The first performance of the Symphony No. 3 in C, Op. 52 of Jean Sibelius was given by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society, conducted by the composer, on September 25, 1907. The years around 1907 were a remarkably fecund period for classical music. Richard Strauss produced his opera “Salome” and his autobiographical “Symphonia Domestica.” Maurice Ravel brought forth his “Alborada del gracioso” and his “Introduction and Allegro.” Claude Debussy penned “La Mer” and his first book of “Images” for piano. Gustav Mahler’s monumental Sixth Symphony had its premiere. Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote his set of “Preludes,” Opus 23, and Edward Elgar’s “Introduction and Allegro for Strings” had its first hearing. In the world of opera, Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”was first heard. How unexpected the stubbornly anti-Romantic new Third Symphony by Sibelius must have sounded to the audiences that first heard it. After all, Sibelius’ recent music had been lush in sound and grand in rhetoric: the Symphony No. 2, first heard five years earlier, was already beginning to make a reputation for its composer throughout Europe. Working with a relatively modest orchestra, Sibelius was anticipating aspects of neo-classicism that would emerge in the course of the next two decades. The main target of his new Third Symphony was his slightly senior contemporary, Gustav Mahler. The two composers spent some time together in Helsingfors in 1907, and it was in response to Sibelius’ view that what he valued in “the essence of symphony [was] severity of style and the profound logic that created an inner connection among all the motifs.” Mahler retorted with his often quoted pronouncement that “A symphony must be like the world…it must embrace everything!” But the Third’s reputation for a kind of austerity shouldn’t be taken to mean that the music is stingy in its pleasures. The work started to take shape in Sibelius’ mind in 1904. He began to compose it in earnest in September, but his attention was then diverted to other projects. By December 1906 he was fully immersed in the symphony once again, writing to his publisher “my whole being is consumed by it.” Even so, he was unable to finish the score in time for the planned first performance, which he was to have conducted in March 1907 in London at the invitation of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Instead, the premiere was given in Helsinki in September. Here is a performance of the Symphony No. 3 in its entirety, with Esa Pekka Salonen leading the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. youtube/watch?v=c2Qq-8rI34Q
Posted on: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 03:44:08 +0000
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