Promootiomarssi (Degree Ceremony March). Completed 1919; first performance in Helsinki, 31st May 1919 (Helsinki City Orchestra under Robert Kajanus).

Although Jean Sibelius never really got started with his studies at the University of Helsinki, he wrote a number of cantatas and degree ceremony pieces for University festivities.

The commission in 1919 was not an easy task, since the trembling in the composer’s hands had got worse. “If I could still get hold of cheap, unfortified wines, my life would be easy and I could do what remains to be done. Now whisky and spirits are dragging me down to the depths. My hands are trembling so much that I can’t write,” he complained to his diary on the 19th May.

The Degree Ceremony March was completed nevertheless. However, he became annoyed when he attended the ceremony: in his opinion Kajanus conducted the work too slowly. Kajanus had apparently interpreted the tempo marking con grandezza differently from the composer. Sibelius even suspected deliberate sabotage, apparently remembering the events in 1897, when Kajanus “stole” the post as rehearsal-master at the university after making a complaint.

The march, which is cheerful and somewhat classical in style, lasts less than four minutes. It is the crowning achievement of Sibelius’s degree ceremony music.