Jean Sibelius and His World

Published by Princeton University Press 2011

Jean Sibelius and His World

Edited by: Daniel M. Grimley

Volume 25 in the series The Bard Music Festival

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400840205

Overview
Contents

About this book

Perhaps no twentieth-century composer has provoked a more varied reaction among the music-loving public than Jean Sibelius (1865-1957). Originally hailed as a new Beethoven by much of the Anglo-Saxon world, he was also widely disparaged by critics more receptive to newer trends in music. At the height of his popular appeal, he was revered as the embodiment of Finnish nationalism and the apostle of a new musical naturalism. Yet he seemingly chose that moment to stop composing altogether, despite living for three more decades. Providing wide cultural contexts, contesting received ideas about modernism, and interrogating notions of landscape and nature, Jean Sibelius and His World sheds new light on the critical position occupied by Sibelius in the Western musical tradition.

The essays in the book explore such varied themes as the impact of Russian musical traditions on Sibelius, his compositional process, Sibelius and the theater, his understanding of music as a fluid and improvised creation, his critical reception in Great Britain and America, his "late style" in the incidental music for The Tempest, and the parallel contemporary careers of Sibelius and Richard Strauss.

Documents include the draft of Sibelius's 1896 lecture on folk music, selections from a roman à clef about his student circle in Berlin at the turn of the century, Theodor Adorno's brief but controversial tirade against the composer, and the newspaper debates about the Sibelius monument unveiled in Helsinki a decade after the composer's death.

The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Philip Ross Bullock, Glenda Dawn Goss, Daniel Grimley, Jeffrey Kallberg, Tomi Mäkelä, Sarah Menin, Max Paddison, and Timo Virtanen.

Author / Editor information

Daniel M. Grimley is university lecturer in music at the University of Oxford, tutorial fellow of Merton College, and senior lecturer in music at University College. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Sibelius and the author of Grieg and Carl Nielsen and the Idea of Modernism.

Reviews

The connection between Sibelius and the Russian tradition--an influence that went in both directions--is the subject of an excellent essay by Philip Ross Bullock in the book accompanying the festival, Jean Sibelius and His World, from Princeton University Press.---Zachary Woolfe, New York Times

[T]his is a fine collection of essays that advances Sibelius research significantly. It bears the title Sibelius and his World, but it also does an excellent job of alerting the reader to Sibelius's relevance to our world.---Derek B. Scott, Music and Letters

As this collection shows, there is a resurgence of interest in the music of Jean Sibelius. . . . [T]he book is full of useful information.

Jean Sibelius and His World ends with English translations of a number of important primary documents. . . . Perhaps the most important document is Theodor Adorno's critique 'Goss on Sibelius.' I have read about these documents in many Sibelius essays, here and elsewhere, so we owe a debt of gratitude to Daniel Grimley for making them available in translation. This book represents the high level of current Sibelius scholarship and should be a welcome addition to academic music libraries.---Carl Rafikonen, Notes

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments and Permissions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Sibelius, Finland, and t he Idea of Landscape Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Part I. Essays
Sibelius and the Russian Traditions Philip Ross Bullock Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
From Heaven’s Floor to the Composer’s Desk: Sibelius’s Musical Manuscripts and Compositional Process Timo Virtanen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
Theatrical Sibelius: The Melodramatic Lizard Jeffrey Kallberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
The Wings of a Butterfly: Sibelius and the Problems of Musical Modernity Tomi Mäkelä Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
“Thor’s Hammer”: Sibelius and British Music Critics, 1905–1957 Byron Adams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
Jean Sibelius and His American Connections Glenda Dawn Goss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
Art and the Ideology of Nature: Sibelius, Hamsun, Adorno Max Paddison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Storms, Symphonies, Silence: Sibelius’s Tempest Music and the Invention of Late Style Daniel M. Grimley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
Waving from the Periphery: Sibelius, Aalto, and the Finnish Pavilions Sarah Menin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Old Masters: Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss in the Twentieth Century Leon Botstein Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	256
PART II. DOCUMENTS
Selections from Adolf Paul’s A Book About a Human Being Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307
Some Viewpoints Concerning Folk Music and Its Influence on the Musical Arts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
Selection from Erik Furuhjelm’s Jean Sibelius: A Survey of his Life and Music Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	326
Adorno on Sibelius Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Monumentalizing Sibelius: Eila Hiltunen and the Sibelius Memorial Controversy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	338
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	355
Notes on the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	368

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