Songs lie at the heart of Jean Sibelius’s creative world. Yet for many listeners outside the Nordic countries, he remains an exclusively orchestral composer, whose musical contribution resides solely in his symphonies, tone poems and the violin concerto. This is a poor reflection of the true content of Sibelius’s work and of the role that song played in his artistic life. Sibelius in fact composed songs throughout his professional career: his first published work was a setting of “Serenad” (Serenade) by his favourite poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, and among his very final manuscript drafts was an orchestration of “Kom nu hit, död” (Come away, come away, death) from his music for William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The stylistic diversity and range of his songs is remarkable, from the childlike innocence and naivety of the Christmas songs (to texts by Zacharias Topelius), which Sibelius designated his opus 1, to the windswept grandeur and expansiveness of his response to Viktor Rydberg’s visionary “Höstkväll” (Autumn evening), op. 38 no. 1. Sibelius’s songs can express comforting familiarity, as in “Demanten på marssnön” (The Diamond upon the March Snow), op. 36 no. 6, or the deepest erotic longing and desire, as in “Till Frigga” (To Frigga), op. 13 no. 6. They can offer a penetrating insight into psychological angst and inner turmoil, such as “Aus Banger Brust” (From the anxious heart), op. 50 no. 4, or a glittering, ethereal beauty, such as “Norden” (The North), op. 90 no. 1. Songs hence encompass the full emotional spectrum of Sibelius’s expressive range as intensively as his purely instrumental works.

One of the reasons for the importance of song in Sibelius’s output, as Gustav Djupsjöbacka’s profoundly thoughtful and reflective survey reveals, is his intimate sympathy for the symbolism and language of his poetic texts. Sibelius was an avid reader: the centrality of literature in his grammar school curriculum as a child stayed with him throughout his life, and as an adult Sibelius immersed himself in both classic poetry and the work of avant-garde writers such as Richard Dehmel.

Emerging Finnish Literature

The bilingual character of Finnish society and culture as it developed during the nineteenth century has been sketched in the previous chapters. Increasing the use of Finnish language in education, administration and ecclesiastic matters was a long and painful process that greatly impacted speakers of both Finnish and Swedish. This chapter will sketch the development of nineteenth-century Finnish-language poetry as part of this larger evolution as well as Sibelius’s relationship thereto, before discussing the specific Finnish texts that he set for solo voice.

The Reformation had shaken the power of the Catholic Church and created a demand for translations of devotional literature into national languages, though Latin continued to be the language of the learned. Mikael Agricola (ca. 1510–1557) laid the foundation for the written Finnish language when he presented a Finnish translation of the Bible in 1548, a feat which earned him the title “the father of Finnish literature.” Over the next few centuries, Agricola had few followers within the clergy, and thus Finnish-language literature remained undeveloped. From the seventeenth century on, priests and civil servants were educated at the Royal Academy of Åbo, founded in 1640, and its language was Latin. Although Henrik Gabriel Porthan, a professor at the Royal Academy in the late eighteenth century, came to be known as “the father of Finnish history” (see chapter 1), it was not until 1851 that the first chair in Finnish language and Finnish literature at the Imperial Alexander University in Helsinki was established: a prerequisite for the development of the language and culture. The first newspaper to be published in Finnish was Suomalaiset Tieto-Sanomat (Finnish Information News) in 1775, but longer running Finnish-language publications did not emerge until the second half of the nineteenth century.

Establishing a Finnish language culture was closely tied to national and political aspirations. “The early Emperors were well aware of the importance of distancing the Finns from their previous Swedish identity and heritage: fostering or promoting an alternative Finnish nationalism was one way of combatting possible revanchism and rebellious sentiments. Consequently, the national university benefited greatly from Russian administrative measures.” The discovery of and interest in folk poetry in the spirit of Porthan strongly supported the development of a Finnish-language culture.

