Six Finnish Folk Songs, JS 81 – Edition Breitkopf 9531
Four Lyric Pieces, Op. 74 – Edition Breitkopf 9529

The sheet music for two new piano works by Sibelius has been issued by Breitkopf & Härtel. The new publications use the critically accurate Urtext edition, edited by Kari Kilpeläinen (Op. 74, from Vol. 2/SON 612) and Anna Pulkkis (JS 81, from Vol. 4/SON 623). As such they include an introductory note and some of the critical commentary from the original JSW volumes, but not the complete supporting material from the parent issue. The commentaries here are, however, more than adequate for the purposes of informed and conscientious performance.

The six folk songs that Sibelius arranged for piano in 1902–03 are very much of an exception in his music. Not so much on account of their length (they are short, shorter than average even by the standards of Sibelius’s miniatures), nor on account of their harmonic language (Axel Carpelan proposed ‘a new harmonization, a clothing which turns the traditional songs upside-down’) but rather because they are among the very few works in which he made direct use of folk melodies. They thus sound nothing like his other works from the same period, such as the Second Symphony. Sibelius actually worked on a seventh folk song, Minun kultani kaunis on, vaikk’ on kaitaluinen (My beloved is beautiful, even though her frame is slender; not to be confused with the first of the JS 81 set, Minun kultani kaunis on, sen suu kuin auran kukka [(My beloved is beautiful, her mouth like a corn-cockle]), but for unknown reasons it was not included when the collection was first published in 1903.

The Op. 74 pieces date from 1914 and are thus contemporary with the tone poem The Oceanides. This is perhaps most clearly evident in the rippling, wave-like figures in the first piece, Ekloge, and the hints of Impressionism in Sanfter Westwind. The last two pieces reflect Sibelius’s lifelong interest in dance forms; Auf dem Tanzvergnügen is a polka and Im alten Heim a nostalgic waltz; the title of the last piece alludes to a poem by Karl August Tavaststjerna, I gammalt hem (In the Old Home). After the more abstract Sonatinas (Op. 67) and Rondinos (Op. 68) the Op. 74 set marks a change in tone, a shift towards the more descriptive miniatures that would dominate Sibelius’s piano music in the years to follow.

The new piano publications cost €17.90 each.

Review copies kindly supplied by Breitkopf & Härtel

Coming soon in the Complete Works (JSW) series
|dited by the National Library of Finland and the Sibelius Society of Finland
Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 82 (1915 version), edited by Timo Virtanen
SON 641 | ISMN: 979-0-004-80396-7