Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 246 pages of information about Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies.

Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 246 pages of information about Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies.

But quickly they are transformed into the tempest of gaiety in full parade.  When a new burst is preparing, we see the sighing figure all changed to opposite mood.  The grim tune of Scherzo dance enters mysteriously in big and little and slowly takes on a softened hue, losing the savage tinge.

After the returning dance, the farewell melody sings from full throat.  Before the ending revel we may feel a glorified guise of the sombre legend of the symphony.

CHAPTER XII

SIBELIUS.  A FINNISH SYMPHONY[A]

[Footnote A:  Symphony No. 1, in E minor, by Jan Sibelius, born in 1865.]

We must expect that the music of newer nations will be national.  It goes without saying; for the music comes fresh from the soil; it is not the result of long refined culture.  There is the strain and burst of a burden of racial feeling to utter itself in the most pliant and eloquent of all the languages of emotion.  It is the first and noblest sentiment of every nation conscious of its own worth, and it has its counterpart in the individual.  Before the utterance has been found by a people, before it has felt this sense of its own quality, no other message can come.  So the most glorious period in the history of every country (even in the eyes of other nations) is the struggle for independence, whether successful or not.

All on a new plane is this northernmost symphony, with a crooning note almost of savage, and sudden, fitful bursts from languorous to fiery mood.  The harmony, the turn of tune have a national quality, delicious and original, though the Oriental tinge appears, as in Slav and Magyar music, both in bold and in melancholy humor.  Though full of strange and warm colors, the harmonic scheme is simple; rather is the work a tissue of lyric rhapsody than the close-woven plot of tonal epic.  A certain trace of revery does find a vent in the traditional art of contrary melodies.  But a constant singing in pairs is less art than ancient folk-manner, like primal music in the love or dance songs of savages.

The symphony begins with a quiet rhapsody of solo clarinet in wistful minor, clear without chords, though there is a straying into major.  There is no accompaniment save a soft roll of drum, and that soon dies away.

[Music:  Andante, ma non troppo espress. (Clarinet)]

The rhapsody seems too vague for melody; yet there are motives, one in chief, winding to a pause; here is a new appealing phrase; the ending is in a

[Music]

return to the first.  Over the whole symphony is cast the hue of this rhapsody, both in mood and in the literal tone.

All opposite, with sudden spring of buoyant strings, strikes the Allegro tune ending in a quick, dancing trip.  The first voice is immediately pursued by another

[Music:  Allegro energico (2d violins) Piu forte (Violins with higher 8ve.) (Cellos with higher 8ve. in violas)]

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Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.