Op. 112 Tapiola, symphonic poem for orchestra. Completed 1926. First public performance in New York, 26th December 1926 (New York Symphonic Society, conducted by Walter Damrosch).

Jean Sibelius’s orchestral poems culminate in Tapiola in 1926. This was Sibelius’s last masterpiece for orchestra. In August 1927 he would send to his publisher the suites which he had prepared from the incidental music for The Tempest, but the suites do not meet the expectations aroused by the original incidental music. In contrast, Tapiola is one of Sibelius’s most original and ingenious masterpieces, and one of the most remarkable compositions of the 20th century.

Tapiola was a commissioned work. In January 1926 Sibelius consented to write a symphonic poem for the New York conductor Walter Damrosch The work was to have a duration of 15-20 minutes. The economic situation of the composer had already improved, and he pampered himself by travelling to Rome to compose his Kalevala-based material. The journey also included a holiday on the island of Capri. Sibelius’s letters from Rome reveal that the working title of the composition was originally “The Wood” (i.e. in English). Aino Sibelius corrected this to “The Forest”.

Tapiola was completed at Ainola at the end of August 1926, but in September Sibelius sent a telegram to the publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel, asking to get the score back for corrections. His usual habit had been to make the final corrections to the score after the première, which he conducted himself. Now that possibility did not exist, since Damrosch would be conducting the première in New York.

The correction work began to bore him. “I regret accepting this ‘commission’. ‘The Tempest‘ and ‘Väinö’s Song‘ are ‘commissions’ as well. Am I made for this?” he wondered, writing also that he was drinking whisky.

Sibelius motivated himself sufficiently to make the few necessary corrections to the work after his last trip abroad, i.e. when he conducted an orchestra in Copenhagen. His self-criticism had not yet increased to the point of impossibility. Damrosch received the score in November, in good time for the first public performance of the work. Sibelius also sent to the publisher an explanation of the position of Tapio in Finnish mythology. The publisher prepared from this a quatrain motto for the published score. The original quatrain suggested by Sibelius can be translated as follows:

The work was performed for the first time in New York on Boxing Day and the reception was rather poor. Even Olin Downes, the enthusiastic Sibelian from the New York Times, was perplexed, although he wrote an appreciative review of the work. Tapiola gained even less understanding from the New York Herald Tribune’s Lawrence Gilman.

In Finland, Kajanus conducted the work on 25th April 1927. On this occasion the overture to The Tempest and the seventh symphony also received their first performances in Finland. According to the composer Leevi Madetoja, Tapiola was a “multifaceted” work:

“At times we hear the melancholy, repeated call of an elf, at times a lonely wanderer in the woods is giving vent to the pain of life. A beautiful work, technically close to the seventh symphony.”

Heikki Klemetti was equally poetic. According to him Tapiola contained the scent of the marshes, the flight of an eagle, strange creatures and the rich poetry of the woodlands. Hufvudstadsbladet’s Karl Ekman was the most analytical. He noticed the variations which develop from the “initial melody” of the work.

Indeed, Tapiola is a monothematic whole – although there has been disagreement as to whether the core motif can actually be considered a theme. Erkki Salmenhaara argues that it is not. In his view, the “core” motif gives rise to at least four central, interconnected basic motifs. These, in their turn, produce “around thirty highly characteristic, original and inimitably Sibelian musical motifs”.

Veijo Murtomäki, on the other hand, sees at the beginning of the work a melodic progression which generates all the motifs of the work. He backs up his claim with the help of a table (Goss 1993, p. 155). Murtomäki sees the work as opening out both through an application of sonata form and also via the principle of variation. This would support Sibelius’s words that Tapiola is written in “sonata form”.

The core motif is heard in the strings right at the beginning of the work.

Excerpt from the score of Tapiola.
Breitkopf & Härtel.

The response of the wind instruments emphasises the desolate atmosphere. A sudden blast from the brasses starts an Allegro moderato episode. The ambiguity continues as the music hovers between B minor and G sharp minor. G sharp can also be interpreted as a note on the Dorian scale, with B as the key note.

The response of the woodwinds brings us to a sequence to which Sibelius gave a programmatic interpretation in his old age. He told his son-in-law Jussi Jalas that “here the wood goblins and animals appear”.

Excerpt from the score of Tapiola.
Breitkopf & Härtel.

These motifs later become sunnier and more playful. The shadows grow longer, and fragments gradually develop into a more hymn-like sequence. Here the strings have a noble sound, playing in the high register in a truly Sibelian fashion – not unlike parts of the seventh symphony. A rumble in the brass suddenly changes the atmosphere. It is like a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder

Excerpt from the score of Tapiola.
Breitkopf & Härtel.

Excerpt from the score of Tapiola.
Breitkopf & Härtel.

Now a more lively allegro section begins. In the allegro moderato episode the pulse is slower and deeper. We have come to the last great build-up. The tremolos in the strings and the roaring of the brass show Sibelius at his most dramatic and original.

Excerpt from the score of Tapiola.
Breitkopf & Härtel.

Excerpt from the score of Tapiola.
Breitkopf & Härtel.

This leaves us with the coda, in which a great master unwittingly takes leave of his favourite instrument – the orchestra. He would continue to work on his eighth symphony for decades. But Tapiola would be his last orchestral poem, and the composer was never satisfied enough with his symphony to be able to complete it.

Tapiola was to remain Sibelius’s last great masterpiece. “Even if Sibelius had written nothing else, this one work would entitle him to a place among the greatest masters of all time,” wrote Cecil Gray.