Symphony No. 1 in E Minor

Like Beethoven, Sibelius waited until his thirties before offering the world his official Symphony No. 1 (1899). Beethoven evidently felt he needed to practise first, but for Sibelius there was the added need to clarify his path. His previous symphonic works, like the choral Kullervo and the Lemminkäinen Suite, came with stories attached, evoking the Finnish folk epic Kalevala. But the First Symphony was “absolute music”: no title, no programme, just drama in sound that’s compelling on its own terms. Clearly the drama is ultimately tragic, but beyond that Sibelius refused to say a word. There are hints in the music though. At the beginning, a solo clarinet intones a long, mournful, quasi-improvisatory solo—“bardic” was how one Finnish critic described it. From this emerges an intense struggle, sometimes heroic, at other times charged with elemental nature imagery. There is also a fine Tchaikovskian love theme in the slow movement. And when the bardic clarinet theme returns to open the finale, now on impassioned strings, we sense that the tragedy does have a national character. Finland was still some way from independence in 1899, which might explain the finale’s mood of dark defiance. But the music is ultimately too rich to be reduced to one simple storyline, and as a symphonic debut it’s stunning.