Talk:Kuolema

Comment

Kuolema... Kuolema...
The whispering words literally crawled among the dead trunks of the solemn woods. Tangled and twisted with the mist and haze, just at the outskirts of Rovaniemi far up North, she emerges like a fiercing wolf scorching wind and fire with her shiny life-taker sword.
I can hear you coming for me.
Is it the end or just the beginning? Nevertheless, I smile and wait. Coming from you it can only be good.
Lempiä te, Aki
--Akis g 05:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The music - it's complicated

This has a complicated history, and I don’t think what we have at the moment quite captures the sequence of events. As far as I can work out, the following is the chronology (I’ve taken this mainly from [1]):

• 1903 – Sibelius wrote six numbers for the play, which were performed 2 December 1903
  • 1. Valse triste
  • 2. Paavali's song
  • 3. Elsa's song
  • 4. Andante (describes a flock of cranes; only nine bars in length; later Arvid Järnefelt made corrections to the scene so that Paavali hears the voice of his mother in the birds)
  • 5. Moderato
  • 6. Andante ma non tanto.

• 1904 – he revised Valse Triste and it was performed in Helsinki, 25 April 1904

• 1905 - Valse Triste was published separately as Op. 44

• 1906 – he combined numbers 3 and 4 into a single piece, and revised the music, which he called Scene with Cranes. This was performed in Vaasa, 14 December 1906

• 1906 – he wrote Canzonetta (at that stage called Rondino der Liebenden) for string orchestra. It was adapted from the original music for Kuolema. I don't know exactly where it came from, but it must have had its origins in numbers 2, 5 or 6. It was not used or performed until 1911.

• 1911 – a revised version of the play was staged. For this, Sibelius wrote a revised version of Canzonetta, and a new piece, Valse romantique. These were "first performed" in Helsinki at the National Theatre, 8 March 1911. (This could mean they were performed in concert, or it could mean that was the date the play was presented; the source is not clear about this.) The music for the revised play consisted only of three pieces: Valse triste (revised version, Op. 44), Canzonetta (revised version) and Valse romantique. Canzonetta and Valse romantique were published together as Op. 62a, but without a generic title.

• 1973 – Scene with Cranes was published, as Op. 44/2, and Valse triste was retrospectively renumbered as Op. 44/1.

We currently suggest that he published Valse triste, Scene with Cranes, Canzonetta and Valse romantique as a unified suite. But he never did that. It is sometimes recorded or performed as a suite - because it represents the totality of what remains of the music for Kuolema - but that’s not what Sibelius intended. It is a not unreasonable rewriting of history, but a rewriting of history nonetheless. We know nothing of the original version of Valse triste, the original version of Canzonetta, or numbers 2, 5 and 6 of the original music. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)