Op. 55 Night Ride and Sunrise, tone poem. Completed in 1908; premiered in St. Petersburg on January 23, 1909 (conducted by Alexander Siloti).

“Night Ride and Sunrise. Riding from Suojärvi to Värtsilä in the moonlight through the night forest.”

This is how conductor Jussi Jalas summarized Sibelius’s revelation on a note in July 1942, in which he told the programmatic origin of his tone poem premiered in 1909. Sibelius had ridden to Värtsilä in the summer of 1892 on a poetry-collecting trip in Karelia. The night atmosphere had lingered in his subconscious for a long time. However, from Suojärvi to Värtsilä was a long distance, and researcher Markku Hartikainen has suggested that Sibelius’s night journey was more likely a ride from Soanlahti to Värtsilä.

There might have been other inspirations. Sibelius sketched the basic theme of the composition as early as the spring of 1901 in Rome, according to his memory after seeing the Colosseum in the moonlight. Sibelius’s secretary, Santeri Levas, speculated that the composition was also related to a night horse ride from Kerava to Helsinki at the turn of the century. Sibelius recalled in 1953 that the sunrise during that ride was quite magnificent, with the sky bathed in colors.

The work was completed in November 1908, as the first orchestral work after a difficult throat surgery. He entrusted the premiere to Alexander Siloti in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, Siloti made cuts to the score and did not follow the composer’s performance instructions. The reviews were devastating. For example, Novoje Vremja asked disdainfully, “who is actually riding and for what reason.” According to Slovo, Sibelius was characterized by “edginess, roughness, clumsiness in harmonic turns, monotony of rhythms, and the dull coloring of orchestration.” According to the newspaper, the work had “very little success.”

The throat surgery may have influenced Sibelius’s change in style. The orchestration’s brilliance in Pohjolan tytär (Pohjola’s Daughter) is a thing of the past; the expression is rougher and more ascetic, focusing on the essential. After a violent introduction, the violas and cellos present the riding rhythm.

Excerpt from the score of Night Ride and Sunrise.
Robert Lienau Musikverlag.

The secondary theme is introduced by the woodwinds, and Erik Tawaststjerna has noted connections between the orchestration and the adagio section of the Second Symphony.

The ride becomes furious, and the night shows its most frightening aspects. The persistent trochaic rhythm brings even minimalist tones to the work. In the middle of the piece, the strings announce the rider’s release: the forces of darkness slowly retreat, and the sun rises.

Excerpt from the score of Night Ride and Sunrise.
Robert Lienau Musikverlag

Night Ride and Sunrise has not received the unanimous appreciation of researchers. Erkki Salmenhaara has stated bluntly that the work does not reach the level of Pohjola’s Daughter, nor has Sibelius’s introverted contemplation at dawn crystallized into a “truly final form.”

The key is precisely in the word introverted. With this work and the Voces intimae string quartet, Sibelius had begun an exploration of his inner self. An increasingly personal expression would bring astonishing masterpieces in the following years: the Fourth Symphony, The Bard, Luonnotar, and The Oceanides.