Great Finn

As native to Finland as its fjords and forests, its long dark winters and its northern lights is Composer Jean Julius Christian Sibelius. But not until last winter in Helsingfors did this aging national hero hear his music played exactly as he conceived it. Conductor of that extraordinary concert was a young U.S. citizen named Werner Janssen. Because the great Sibelius pronounced him great, Conductor Janssen got his chance last fortnight to lead the New York Philharmonic-Symphony (TIME, Nov. 19).

Werner Janssen could have had no higher recommendation. In the past ten years the name of Jean Julius Christian Sibelius has spread far beyond Finland's narrow borders. Authoritative critics now rate him as one of the world's great composers and respect him all the more for his quiet independent ways. Few great musicians have refused to advertise themselves, to bask in the hot spotlight of the world's leading music capitals. But Sibelius, who was born of Finnish farming stock, nursed on Finnish folksongs, has remained resolutely Finnish to this day. In his course of study he spent a year in Berlin, two years in Vienna. The impressions soon faded. At 27 he was back in Helsingfors teaching violin and theory at the local conservatory. Five years later the Finnish Government subsidized him so that he could give all his time to composition.

To the world Sibelius' music seemed at first either cheap or grimly forbidding. Critics who called him cheap pointed to the bombastic Finlandia or the lush Valse Triste which he wrote as incidental music for a play by his brother-in-law. Forbidding he was, in his way. He dovetailed into no set school. His scoring seemed classical but he used short spare motifs which he often left undeveloped. His pride in his symphonies was to scorn all claptrap effects, all hints of sensationalism.

The longtime fashion was to label most of Sibelius' music gloomy and mystical, a dark artistic reflection of Finland with its stark pine trees and the mists rising over its many black lakes. Sibelius' songs and piano music are relatively unimportant. In his first two symphonies his speech was chiefly of Finland but thereafter he seemed more determined to make absolute music which would speak for itself.

The Sibelius now working on his Eighth Symphony is bald, rotund, 68. He lives in a rambling two-story house in Jarvenpaa, 20 miles from Helsingfors. When U.S. tourists visit him he will tell them that he was never a prodigy, that he dislikes Wagner and physical exercise, loves Johann Strauss waltzes, once taught briefly at the New England Conservatory in Boston--and that no visitors are admitted to the second-floor studio where he does all his work.

Even with the accolade of the great composer, Conductor Janssen delayed his one Sibelius offering until last week when he closed his Philharmonic engagement. Previously he had conducted unfamiliar music which left his listeners doubtful. But with the Sibelius Fifth Symphony he proved himself worthy of the master Finn's approval. His gestures were no longer cramped and self-consciously sub- dued. In his ardor he ripped open his coat sleeve but no one thought of snickering. Sibelius had been presented in all his strength and clarity. Even the orchestramen who set their standards by Arturo Toscanini clapped on their instruments for young Werner Janssen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.