Stories of Symphonic Music / A Guide to the Meaning of Important Symphonies, Overtures, and Tone-poems from Beethoven to the Present Day

SIBELIUS

(Jan Sibelius: born in Tavastehus, Finland, December 8, 1865; now living in Helsingfors)

"LEMMINKAINEN," SYMPHONIC POEM IN FOUR PARTS: Op. 22

"THE SWAN OF TUONELA"
"LEMMINKAINEN'S HOME-FARING"

Sibelius, sometime prior to February, 1906, informed Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, the author of the first authoritative study in English of the Finnish composer, that he was writing a symphonic poem in four parts under the general title "Lemminkainen," based on episodes in "The Kalevala." [134] Two of these parts have been produced—"The Swan of Tuonela" and "Lemminkainen's Home-Faring"; the others are said to be still (1907) incomplete. Of the two completed portions Mrs. Newmarch writes as follows:

"THE SWAN OF TUONELA

"Tuonela was the name of the Finnish Hades. Those wending their way to the final abode had to traverse nine seas and one river—the equivalent of the Styx—whereon sang and floated the sacred swan—

"'... the long-necked, graceful swimmer,
Swimming in the black death-river,
In the sacred stream and whirlpool.'"

The majestic, but intensely sad, swan melody is heard as a solo for cor anglais [English horn], accompanied at first by muted [135] strings and the soft roll of drums. Now and then this melody is answered by a phrase given to 'cello or viola, which might be interpreted as the farewell sigh of some soul passing to Tuonela. For many bars the brass is silent, until suddenly the first horn (muted[136]) echoes a few notes of the swan-melody with the most poignant effect. Gradually the music works up to a great climax, ... followed by a treble pianissimo, the strings playing with the back of the bow. To this accompaniment, which suggests the faint-flapping pinions, the swan's final phrases are sung. The strings return to the natural bowing, and the work ends in one of the characteristic, sighing phrases for 'cello.

"LEMMINKAINEN'S HOME-FARING

"It was in pursuit of the Swan of Tuonela that Lemminkainen, the reckless magician-hero of 'The Kalevala,' lost his life. The capture of the sacred bird was the last test of his courage and devotion before he could win the bride of his heart. But Nasshut, the crippled shepherd, who bore a grudge against Lemminkainen, watched for his approach, hurled at him a serpent snatched from the death-stream, and flung him, mortally wounded, into the 'coal-black waters':

"'There the blood-stained son of death-land
There Tuoni's son and hero
Cuts in pieces Lemminkainen.'

"The Finnish hero shares the fate of Osiris. But the fifteenth rune relates how his aged and faithful mother implores 'the immortal blacksmith' Ilmarinen to forge her a huge rake:

"'Lemminkainen's faithful mother
Rakes the river of Tuoni,

"To her belt in mud and water
Deeper, deeper rakes the death-stream,
Rakes the river's deepest caverns.'

"By untiring perseverance she recovers all the missing members, knits them together by her incantations, and finally restores her son to life. When his thoughts revert to the woman he loves, for whose sake he has accomplished a series of heroic exploits, his mother persuades him in these words:

"'Let the swan swim on in safety
In the whirlpool of Tuoni.
Leave the maiden in the Northland
With her charms and fading beauty
With thy fond and faithful mother
Go at once to Kalevala
To thy native fields and fallows.' [137]

"Then the hero, consoled by the maternal love, which inflicts no sting and exacts no useless sacrifices, starts on his homeward way."

FOOTNOTES:

[134] Elias LÖnnrot, the Finnish scholar, issued the "Kalevala" ("a word which signifies the dwelling of the heroes, 'sons of Kaleva'—the Walhalla of Scandinavian mythology"), the result of his researches and labors among the national folklore of the Finns, in 1835. "The 'Kalevala' depicts the ancient Finnish people as a race of free barbarians endowed with many noble qualities, whose religion was a mild nature-worship, demanding no blood sacrifices. The primitive inhabitants of Finland—or Suomi, as it is still called in the vernacular—believed that all objects in nature were inhabited and ruled by invisible deities. They had more faith in the word than in the sword; therefore the bard and the rune-singer—he who possessed the word of origin—was more honored by them than the warrior, the shedder of blood. For them the word of origin lay concealed in the heart of nature. This tendency to seek mind in the visible world is also characteristic of all the literature and art of modern Finland. It has been transmitted to a whole series of poets, whether, like Runeberg, Franzen, and the elder Topelius, they sang in Swedish, or adopted the Finnish idiom with LÖnnrot and his successors. To this imaginative people the making of songs was a part of existence—almost a primal instinct. Of the three principal personages of 'The Kalevala,' Vainamoinen, the Finnish Orpheus, stands out as the ideal hero of the race. Profound wisdom and the power of magic song are his special attributes."—ROSA NEWMARCH.

[135] See page 12 (foot-note).

[136] See page 75 (foot-note).

[137] This and the preceding verse translations are from the English version of "The Kalevala" by John Martin Crawford.

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