Symphony No. 2

The first orchestral composition by Jean Sibelius that the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra performed was Symphony No. 2. The performance took place on 10 November 1903 in the main hall of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, with Armas Järnefelt as the conductor. The number of complete performances of Symphony No. 2 with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is 152. 

Jean Sibelius

Symphony No. 2 D major op 43 (1902)

Allegretto
Tempo andante, ma rubato
Vivacissimo –
Finale: Allegro moderato

Duration approx. 43 minutes

In March 1900, a few months after the first European tour of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Sibelius received a letter signed ”X.” In the letter, X asked if Sibelius ”had not planned to write an introductory overture (or overture-fantasia) for the first concert in Paris.” The sender pointed out that Anton  Rubinstein ”wrote an introductory fantasia for the Russian concert at the exhibition in 1889 and gave the piece the title ’Rossija.’ Your overture will be called ’Finlandia’ – won’t it?”

Thus created mr. X, alias baron Axel Carpelan, the title of one of Sibelius’ best-known compositions.

The letter went on: ”You have sat a bit too much at home, Mr. Sibelius, it is time for you to travel abroad. You will spend the late fall and winter in Italy, the country where one learns the cantabile, moderation and harmony, plasticity and symmetry of lines, the country where all is beautiful– even the ugly.”

Unfortunately, baron Carpelan was poor. He did however have contacts, and managed to find a sponsor who could finance Sibelius’ stay in Italy. Along with his wife and two daughters, Sibelius left home in October 1900, but first they stayed two months in Berlin, not continuing to Italy until the end of January 1901. He rented a mountain villa near Rapello. There, in his working room, Sibelius was suddenly struck by a literary memory: ”Somewhere in Flegeljahre, Jean Paul says that lunchtime on a summer’s day has something horrible about it, and this is not without truth. Between 12 and 1, whether day or night, there is a sort of muteness, as if nature itself, with constrained breath, listened for the sneaking footsteps of something supernatural, and man suddenly feels more than usually in need of human company..”

This picture continued to haunt him, and on a piece of paper, he wrote down his own vision: ”Don Juan. Sitting at dusk in my castle, a guest enters. I ask more than once who he is. – No answer. I offer to entertain him. He is still mute. Finally, the stranger begins to sing. Then, Don Juan realizes who he is– Death.” On the back of the paper, Sibelius noted the date,  2/19/01, and sketched the melody that became the bassoon theme in d minor in the second movement of the Second symphony, Tempo Andante, ma rubato. Two months later, in Florence, he worked out a theme in C major above which he wrote the word ”Christus.” This became the secondary theme, Andante sostenuto, of the same movement. The former might well stand for death and defeat, and the latter for life and resurrection.

There is no evidence that there were any programmatic ideas governing the other movements in the Second symphony. But immediately after the premiere on March 8, 1902, the symphony became a symbol of national independence. The difficult times that the duchy Finland experienced due to the ”Russianizing program” of Tsar Nicholas II between 1899–1905 lent itself to such an interpretation. Robert Kajanus, the conductor and founder of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, formulated it in words: ”The Andante serves as one of the most devastating protests against all the injustice of our times, that threatens to rob the sun of its light and our flowers of their smell… [The scherzo] gives a picture of hurried preparation. Everyone does his small part, all fibers shiver, the seconds have been given a greater measure of time. One seems to sense what causes this hurriedness in the contrasting trio with its oboe motive in G-flat major, which in its warm devotion speak of what is at stake…[The finale] results in a triumphant finish, meant to wake in the listener the feeling of light and comforting future prospects.”

Sibelius distanced himself from such programmatic descriptions and stated that the symphonies are pure and absolute music. Still, there are many (researchers among them) who posit that the Second symphony has political dimensions. This question, however, is not especially pressing, since it cannot be answered. Our experience of it as a work of art needs not presuppose that Sibelius had any secret content in his thoughts as he composed the symphony.

— Ilkka Oramo
English translation: George Kentros