Josephson – Sweden’s Rembrandt and Matisse

The fact that Sibelius set ten poems by Ernst Josephson (1851–1906) (in eleven songs) is remarkable for two reasons. First, the amateur poet Josephson’s output is not extensive: he published only two small collections. Second, the themes of his poems are neither idealistic nor pantheistic, unlike so many of Runeberg’s and Rydberg’s; rather, they are expressionistic, almost grotesque, studies of tormented souls or curious tales with macabre elements. Josephson’s simple but effective strophes have nothing of the refined poetic language of Viktor Rydberg, Carl Snoilsky or Oscar Levertin either; they are more reminiscent of notebook sketches than thoroughly elaborated, polished verses. His rhymes sometimes seem rather forced, even clumsy. Whether Sibelius’s occupation with Josephson’s poetry (1908–9) was a catalyst for his “introverted,” expressionistic period or a result thereof is a chicken-egg dilemma. The fact is that it coincides with his break from the classicistic Third Symphony to the Fourth.

Ernst Josephson’s name is part of Swedish cultural history, but considerably more so in the sphere of painting than poetry. He grew up in a Jewish family in Stockholm with relatives, active in both music and theater. Ernst was ten when his father died, and he had a close relationship with his mother. Still a teenager, he began his studies at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. As a youth of twenty, he is reported to have exclaimed: “I am going to be Sweden’s Rembrandt – or die!”

In November 1875, he left for Central Europe, studying and copying the art of the great masters, primarily in Paris. In a poem, “Skål för Paris” (A Toast for Paris), he declared:

In 1876 he lived in Holland, mainly in Amsterdam, where he studied and copied paintings by Rembrandt and other Flemish masters. Here he was commissioned to paint a portrait of an eighteen-year-old lady, Ketty Rindskopf, with whom he fell passionately in love. His affection for her was never returned. In the fall of 1877 he continued to Italy, where he spent almost two years in Florence and Rome.

The theme of this book is the corpus and poetic environment of Jean Sibelius’s art songs. Sibelius’s powerful music has found admirers all over the world, but his international reputation is largely based on his symphonies, symphonic poems and violin concerto. The vocal works have remained at the margins, even for art song enthusiasts. In large part, this is due to the language barrier – Sibelius mainly set texts in Swedish and Finnish, both of them marginal European languages – but it is also due to his unconventional aesthetics, breaking away from the nineteenth- century German traditions that dominate the lied canon. In his own way, Sibelius belongs among the innovators of the lied tradition like Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and, finally, Arnold Schoenberg: fin de siècle composers embracing the rise of modernity. Sibelius’s more than one hundred art songs form a significant portion of his musical works, much too important to be neglected.

The literature on Sibelius, his life and his compositions, is extensive, spanning from early personal and anecdotal biographies (Furuhjelm, von Torne, Ekman, Johnson, Levas, Gray, Downes) to more recent books, such as more detailed biographies by Robert Layton, Andrew Barnett, Tomi Mäkelä, Marc Vignal, Ferruccio Tammaro and so forth. Erik Tawaststjerna’s five volumes on Sibelius in Swedish (compressed to three volumes in Robert Layton’s English translation) were groundbreaking when they appeared (1965–88), as he was the first scholar able to gain access to Sibelius’s diaries and other primary sources, and Tawaststjerna’s work has remained foundational to this day. Fabian Dahlström’s comprehensive catalogue Jean Sibelius: Thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (2003) was the first publication of a series of important documents, a goldmine for the Sibelius scholar. It was followed by Sibelius’s diary (2005) and his correspondence with Count Axel Carpelan (2010) and Adolf Paul (2018), all three with extensive commentaries. Sibelius’s correspondence with his wife, Aino, was published in three volumes, the first two in Finnish versions by Suvi-Sirkku Talas (2001, 2003), and the third (2007) including their original mix of languages, Swedish and Finnish. Glenda Dawn Goss’s book Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland (2009) equals Tawaststjerna’s work in its profound descriptions of the political and linguistic context in which Sibelius became a national icon.

Further Runeberg Songs

In 1907, Sibelius returned to Runeberg’s 1845 cycle “A Little Fate,” which had inspired him twice before (I Have Since Stopped Asking and But my Bird Is Nowhere to Be Seen). He now picked the poem “Hundra vägar har min tanke” (A Hundred Ways My Thoughts Will Wander).

