Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_Sept_Oct | Page 23

SIBELIUS SYMPHONIES
compounded the problem. Just two
years after he completed the Seventh
Symphony, these demons would
prematurely silence him, even though
he lived on for another 31 years
to the venerable age of 91.
Despite the struggle, the Seventh
Symphony turned out to be one of
his most extraordinary works, taking
his unique approach to constructing
a symphony to its ultimate level. It
emerged as one great movement,
moving in waves of accelerating and
decelerating tempos and growing
organically through the evolution
of the most elemental musical ideas.
In fact, there is only one true theme
here, proclaimed three times by
solo trombone and other brass and
forming mighty pillars supporting and
shaping the Symphony’s structure.
And Sibelius uses the brass section
only for this theme. Like many of his
greatest works, there is an underlying
feeling of a human being standing in
After this heroic music fades, strings
and woodwinds begin a dancing
acceleration to music of summer-day joy
and lyricism built from the fluttering-
birds woodwind motive. The tempo
gradually builds to a throbbing Presto
and then imperceptibly slides back
to Adagio for the final and grandest
appearance of the brass theme. Now
back in C major, it carries this utterly
unique symphony to a radiant close.
wonder before a big, powerful and
unknowable natural world.
The symphony begins with very
basic musical ingredients: a rumble
of the timpani and a slow scale in the
strings ascending to a fateful, mysterious
harmony. A fluttering-birds motive
appears in the woodwinds. Rising
and falling scales crisscross, and the
woodwind birds cry out with forlorn
power. Now a magnificent, warm-toned
passage for divided strings expands
the scales of the opening into rich
counterpoint. This culminates in the
first appearance of the epic trombone
theme in the home key of C major.
The tempo gradually accelerates and
the musical texture becomes lighter as
woodwinds and strings alternate in an
airy dance. Eventually, whirling winds
begin to blow in the strings, and the
tempo decelerates back to Adagio for the
second appearance of the brass theme,
now dramatically extended and in
darker C minor.
Symphony No. 6—instrumentation:
Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass
clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani,
harp and strings.
Symphony No. 7—instrumentation:
Two flutes including piccolos, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns,
three trumpets, three trombones, timpani
and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 201 8
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