a national hero that paralysed Sibelius' inspiration? Maybe, but not only that, for there are without doubt other psychological reasons for his silence.

Marc Vignal

Sibelius, he stopped composing in 1926, that is, after his symphonic poem "Tapiola" and he died 30 years later. He didn't stop composing, in particular he wrote an 8th symphony which we now know almost certainly that he completed but which he destroyed, nobody ever heard it.

Seppo Kimanen

When he became famous, he was criticised more and more, but I believe that it was always very difficult for him to compose. He didn't compose much, his output was not high.

Marc Vignal

His 6th symphony which dates from, which was played in 1923, he worked on it for practically..9 years.

Seppo Kimanen

He was also afraid of himself, of failing himself, while that's all... I believe that he always tried to exceed himself, with the next work, he wanted to exceed his last work, and then he couldn't progress.

Marc Vignal

In Tapiola, there is a kind of cataclysm, the most cataclysmic, as far as I'm concerned, of XXth century music, and it's possible also that on a very deep level, I don't know, I always make the link in these cases, there is a kind of break, a kind of incu But in the end, who knows?

Seppo Kimanen

Tapiola is the drama of the Finnish forests, but also the drama of Sibelius' spirit. Sibelius was a prophet, he always had premonitions. Perhaps he felt the great upheaval of the Second World War.

Seppo Kimanen

He always fought against dictators, and his way was, was to compose.

Journalist

So precisely why did he continue to say nothing during Nazism?

Marc Vignal

The reasons behind his silence are they not rather of an artistic nature? It's clear that during most of his career, Sibelius found himself to be in an awkward position with regard to other more composed music. For example, it was not only Stravinsky but the whole Vienna school, etc, wasn't it? Sibelius stopped composing when Schonberg perfected serial dodecaphonism, etc. Sibelius was really quite inhibited by what I call his position in the century. It was at least a question of knowing the vocabulary if he wrote tonal or atonal music or not, in fact his music is not simply tonal as you might say, but he was someone who asked himself questions, wasn't he, about the formal process. He's one of those rare people, as far as I'm concerned, who knows how to reconcile Beethoven's dynamism and Wagner's sort of stasis.

Seppo Kimanen

His way of dealing with the orchestra by great mass which collides with a disdain for traditional polyphony, etc. You could equally compare him to another... another musician who stopped at just the same time. And who, given that he was a bit younger, started to compose again after some time, I'm talking about Edgar Varese. And I think that if Sibelius and Varese stopped at about the same time, at the end of the 1920s, start of the 1930s, it was due to the lack of material available.

Journalist

So, Sibelius, reluctant herald or even pioneer of contemporary music, why not?

Marc Vignal

There are some composers, I can name for example, Hugues Dufourt, and others, for whom Sibelius is not a model to follow but an example and subject for reflection.