![]() ![]() The game is ended with two pizzicato strokes, exactly as in the first and last movements of the first symphony. In a way it is also a fight between death and salvation – a conflict that cannot be finally settled in a person's lifetime. This marks the beginning of a struggle and continuous metamorphosis of the two main themes. However, the theme that was introduced by the bassoon now has its counterpart in an ethereal and peaceful "Christ theme" which has been prepared for by the recent dramatic struggle. Although the symphony is not overtly programmatic, one can imagine Don Juan's desperate arguments and death's inevitable answers. Then the first main theme of the movement is heard on the bassoon, as threatening as the figure of Death in the castle of Don Juan/Don Giovanni: ![]() The second movement (andante, ma rubato) begins with a long pizzicato sequence from the cellos and the double basses, a feature that astonished contemporaries. Despite moments of threat, the movement ends with the pastoral idyll of the opening. The thematic material of the beginning is given a dramatic manifestation, and finally the musical motifs of the movement are presented in a grand, masterly synthesis. Veijo Murtomäki has emphasised that the unity of the material "has in fact been created as something discovered by Sibelius during the process of composition – so that in the final work it is only a question of gradually showing and revealing this unity to the listener."ĭuring the development the theme that ended on a falling fifth returns in various guises. The introductory sequence consists of aphoristic fragments whose connections Sibelius gradually reveals. Scholars have found it hard to distinguish an unambiguous second subject such as one would find in sonata form. The movement proceeds in an interesting manner after an alternation between the wind instruments and the French horns. Whereas in the first symphony important thematic materials could be heard, embryonically, in the clarinet introduction, in the second symphony it is the very first chords with their rising three-note progression that form a kind of motif for the whole symphony. The first movement begins with a gentle song for the strings in D major. The triumphant first public performance, which according to Oscar Merikanto "exceeded even the highest expectations", took place on 8th March 1902. Nevertheless, it took more than a year before the work was completed, and by this stage the initial programmatic concepts had receded. This theme end also ended up in the slow movement of the symphony. In his sketches he associated it with the encounter between Don Juan (the protagonist of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni ) and Death. "Now I've got the thing that I've been waiting for weeks! Now it came!" he exclaimed, and according to Wasenius, he improvised motifs for the first movement of the second symphony.Īt any rate, we know for certain that Sibelius was sketching a motif which ended up in the slow movement while he was in Rapallo, Italy, in February 1901. However, after staring at the notes for a while he started to improvise. Sibelius had been persuaded to consider the talent shown by a seven-year-old girl, Irene Eneri, in a small piece she had composed, Caprice Orientale. On the other hand, the publisher "Bis" (Karl Fredrik Wasenius) recollected how Sibelius invented some of the motifs of the second symphony in his (Bis's) study. Sibelius is known to have improvised one of the themes for the finale during the christening of the son of the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, in Ruovesi in the summer of 1899. ![]() There are many stories about the stages in which this popular work was composed. Soon the symphony was also triumphantly acclaimed abroad. The first public performance consolidated Sibelius's fame as a national hero. The heroic and optimistic first and final movements of the symphony were exactly what the Finnish public needed in 1902, during a period of Russian oppression. The ideas of form are more mature and the violent Slavic gloom is replaced by a more classical touch and by the light of the Mediterranean. It is more skilfully orchestrated than the first symphony. The second symphony is the most popular and most frequently recorded of Sibelius's symphonies. Allegro moderato: first performance in Stockholm, 10th November 1903 (conducted by Armas Järnefelt). Allegro moderato: first performance in Helsinki, 8th March 1902 (Orchestra of the Helsinki Philharmonic Society under Jean Sibelius). ![]()
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