His largest existing score is the Kullervo Symphony of 1892, a five movement work with male voice choir and soloists, telling another tragic tale from the Kalevala, and giving us a glimpse of what a Sibelian opera might have sounded like, had he ever composed one.

Sibelius’ early works have an expansive romanticism, often expressed on canvasses much larger than he employed later in life. He had expressed some uncertainty over the various earlier versions of the Fifth, and his death in 1919 was a major motivation to Sibelius to find the form of his greatest symphony that we know and love today, as a tribute to his lost friend. Sibelius great friend and musical confidante, Axel Carpelan, read the composer’s scores and shared his thoughts with great care. How many great works of art in other spheres, literary and artistic, have undergone many and substantial revisions before achieving greatness? Perhaps this is to misunderstand the compositional phenomenon, however. One wonders how Sibelius could have got it so “wrong” at first, and how “right” at the end of what was evidently a tortuous process.

The first version exists and to hear it is extraordinary. First composed in 1914, Sibelius revised the Fifth in 1916 and again, substantially, three years later. So total is its symmetry and balance, quality of inspiration and coherence of style, that it may come as a surprise to learn that the symphony we revere today is the third and final version of the work. Those of you, who like me have known and loved this symphony for as long as you can remember, may share my view that it appears to have been composed in an instant, as a complete and whole organic work. Sibelius Symphony No.5 in E flat major, op.82 Jonathan Small

Sibelius 5