London Philharmonic Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Thu 30 January 2025

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Lemminkäinen’s Return

Lemminkäinen’s Return is the final movement of Sibelius’s Four Legends of which The Swan of Tuonela, written in 1893, is the best known and regarded as one of his early masterpieces. In form, the Legends are evocative tone poems, inspired by the adventures of Lemminkäinen, a central heroic character of the Kalevala, the Finnish national mythological epic collected from oral traditions in the Karelia region during the early 19^th century. It became an important expression of Finnish nationalism and a potent source of inspiration for Sibelius, who composed the three other Legends during 1895, and conducted the first performance in Helsinki on 13 April 1896. The Swan of Tuonela and Lemminkäinen’s Return were published together in 1901, but only after several revisions was Sibelius sufficiently satisfied to sanction publication of the complete work late in his life in 1953.

In the myth, and the subject of the third Legend, Lemminkäinen in Tuonela, the warrior is set the task of killing the swan that swims on the dark waters of the river of Tuonela, the underworld land of the dead. However, instead it is him who is killed, dismembered and thrown into the river. His mother retrieves his body parts, sews them together and by her magic powers brings her son back to life. The final Legend is his homeward journey, but as in all four works, Sibelius seeks to create a mood to conjour the atmosphere of the myth, rather than a specific depiction in music of the events.

In his preface to the fourth Legend, Sibelius sets the scene: ‘Lemminkäinen is the war hero, the Achilles of Finnish mythology. His fearlessness and beauty make him beloved among women. Exhausted after a long series of wars and battles, Lemminkäinen decides to return home. He transforms his cares and worries into war-horses and sets off. After a voyage that is rich in adventure, he finally arrives in his native land, where he rediscovers the places that are so full of childhood memories.’

To convey this, Sibelius caps the work with a finale of sweeping, ever increasing speed and exhilarating energy in which the galloping of his steeds is omnipresent as they traverse the forests of the Northern landscapes. It concludes with rich, sonorous chords synonymous with Lemminkäinen’s jubilant journey’s end.

© Andrew Burn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major

1. Allegro maestoso
2. Andante
3. Allegro vivace assai

One of the ways in which Mozart made his living as a freelance musician in Vienna was by mounting various series of subscription concerts. It was for this reason that the piano concerto became especially significant for him, since his own role as soloist enabled him both to maintain a high public profile and to ensure the best standard of performance. In 1784 he wrote no fewer than six piano concertos, and then in 1785 and 1786 he completed a further three in each year. And each of these compositions is a masterpiece, finer than anything he had achieved in concert music hitherto.

Mozart’s piano concertos are seldom concerned with virtuoso display for its own sake, though of course it became an important ingredient in the experience of the music. What marks out the C major Concerto, K467, and its companions as more significant achievements than the earlier concertos can be explained in two ways: elaboration of form and deepening of thought. The structure is complex, even daring, the relationship between soloist and orchestra at once closer and more diverse, and the orchestration richer. Accordingly each concerto has its own personality, and in the case of K467 we find a range of expression which is most imaginatively articulated.

The concerto opens with march-like material, whose diverse possibilities emerge as the music proceeds. This orchestral introduction proves fertile indeed, presenting no fewer than eight identifiable themes as well as a bravura element which comes increasingly into its own with the arrival of the solo piano. Yet the range extends beyond the C major formalities, and sometimes there is a tenderness which lies at the opposite remove. Mozart’s principal of ‘open-ended development’ is heard to its full advantage here.

The famous Andante, popularised by its association with the film Elvira Madigan, is a beautiful reverie, one of Mozart’s most original slow movements. The muted strings, heard from the beginning, have a hypnotic quality which is the perfect foil to the lyrical piano melody and the accompanying triplets of the strings. As the music proceeds, so the subtle dissonances add an extra poignancy, not least in the transition into the second subject, while the phrasing is varied with the utmost imagination. So too is the instrumentation of the accompanying figurations, which moves subtly throughout the ensemble.

