Classical Music | Orchestral Music

Jean Sibelius

Intermezzo, from the Karelia Suite Op. 11  Play

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Mariss Jansons Conductor

Recorded on 02/27/2001, uploaded on 12/02/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

A wave of nationalism was sweeping through Finland during the last decade of the 19th century, and many sought new means of preserving Finnish identity against Imperial Russia’s grasp on the country. As part of this, Jean Sibelius was commissioned in 1893 by the Viipuir Student’s Association to compose a musical tableau for a "lottery to promote the education of the people of Vyborg Province” (now a part of modern-day Russia). Sibelius had a special fondness for the region of Karelia, where Viipuir was located. He accepted the commission, and quickly composed what became known as Karelia Music.

According to both a letter from Sibelius to his brother, and a note by the poet Ernst Lampén, the original success of Karelia Music is hard to ascertain. The crowd at the event was so rowdy the orchestra was barely audible. Lampén relates that he had to push his way to front to be able to hear it, and there only found a few people actually listening to the music. Sibelius, in his letter, reaffirms that not “a single note of music” was heard. Following the premiere, Sibelius rearranged some of the Karelia Music, which originally existed in eight tableaux, into the three movement suite well-known today as the Karelia Suite. It was published as his opus 11, and, though an early works, remains one of the composer’s most popular. Interestingly, however, the Karelia Suite was one of the works that Sibelius’s wife noted as being among the number of pieces that the composer collected and relegated to the fireplace in 1945. The Finnish composer, Jouni Kaipainen, reconstructed Sibelius’s original Karelia Music score, of which a recording was released in 1998.          Joseph DuBose

audio courtesy of Youtube