“Hundra vägar,” a poem of fourteen lines, is the sixth of ten poems in this Kalevala meter cycle. At this stage in the cycle the young, pious girl confesses that her prayers in church are constantly distracted by her warm feelings for her beloved. Being in love has opened her eyes to the beauty of creation and led her to more fully enjoy its wonders. The sun, the stars, the flowers, the trees – all are signposts showing the way to God, the wellspring of love. Near this source, she realizes the nearness of her lover, too. In Runeberg’s world there is no conflict between God’s love of mankind and worshipping nature, rather they intensify each other. Love is a divine gift, and the experience of love is directly connected to perceiving the beauty of creation (as also described in “Summer Night” later in this chapter). And, as we saw in “The First Kiss,” heaven meets earth in the blissful moment in which love is born.

It is impossible to interpret these lines without taking note of a remarkable literary polemic on religious issues in the newspaper Helsingfors Morgonblad, in 1837–38. Runeberg published in it three allegorical short stories, Den gamle trädgårdsmästarens brev (Letters from the Old Gardener), in which he described the work of a gardener and his young daughter Rosa, who enjoyed tending the garden as part of God’s creation. Having gone through a religious revival, she learned of her sinful character, lost interest in gardening and disrupted the cordial relationship she had had with her father. Concerned only about her salvation, she slowly withered and died. The allegory was directed against the life-changing attitude brought about by strict Pietism.

In a response to the published letters, Lars Stenback, an old friend of Runeberg and a gifted poet himself, vehemently attacked Runeberg. Stenback (see also chapter 4) accused the author of the letters of focusing only on the earthly, and, in his eyes, Runeberg’s pantheism was idolatry.

Topelius – Historian and Fairytale-Teller

By general consensus, the three great national figures of nineteenth-century Finland were Snellman, Runeberg and Lönnrot, each predominant in their specific field. However, to these we should add Zacharias Topelius (1818–98), their junior by more than ten years. Topelius had a significant influence on the national movement through his history writing, primarily via the groundbreaking Boken om vårt land (The Book of our Country), published in 1875. This popular textbook’s presentation of Finland’s history, nature and geography, and its illustrations, had an enormous impact (in both Swedish and Finnish) on the many generations of schoolchildren who read it from its publication until the 1950s. Topelius had earlier published Finland framställt i teckningar (Finland Presented in Drawings, 1845–52), which served a similar function. “Topelius was the popularizer, who brought the great fate of Finnishness to the public enlightenment and made the grace of God into a persistent component of public Finnish nationalism.”

Topelius was born in the little town of Uusikaarlepyy (Nykarleby) in Ostrobothnia on the west coast, not far from Runeberg’s birthplace. Like his fellows, he was sent away to school at an early age, first to Oulu (Uleåborg) and then to Helsinki, where the university had been transferred in 1828. For a period in 1832 he even boarded at the Runebergs’ and, as an adolescent, was able to share in the discussions of the Saturday Circle (see chapter 2). He studied history, defending his thesis on ancient Finnish wedding rites in 1847, and was appointed professor of Finnish history at the university in 1854 and finally rector of the Imperial Alexander University (1875–78).

During his studies, Topelius became actively engaged in student organizations known for serving as cradles of political awareness. At the age of twenty-four he became editor of the newspaper Helsingfors Tidningar, which he reformed and developed into a modern journal during his twenty years in the position (1841–60). However, his broad and significant impact on journalism and his social reportage, including political opinion formation, was not fully acknowledged until the twentieth century.

In addition to public education (Volksbildung), journalism and scholarly activities, Topelius was active as a poet. His first collection of poems, called Ljungblommor (Heather Flowers), appeared in 1845, but he had published his first poem in Helsingfors Morgonblad (Runeberg’s journal) in 1838.

Adolf Paul — The Devoted Enemy

Sibelius wrote incidental music throughout his active composing period, despite his increasing annoyance with the restrictions that text imposed on his music. The early Scenic Music for a Festival and Lottery in Aid of Education in the Province of Viipuri (1893) had included vocal parts, but the first incidental music that actually contained songs was the music he composed for King Christian II (1898) by his old study comrade and “contentious brother” Adolf Paul (1863–1943), full name Adolf Georg Wiedersheim-Paul.

Sibelius had known Adolf Paul from their student years in Helsinki in the 1880s. Paul was born in Sweden, moved to the southwest part of Finland and began studying piano at the Helsinki Music Institute in 1886. When Ferruccio Busoni arrived in Helsinki – he taught in Helsinki from 1888 to 1890 – Paul studied with him for one year before moving to Weimar in 1889. Adolf Paul’s musical career soon turned into a writing career, and for the rest of his life he stayed mainly in Berlin. He published about twenty novels, including En bok om en människa (mentioned in chapter 1), twenty plays and some autobiographical stories. Many of his works deal with mental disorders, sexual deviation and spectacular crimes, and his collection of short stories, The Ripper, was banned by the censor.

