Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 11/22/2010, uploaded on 05/19/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Today, Jean Sibelius’s fame largely rests upon his symphonies and other orchestral works. However, the composer produced, at a fairly regular pace throughout his career, many small scale works for piano and chamber groups. In many cases, these miniatures were often served as a respite while he toiled away at his grander works. Yet, in others, they were vehicles for his own musings and experimentations. Such were the Four Pieces for violin and piano published in 1929 as Sibelius’s opus 115. An accomplished violinist, Sibelius felt he had begun to late in life to become a great virtuoso. Nonetheless, he made use of his intimate knowledge of the instrument when composing his many chamber pieces, as well as his sole concerto.

The opening piece, “Auf der Heide” (“On the Moor”), opens with serene chords, initially in E minor but quickly gaining the blithe key of G major. The melody allotted to the soloist is charming in its simplicity, and of an almost folk-like character. However, the piano provides several moments of interest, in particular, the dramatic modulation into the far-distant key of D-flat major for the piece’s central episode, and then the rippling arpeggios that accompanying the soloist’s fragmented melody.

Second in the set is “Ballade.” It begins with an elegiac E minor melody in the violin, while the piano provides an accompaniment of ear-catching discords, somewhat reminiscent of the late style of Franz Liszt. The gloomy air of this opening section ultimately gives way to a grandiose Allegro in E major, which makes ample use of the harmonic capabilities of the violin.

Beginning with soft and tranquil sounds of the minor seventh chord, “Humoresque” is a curious little piece that proceeds blithely on its way. The modal flavorings of the harmony also further add to the piece’s carefree and innocent air. Like the previous piece, Sibelius here makes use again of the harmonic capabilities of the violin, but goes even further as to make the passages examples of imitative polyphony.

In the final piece, “Die Glocken” (“The Bells”), the piano imitates the sounds of bells, while the soloist weaves a melody of scales and semitone oscillations. Beginning presumably in E major, modal colorings noticeably alter the harmonic shading of the piece as it did in the previous piece. Effecting a slow decent, the music ultimately comes to rest on a tonic of C-sharp, as the soloist and accompaniment together bring the piece to a somewhat startling end.       Joseph DuBose

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 4 Pieces for Violin and Piano, op. 115     Jean Sibelius

The existence of Sibelius's later opuses cannot be explained by a lack of money, for at this stage the composer was a wealthy man and free from debt. And it is difficult to believe that the last two violin opuses would have been written with the general public in mind. On the contrary, the violin works published in 1929 are enigmatic experiments with material in the style of Beethoven's late bagatelles or Liszt's piano compositions from the 1880s.

Die Glocken  ("The Bells") is one of Sibelius's boldest pieces as regards his organization of pitch. It is also extremely difficult to explain. There are bells in the partly unison piano texture, but the modally ambiguous opening goes through many transmutations until C sharp is established as the centre.

Emma Steele

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.