Sibelius: Finlandia (Op. 26)

A few weeks ago, I selected a work by Smetana for the simple reason that I was traveling to Prague. It wasn’t a frivolous choice. I would have gotten around to Smetana sooner or later. It was just a convenient reason for Smetana to be the topic on that particular occasion.

Professor Carol and I are currently traveling between St. Petersburg and Helsinki. Now, I don’t intend to explain the complex history of the Russians and the Finns. That’s not what this series is about, and I’m no expert on the topic. I will be satisfied knowing that I’ve learned things about this region that I didn’t used to know.

But I was going to get around to Sibelius sooner or later, and it might as well be now. We have talked about nationalism in music in some earlier posts, but there are few composers more closely tied to their national culture than Sibelius. His symphonic poem Finlandia has been described as Finland’s second national anthem.

The piece was written in 1899 as part of Finland’s struggle to be free of Russia and specifically in support of a free Finnish press. It was the last movement in a suite of tableau depicting the history of Finland. Within this movement, Sibelius composed a hymn-like melody that inspired numerous efforts to set text to the tune. Many denominations now have a hymn set to this music. Sibelius maintained that it was composed for orchestra and not meant for singing, but he gave up this battle in 1940. A patriotic text was written by V. A. Koskenniemi with Sibelius’s blessing.