Confessions of an Anti-Formalist: Sibelius's En Saga

A good deal of my listening and reading lately have centered on Sibelius, as I am working on research projects related to his music. While revisiting the original 1892 version of his tone poem En Saga (via BIS-CD-800, with Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony performing), I marveled anew at how different it is from the substantially revised 1902 version. I used to prefer the later score; after all, it is much more concise, and the tempo is comparatively (and satisfyingly) consistent. But as I listened again to the original, and as I keep (re)reading written commentary that swears the 1902 version is better because of its 'superior' form, I've felt a surge of affection for the initial effort. (1) I started asking whether all of the increased polish and cohesion were worth the beauties sacrificed for them. In truth I now think this price was too high. I am happy to side with the composer's wife, Aino, who said: "I like and have always liked the first version." (2) 

Aino continues: "Papa removed some violent passages from it. Now En Saga is more civilised, more polished." I agree with this and have further reason for now preferring the original. In it we have more stoppages of steady pulse, but also more harmonic figurations and varied restatements of the main themes we enjoy today. Some of them sound heartbreakingly tragic. Too, the orchestration is more vibrant, and there are more vivid tone colors to go with the rougher-edged gestures and textures. The revised version also omits a calmer central section that is absolutely spellbinding. In short, the original is more passionate and bolder of utterance. It is in this version, rather than the smoothed-over revision of ten years later, that we really feel Sibelius's testimony about its meaning for him: "En Saga is psychologically one of my most profound works. I could almost say that the whole of my youth is contained within it. It is an expression of a state of mind. When I was writing En Saga I went through many things that were upsetting to me. In no other work have I revealed myself as completely as in En Saga." Doubtless Aino was at hand to witness much of this life experience; one begins to understand why she preferred the original. (3)

So what prompted Sibelius to make the changes after a decade? From what I have gathered, I think it was a combination of shaky self-confidence, critical browbeating, and apprehension about conducting the work in Berlin at his friend Busoni's invitation. Karl Flodin and Oskar Merikanto apparently found the music "puzzling" and rambling. (4) Scheduled to conduct a "sprawling" score in Germany, smack dab in the Land of Musical Cohesion and Integration™, perhaps he felt nervous at how THEIR critics might react. So he made the revisions, tested out the new version in Helsinki, and proceeded to elicit the desired response when he conducted it in Berlin. 

If I imbibe the spirit of much of the musicological literature, I might look at the whole situation and react like this: you see, it all shows he was *learning*. As his skill increased, so too did his feeling for *desirable form*. Soon, he would not only leave behind his nationalist phase, he would also become increasingly adept as a modern (or even "modernist") classicist. His sense of structure would become tighter and leaner on up until the end, until that final paean to unity and cohesion, the Seventh Symphony. With Tapiola as the cherry on top. 

Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth just a bit. I have always been somewhat unsatisfied with classical (over)-justifications of Sibelius's symphonies in particular, but also with the same attitudes brought to bear on his tone poems. I don't think those who are eager to confer German symphonic "cred" on Sibelius always sufficiently appreciate his works in other ways. They sometimes quote this statement concerning the Sixth Symphony, but I don't think they really take it to heart: "You may analyze it and explain it theoretically. You may find that there are several interesting things going on. But most people forget that it is, above all, a poem." (5)

For me, the most important parts of Sibelius's works aren't their adherence to *correct* formal benchmarks. Rather, they're those moments of mystery, beauty, grandeur, evocation, and passion, which come in all kinds of forms. Ultimately, the reason I now prefer En Saga 1.0 to En Saga 2.0 is that the first privileges theme and expression over form, while the second privileges concision at the expense of those other things. This the pedants can't abide. Musicology, says David Hurwitz, doesn't know what to do with a good tune. At least not when it's unmuzzled by a hard obsession with form.

I love Sibelius's Fourth and Seventh Symphonies...two of his tightest structures, and therefore two of his most critically regarded works. But I love them more for their expressive properties than for their vaunted formal traits. I still mostly want out of music what I wanted before I knew anything about form...before the likes of Edward T. Cone taught me how to listen for form. (6) I still want a piece of music to move me, and often form has a subordinate role in accomplishing that. 

Some of Sibelius's most interesting, most riveting music is also some of his most discursive. I think of Kullervo, the work of white-hot inspiration that catapulted him to national prominence, and composed not long before En Saga 1.0. I think of The Wood Nymph (Skogsrået), Op. 15, from shortly thereafter: music that is audacious in its almost complete reliance upon minimalist-like repetition. Sibelius never published this tone poem, maybe because he was afraid of how he'd be treated by the pedantic critics...and how this might damage his fragile confidence. If so, that's a shame, because it is deeply inspired. The scholars say that Sibelius truly attained ever-important unity in his last symphonies. But maybe this is actually what prompted his infamous dead end. The Silence of Järvenpää could have been something else if he had struck out in a different direction...if he had allowed himself to re-embrace/re-explore the unbridled forms of his youth. 

Footnotes

1. There are no shortage of scholars and critics who extoll the 1902 revision of En Saga on the grounds I've mentioned. The authoritative life-and-works study by Erik Tawaststjerna is a good place to start if the reader is interested in sampling this consensus. See Sibelius Volume I: 1865-1905 (Faber, 2009), chapter seven. 

2. See the article on En Saga at the Sibelius Info Website, here. (Accessed 7 August 2024.) 

3. See Tuija Wickland, Jean Sibelius's En Saga and Its Two Versions: Genesis, Reception, Edition, and Form, Studia Musica 57 (Helsinki:University of the Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, 2014), pgs. 43-45. 

4. "En Saga," Sibelius Info Website. 

5. Quoted in Harold E. Johnson, Jean Sibelius (Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), pg. 192. 

6. See Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (W. W. Norton & Co., 1968).