The lively finale has abundant variety of material, the rhythmic vigour intensified by a tendency to drive forward by means of imitative textures. The episodes extend the mood to a more varied expression, and especially so at the centre of the movement, when the principal theme becomes transformed to a lyrical presentation. Then fragments of it are driven more fiercely, leading to a recapitulation of the original. The closing phase becomes increasingly brilliant, as the theme is driven through to a brilliant virtuoso conclusion.

© Terry Barfoot

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Symphony No. 4 in F minor

1. Andante sostenuto – Moderato con anima
2. Andantino in modo di canzone
3. Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato (Allegro)
4. Finale: Allegro con fuoco

Although by the age of 36 Tchaikovsky was an extremely successful composer, he was fraught with neuroses, especially about his sexuality. He easily slipped into depressions and had an obsessive craving for affection. His moods of gloomy introspection resulted, for example, in his belief that life is fated and that events destined to occur are unavoidable. It is this idea of fate that is the central image behind his Fourth Symphony, cast in the key of F minor.

Tchaikovsky’s personal problems came to a traumatic climax during 1876-7 when he decided that the answer to his ills was marriage. Around the same time he was commissioned to write transcriptions for several of his works for a wealthy widow, Nadezhda von Meck, to play. This led to an extraordinary relationship between them, carried on through letters alone, in which they poured out their innermost thoughts to each other. Each was determined never to meet the other – ‘The more fascinating you are to me, the more afraid I am to make your acquaintance’ – was her comment. Ironically it was probably in this relationship that Tchaikovsky came nearest to the close affection he yearned for.

As the relationship by letter flourished, Tchaikovsky in May 1877 began work on his Fourth Symphony, which he dedicated to von Meck. Work on it progressed slowly and he became more irritable and obsessed with his neuroses which were doubtless coloured by the chosen themes of the symphony: fate and life. Also in May 1877, quite out of the blue, Tchaikovsky received a love letter from Antonia Ivanova Milyukova, a music student. Two more followed in rapid succession which led to their meeting and a decision on Tchaikovsky’s part that fate had brought them together. Without finding anything more about her personality, he proposed to her and was accepted.  In reality she was neurotic, vain, empty-headed, had delusions of grandeur and was far from devoted to him as she claimed. They were married in July, by the following month he confessed to his brother Anatoly that marriage was to him ‘a frightening, painful nightmare’ and his wife ‘repellent’. In September he fled to another brother, Modest, in St Petersburg and suffered a nervous breakdown. The marriage was at an end.

Tchaikovsky had completed the symphony, save for its orchestration, prior his marriage, and undoubtedly the events and emotional pressure leading up to that helped shape its character. It was first performed in Moscow on 22 February 1878, in a concert of the Russian Music Society conducted by Nikolay Rubinstein. The first movement begins with a fanfare on brass which Tchaikovsky dubbed the ‘Fate’ motif and likened to the ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over someone’s head. In mood the movement is tragic and tempestuous with only occasional glimpses of a calmer world. He compared the principal theme that follows to feelings of depression and hopelessness and the second group of themes to a ‘dream world that was an escape from reality’.

The slow movement is wistful and melancholy with the main melody heard initially on the oboe adapted from a folksong, ‘In the fields there stood a birch tree’, while at the centre there is a grave and remote dance on clarinet and bassoon, marked più mosso. The scherzo opens with initially strings playing pizzicato, which is contrasted by a trio shared by snappy brass, and exuberant flourishes for the woodwind. According to the composer the music might  ‘suddenly call to mind a scene of some peasants at a carnival and a street song. Then somewhere a long way off a military procession passes by’.

The Finale is a whirlwind which attempts to be supremely confident and triumphant in mood. ‘If you can find no joy in yourself, look around you and mingle with the people. See how they enjoy themselves and devote themselves entirely to festivity. But hardly does one forget one’s sorrow when untiring Fate announces his presence again, though other people do not take much notice, since they are too busy enjoying themselves. Rejoice in the happiness of others, and life remains possible.’ Although the symphony concludes triumphantly, shortly before the end, Tchaikovsky introduces the Fate motif once again, as if to demonstrate how in the midst of joy sorrow can strike. Sadly and ironically, for the composer that was only too true.

© Andrew Burn