Canzonetta, Opus 62a, from the incidental music for Kuolema (arr. Stravinsky)
Composition and premiere: In 1906 Sibelius wrote a string orchestra work Rondino der Liebenden (“Lover’s Rondo”), based on his incidental music for Arvid Järnefelt’s play Kuolema in 1903. He revised it as the Canzonetta for a new production of the revised play in 1911. In 1963 Igor Stravinsky created an arrangement for chamber ensemble (2 clarinets, 4 horns, harp, and double bass). The first performance of his arrangement was given by an ensemble of the Finnish Broadcasting Company on March 22, 1964. First BSO/Tanglewood performance: August 10, 2024, Dalia Stasevska conducting.
Jean Sibelius wrote incidental music for stage plays throughout his life; his Finlandia had its origins in such a work, and his music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest was one of his last published scores. The Canzonetta originated with the composer’s music for the 1903, fairy tale-like play Kuolema (“Death”) by the Finnish writer Arne Järnefelt (1861-1932), Sibelius’s brother-in-law. The incidental music included a dance scene that Sibelius later turned into one of his most popular orchestral works, Valse triste. He reworked several other numbers from the score as independent pieces; one such was the string orchestra piece, Rondino der Liebenden (“Lover’s Rondo”), which he then revised for a new production of the play in 1911, renaming it Canzonetta. The Canzonetta (“little song”), “valse romantique,” is a deeply melancholy, four-minute song without words.
While relatively popular with the public during his lifetime, especially in his native Finland, Jean Sibelius’s music was frequently the subject of harsh commentary from the leading progressive critics of the between-wars period of the 20th century. That his work was outmoded was a given; that he could be seen as a precursor neither to the neoclassicism of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) nor the total-chromatic, twelve-tone explorations of Arnold Schoenberg and his followers was, for some, cause for disdain. Many composers of later generations, including Thomas Adès and Stephen Stucky among many others, managed to see the forest, the trees, and much else in Sibelius’s music, revising, or rather correcting, the impression of partisan critics and helping to reveal the unique and innovative in his work. His music’s effectiveness, of course, was something the listener has been aware of all along.
Stravinsky was himself one of Sibelius’s critics, as he was of many; part of this was professional positioning, part personal taste. He would occasionally admit his admiration for other living composers, but even that was typically tempered, such as his praising the instrumentation of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire while remaining tepid about its musical content. However, when in 1963 he was awarded the prestigious Wihuri Sibelius Prize, he responded to the honor by recasting Sibelius’s string-orchestra work as a small, mixed-ensemble piece, omitting strings altogether except for double bass, that has the flavor of his own sound-world.
ROBERT KIRZINGER
Composer and writer Robert Kirzinger is the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Director of Program Publications.
