| Symphony No. 4 | |
|---|---|
| byJean Sibelius | |
 The composer (c. 1911) | |
| Key | A minor |
| Opus | 63 |
| Composed | 1909 (1909)–1911 |
| Publisher | Breitkopf & Härtel (1912)[1] |
| Duration | 34 mins.[2] |
| Movements | 4 |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 3 April 1911 (1911-04-03)[3] |
| Location | Helsinki,Grand Duchy of Finland |
| Conductor | Jean Sibelius |
| Performers | Helsinki Philharmonic Society |
TheSymphony No. 4 inA minor,Op. 63, is a four-movement work for orchestra written from 1909 to 1911 by the Finnish composerJean Sibelius.
It was premiered inHelsinki on 3 April 1911 by thePhilharmonia Society, with Sibelius conducting.
The Fourth Symphony is scored for the following instruments,[3] organized by family (woodwinds,brass,percussion, andstrings):
Some conductors have substitutedtubular bells for the glockenspiel part in Movement IV, given that the score says "glocken". However, in a 15 May 1942 letter to his publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, Sibelius specified his intention: "There are some errors in [the score of] Symphony 4 (e.g., it should be glockenspiel, instead of bells, which is natural because of the tempo)".[3]
| External audio | |
|---|---|
| Performed by theBerlin Philharmonic,Herbert von Karajan conducting | |
 I. Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio | |
| II. Allegro molto vivace | |
| III. Il tempo largo | |
| IV. Allegro |
The work comprises fourmovements:
For this work Sibelius reversed the traditionalclassical positions of the second and third movements, placing the slow movement as the third. He also begins the piece with a slow movement instead of the traditional fast opening movement (this is the same order as manybaroque orchestral works). A typical performance lasts 35 to 40 minutes.
The interval of thetritone dominates the melodic and harmonic material of the piece, but in a completely different way from how it dominates theThird Symphony. It is stated immediately, in a dark phrase forcellos,double basses andbassoons, rising C–D–F♯–E over a hardunison C.
Most of the themes of the symphony involve the tritone; in the finale, much of the harmonic tension arises from a collision between the keys of A minor andE♭ major, a tritone apart. Thebitonal clash between A and E♭ in the finale'srecapitulation leads to tonal chaos in the coda, in which the rival notes C, A, E♭ and F♯ (that is, the interlocking tritone pairs C–F♯, A–E♭) each strive for ascendancy in a series of grinding dissonances with many clashes betweenmajor andminor thirds.
Theglockenspiel tries in vain to hail the momentary establishment of A major; but in the end it is the insistence of C♮ (the note with which the work so strikingly began) that forces the movement and the symphony to close in a desolate A minor, without melody or rhythmic pulse.[4]
Many commentators have heard in the symphony evidence of struggle or despair.Harold Truscott writes, "This work ... is full of a foreboding which is probably the unconscious result of ... the sensing of an atmosphere which was to explode in 1914 into aworld war."[5] Sibelius had also recently endured terrors in his personal life: in 1908, inBerlin, he had a cancerous tumour removed from his throat. Timothy Day writes that "the operation was successful, but he lived for many years in constant fear of the tumour recurring, and from 1908 to 1913 the shadow of death lay over his life."[6] Other critics have heard bleakness in the work: one early Finnish critic,Elmer Diktonius, dubbed the work theBarkbröd symphony,[7] referring to the famine in the previous century during which starving Scandinavians had had to eatbark bread to survive.
According to Sibelius' biographerErik W. Tawaststjerna, the symphony reflects thepsychoanalytical and introspective era whenSigmund Freud andHenri Bergson stressed the meaning of the unconscious,[8] and he calls the Fourth Symphony "one of the most remarkable documents of the psychoanalytical era".[9] Even Sibelius himself called his composition "a psychological symphony".[10] His brother, the psychiatristChristian Sibelius (1869–1922), was one of the first scholars to discuss psychoanalysis in Finland.
In the year before beginning the symphony, Sibelius had met many of his contemporaries in centralEurope, includingArnold Schoenberg,Igor Stravinsky, and others; his encounter with their music provoked a crisis in his own compositional life. He said in a letter to his friend (and biographer)Rosa Newmarch about the symphony: "It stands as a protest against present-day music. It has absolutely nothing of the circus about it." Later, when asked about the symphony, he quotedAugust Strindberg: "Det är synd om människorna" (One feels pity for human beings).
The symphony briefly had a nickname,Lucus a non lucendo, an expression that literally means "a grove from not shining", suggesting, in this case, a place where light does not penetrate.[11]
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