In these early Helsinki years, Busoni, Adolf Paul, Sibelius and the brothers Armas and Eero Jarnefelt formed a group, calling themselves the Leskovits after the name of Busoni’s dog, Lesko. The friends usually met in a cafe for discussions, improvisations and the critique of compositions. Sibelius dedicated two early piano compositions to Paul: Andantino in E major JS 41 and Florestan JS 82. Despite Paul’s early removal to Germany and his later Nazi sympathies, the two remained in contact throughout their lives. Sibelius often visited the Paul family in Berlin, and their familiar, sincere and revealing correspondence was published in 2016 with a commentary by Fabian Dahlström. The Ainola library contains a seemingly complete collection of Paul’s literary works.

Their most intensive common enterprise was King Christian II. The main character of the play was the contradictory Danish king (1481–1559), in Denmark called “Kristian the Good” and in Sweden “Kristian the Tyrant.”

List of Sibelius’s Songs by Opus Number

Op. 1

1. Nu står jul vid snöig port (Topelius)

2. Nu så kommer julen (Topelius)

3. Det mörknar ute (Topelius)

4. Julvisa (Topelius)

5. On hanget korkeat (Joukahainen)

Op. 3 Arioso (Runeberg)

Op. 7 Kullervon valitus

Op. 13

1. Under strandens granar (Runeberg)

2. Kyssens hopp (Runeberg)

3. Hjärtats morgon (Runeberg)

4. Våren flyktar hastigt (Runeberg)

5. Drömmen (Runeberg)

6. Till Frigga (Runeberg)

7. Jägargossen (Runeberg)

Op. 17

1. Sen har jag ej frågat mera (Runeberg)

2. Sov in! (Tavaststjerna)

3. Fågellek (Tavaststjerna)

4. Vilse (Tavaststjerna)

5. En slanda (Levertin)

6. Illalle (Forsman-Koskimies)

7. Lastu lainehilla (Forsman-Koskimies)

Op. 27 no. 4 Sången om korsspindeln (Paul)

Op. 33 Koskenlaskijan morsiamet (A. Oksanen)

Op. 35

1. Jubal (Josephson)

2. Teodora (Gripenberg)

Op. 36

1. Svarta rosor (Josephson)

2. Men min fågel märks dock icke (Runeberg)

3. Bollspelet vid Trianon (Froding)

4. Säv, säv, susa (Fröding)

5. Marssnön (Wecksell)

6. Demanten på marssnön (Wecksell)

Op. 37

1. Den första kyssen (Runeberg)

2. Lasse liten (Topelius)

3. Soluppgång (Hedberg)

4. Var det en dröm? (Wecksell)

5. Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte (Runeberg)

Op. 38

1. Höstkväll (Rydberg)

2. På verandan vid havet (Rydberg)

3. I natten (Rydberg)

4. Harpolekaren och hans son (Rydberg)

5. Jag ville jag vore i Indialand (Froding)

Op. 46 no. 4 De trenne blinda systrar (Maeterlinck/Gripenberg)

Op. 50

1. Lenzgesang (Fitger)

2. Sehnsucht (Weiss)

3. Im Feld ein Mädchen singt (Susman)

4. Aus banger Brust (Dehmel)

5. Die stille Stadt (Dehmel)

6. Rosenlied (Ritter)

(Op. 51 no. 2b) Solitude (Procope)

Op. 57

1. Älven och snigeln (Josephson)

2. En blomma stod vid vagen (Josephson)

3. Kvarnhjulet (Josephson)

4. Maj (Josephson)

5. Jag är ett träd (Josephson)

6. Hertig Magnus (Josephson)

7. Vänskapens blomma (Josephson)

8. Näcken (Josephson)

Op. 60

1. Kom nu hit, död!

Messiaen’s debt to Indian and Greek music – in particular, to the 120 desitalas systematised by the thirteenth-century theorist Sar?gadeva – is well known. The composer’s encounter with the ‘rythmes hindous’ in an encyclopedia entry led him to breakthroughs in his compositional technique from the 1930s, as he derived innovative rhythmical principles and, later, mystical associations from the rhythms over the course of his career. This chapter proposes new and broader perspectives on this subject, situating Messiaen within a history of early-twentieth-century French musical and musicological engagement with Indian music theory – a lineage including composers like Tournemire, Roussel, and Emmanuel – and complicating existing accounts of Messiaen’s rhythmic experimentation by using newly available sketch materials.

