PROGRAM NOTES
by Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Lemminkainen’s Return (No. 4) from Four Legends of the Kalevala, Op. 22
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

Composed in 1895.
Premiered on April 13, 1896 in Helsinki, conducted by the composer.

The influence of Richard Wagner was virtually inescapable for a European musician in the closing decades of the 19th century, and Jean Sibelius was certainly not among those few who were immune. As a young man, Sibelius studied in Vienna and traveled through Germany, where he came under the Wagnerian spell. He was influenced not just by the orchestral ingenuity and harmonic audacity of the music dramas, but also by their foundation in the great nationalistic myths of Germany. Sibelius, who early discovered his calling as a musical spokesman for his native Finland, thought the Wagnerian glorification of country could be adapted to the sweeping legends of his homeland, and sought the opportunity to compose a nationalistic opera.

In the summer of 1893, Sibelius met the writer J.H. Erkko while staying at Kuipio in the Finnish interior. As material for an operatic subject, Erkko awakened Sibelius’ interest in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, on which the composer had previously based his Kullervo Symphony (1891-1892) and Karelia Suite (1893). In collaboration with Erkko, Sibelius devised a libretto titled The Building of the Boat, based on the Kalevala legend. He worked on the music for a short time, but, finding the operatic idiom uncongenial and not at all convinced that he had the talent to compete successfully in the high-powered post-Wagnerian sweepstakes (“I went to hear Tristan the day before yesterday; nothing, not even Parsifal, made as overwhelming an impression,” he lamented on August 10th), he abandoned the project. His only other attempt at opera was a one-act piece, The Maiden in the Tower, written for a school benefit in 1896. It enjoyed little success, was never published, and was regarded even by the composer as an unimportant work. Following this abortive attempt at opera during his 30s, Sibelius’ major compositions for the rest of his life were all instrumental.

The time spent on The Building of the Boat, however, was not wasted. The music that had been intended as a prelude was reworked as an exquisite and haunting miniature for small orchestra in 1893 — The Swan of Tuonela. Two years later, Sibelius again returned to the Kalevala as the inspiration for three additional tone poems: Lemminkainen and the Maidens of Saari, Lemminkainen in Tuonela and Lemminkainen’s Return. These four were grouped together as Four Legends of Lemminkainen, Op. 22, a sort-of Finnish equivalent of Smetana’s cycle of nationalistic tone poems, Ma Vlast (“My Country”), and premiered in Helsinki under the composer’s direction on April 13, 1896.

Lemminkainen, Sibelius’ protagonist and one of the heroes of the epic, is a reckless adventurer, always getting into serious scrapes from which he escapes through brazen exploits or magic. Lemminkainen’s Return follows the hero’s unsuccessful expedition into the mythological Finnish hell to kill the Swan of Tuonela. A note in the program at the premiere explained, “Lemminkainen is the warrior-hero, the Achilles, of Finnish mythology. His intrepidity and beauty make him the favorite of the women. Exhausted by a long series of wars and combats, he determines to seek his home. He turns his sorrows and cares into warhorses, and sets out.” The music portrays his journey home with his friend and comrade Tiera. Their horses are lost, their boat is destroyed, they suffer from intense cold and gnawing hunger, they trek for days through dense forest, but in the end they return home triumphant. Sibelius depicts not the individual exploits of their odyssey, but the general swaggering air and reckless abandon with which they undertake their tasks. The jubilant brass fanfares in the work’s closing pages greet the adventurers on their arrival home.

MORE NOTES ON THIS PROGRAM

BRAHMS - Violin Concerto
WALTON - Symphony No. 1

RELATED LINKS

Sarah Chang Concert
Sarah Chang Biography