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Posted by Martin Walker on July 2, 2008, 12:44 pm
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A very evocative review by Bob Briggs which makes me fervently hope for a live recording. I am surprised when you write that The Oceanides takes about 15', since both the recordings I possess (Beecham and Gibson) take somewhat less than 11'. It's a very concentrated work in comparison with Nightride, which goes on a bit to my ears (between 14' and 16'). The logic of your argument against the combination of bells and glockenspiel involves denying the human element in the score; however, when asked about the symphony, Sibelius quoted August Strindberg: "Det är synd om människorna" (Being human is misery). He also said that the
beginning of the symphony should always be played as "fate, with all sentimentality excluded". Another remark by Sibelius in particular rather tends to refute the idea that the symphony is a representation of a natural world minus humans "The assumptions of the pseudonymous Bis [a reviewer of the premiere who said the symphony represented a trip to Mount Koli and lacked the bond with the Finnish people evident in Sibelius's other works] concerning the programme of my new symphony are incorrect. I guess that they have to do with the topographical report which I presented to a few friends on 1st April."
Jean Sibelius in Hufvudstadsbladet, 1911
In fact, several scholars/critics have spoken of the work as in some way involving elements of psychoanalysis. I have also read descriptions of the slow movement as evoking the loneliness of Christ in Gethsemane, which I find suggestive though it needn't be taken literally. "The crisis of Western humanity" might be an appropriate way of viewing this great and finally, of course, inscrutable work.
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