This chapter examines Messiaen’s engagement with Japan. French artists’ fascination with Japan has a long history, dating back at least to the Paris World Exposition of 1867, and in return many Japanese artists – including composers – have discovered a reciprocal affinity with aspects of French aesthetic sensibility. It was therefore entirely to be expected that Messiaen, as a French composer with a long-standing interest in Eastern cultures, would succumb to this same fascination after his visit to Japan in 1962, which resulted in the composition of his Sept Haïkaï – and that his work would also exert a profound influence on several Japanese composers of the postwar generation, above all Toru Takemitsu.

Acknowledging Messiaen’s occasional but consistently appreciative references to theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, especially with respect to the theological aesthetics as presented in The Glory of the Lord (Herrlichkeit), this chapter provides a theological and Trinitarian description of Balthasar’s notion of doxa, or “glory,” which may well have influenced Messiaen’s compositions. For Balthasar, “glory” as a theological concept is neither merely aesthetic nor religiously triumphalist, but remains tangled together with transcendental beauty in Western metaphysics, theophany, kenoticism ( “ self-emptying”), a cruciform Christology, eschatology, and apocalyptic thought.

Messiaen held the titular position as organist at L’église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris for more than sixty years. He recorded most of his own works on this instrument, so this chapter begins by noting the importance of these recordings, and in particular the way they proscribed a “manner of performance” for his organ works that would be dominant for more than fifty years. It then discusses recordings by other organists on other instruments, and how they differ from the composer’s recordings. The discussion focuses on those who have recorded the entire repertoire, but also considers notable recordings of single pieces.

The Paris Conservatoire played a pivotal role in shaping Olivier Messiaen’s music and career. His compositional technique resulted from his student years there, and he later found creative stimulation and financial stability in the same institution as the teacher of hundreds of future composers and musicians. Indeed, Messiaen spent most of his adult life at the Conservatoire. This chapter examines Messiaen’s relationship with the Paris Conservatoire and focusses on the way it shaped French musical culture, the institution, his students, and Messiaen's musical style.

This chapter examines Messiaen’s long involvement with the USA. It discusses commissions, his relationship with notable figures, his teaching there, and the genesis and performance of both the Turangalîla-Symphonie and Des canyons aux étoiles…, including Messiaen’s admiration for the mountains in Utah. It also explores Messiaen as a performer of his own music in America (he premiered the Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte-Trinité), the commissioning and performance of the Livre du Saint-Sacrement, and the orchestral éclairs sur l’Au-delà….

This chapter draws on the author’s experience as a musicologist, philosopher, and ornithologist to examine different perspectives on birdsong in Messiaen, including verisimilitude, ecology, and Messiaen’s practice of notation. It places Messiaen’s birdsong in the context of his thought and examines the meaning of this important formant and creative source in Messiaen’s work.

The spectralist composers in Messiaen’s class of 1971#–2 are an important part of Messiaen’s legacy. This chapter addresses how Messiaen’s work was essential to the creative thinking of Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey. It focusses on what these composers absorbed from Messiaen and how they qualified, extended, and enriched his legacy. In particular it understands these composers through the lens of an ecology of listening in which the concerns of the listener are an active formant in the compositional thinking.

This chapter details and expands current research on Messiaen’s response to, engagement with, and inculcation of Surrealism in his music. In particular it examines the poetic and ethnological context of Messiaen’s work, and also introduces a discussion of the occult and psychoanalytical trauma as Surrealist contexts for Messiaen’s work in the late 1940s.

This chapter examines Messiaen’s relationship with the composer Jacques Charpentier, his student and the only guest (apart from Charpentier’s wife) at Messiaen’s second marriage in 1961. Using previously unpublished documents and photographs, it shows how Charpentier borrowed and extended ideas of Indian music from Messiaen and through his own studies of Karnatic music.