Preface The orchestral poem Tapiola op. 112 (1926) is the last large orchestral work Sibelius completed and published.1 Previously, he had composed the Sixth (in 1923) and Seventh (in 1924) Symphonies and the incidental music to Stormen (“The Tempest”, in 1925). After Tapiola, he continued the composition work at his Eighth for several years. This work, however, was never finished, or at least it was not published. The beginning of Tapiola can be dated on 4 January 1926, when Sibelius received a telegram from the conductor Walter Damrosch of the Symphony Society of New York. Damrosch had a request: he wanted to have a symphonic poem to be performed next November. Sibelius telegraphed his acceptance immediately, and already on 11 January Damrosch sent him a letter, in which he wrote that the directors of the society and he were delighted because of Sibelius’s affirmative answer; they were eagerly waiting for the score. “It is, of course, understood that the choice of your subject and its form, is left entirely with you, and I would merely suggest that its length be about fifteen minutes and certainly not longer than twenty minutes.” Three days later the manager of the Society, George Engles, wrote to Sibelius: “Will you please send the work […] so that I have it by Sept. 15th if possible. I would also be grateful for any program notes that you may care to send with it.” On 20 March Sibelius left for Rome in order to compose there. However, the beginning of the composition work of Tapiola must have taken place during the winter months, because when Sibelius left he already had sketches for the work with him. In Rome, the work seemed to be proceeding well in spite of some minor irritations which frayed his nerves, such as the terrible table he had in his hotel room, “impossible ink,” and a pianist who was “maltreating Liszt’s rhapsody” in the neighbourhood. Sibelius returned home from Italy via Berlin where, at the end of April, he met Dr. Hellmuth von Hase, head of Breitkopf & Härtel (Leipzig), the earlier publisher of Sibelius’s works. After a long negotiation, Breitkopf agreed to publish Tapiola. Sibelius then wrote to his wife Aino: “Tapiola is already fait accompli [...] I am working at it steady although slowly. […] An important matter is that I do not have a piano which at the present stage of the work is best. […] I have to finish Tapiola by the end of June.” On 5 June Damrosch wrote to Sibelius saying that he was eagerly waiting for the composer to send the score. He hoped to receive it as soon as possible in order to be able to familiarize himself with the work and to “give it a performance worthy of its creator.” Because the title “Tapiola” would not say anything to an American audience, he asked whether Sibelius would accept the following designation: “‘TAPIOLA’, a wild northern forest, wherein dwell the God of the forests and his wood-nymphs.” This was probably based on the explanation Sibelius had sent him and he fully accepted it. On 27 July Damrosch, who had been informed that he would get a printed score instead of Sibelius’s autograph, wrote to Breitkopf that he would like to give the first performance of Tapiola on 29 October. “If you will have the kindness to send me the orchestral score as soon as it is printed and the orchestral parts not later than the beginning of October I shall be most grateful.” “Hardly possible” the firm answered on 10 August, because the score was still with Sibelius. Therefore, the firm asked Damrosch to postpone the first performance. On the same day Breitkopf telegraphed Sibelius: “Send the score of Tapiola as soon as possible.” Sibelius sent the manuscript to Breitkopf on 27 August. However, thereafter he began to have doubts about the work. On 10 September he wrote in his diary: “I have suffered because of Tapiola. B et H had got the composition – but they delay in preparing it [...]. Unfortunately I accepted this ‘commission’. […] Am I created for this kind of thing?! Hair artists, painters and such are up to such things. But a composer
of my talent – hardly! – I sure am on the ‘decline’! Can not be alone. [I] drink whisky. […]” A few days later Sibelius made a dramatic decision, of which he wrote in his diary: “Telegraph Tapiola back and change considerably. Magnificent at your 60 years!” Thus, on 16 September Breitkopf received a message: “Please, Tapiola manuscript or copy back.” And on the following day: “Please do not work on Tapiola because of a long leap […].” The score had already been engraved and the orchestral parts were almost finished; now the work on the parts had to be suspended. On 26 September Sibelius sent the score and the proofs back to the publisher – without having done the “leap.” Other kinds of corrections were probably made. He also wrote about the publisher’s improvement of the German motto poem he had formulated: “I find the poem at the beginning very beautiful. I cordially thank you.” On 18 October the parts were engraved and corrected according to the requests Sibelius had made. Damrosch probably received the materials before the middle of November. Because the originally planned date for the first performance had to be postponed, Tapiola premiered on 26 December 1926. The place was The Mecca Temple in New York where Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony Society Orchestra. After the concert he telegraphed Sibelius: “Tapiola enormous success [–] enthusiastic congratulations.” Nevertheless, the success seems not to have been as great as Damrosch claimed. It is also unclear how good the performance was. While Olin Downes, a great lover of Sibelius’s music, seemed to have accepted it, the critic Edward Cushing wrote that “the playing of the orchestra […] was lamentably uneven, and almost utterly devoid of the warmth, the intensity of effort that should be devoted to an effective projection of new and important music. […] It was possible only superficially to estimate the novelty under the conditions that prevailed.” After the concert, Downes wrote a positive review, but in general the reception in the newspapers was not too good. Especially the opening motif was criticized being a “commonplace” and “an unfertile one”, which “seemed to lack a definite character.” A little later Downes also took a negative stand: “somewhat disappointing […] a work of style and manner rather than inspiration.” It was only in 1932, after having been performed in Boston under Serge Koussevitzky, that U.S. critics began to find more merit in the work. Robert Kajanus, who conducted the first performance of Tapiola in Finland in 1927, recorded the work in London in 1932. In the 1940s Sibelius stated that Kajanus did not know Tapiola well enough when he went to London. In Sibelius’s view, Kajanus’s recording was too slow and too lifeless; the work “must be played much more dramatically.”
The autograph fair-copy score of Tapiola, which also served as the engraver’s copy for the first edition, is lost; so, too, is the initial form of the motto text formulated by Sibelius. Concerning the other primary sources, the first editions of the score and the orchestral parts as well as a few fragments and sketches survived. In addition to these, a Handexemplar score and some letters include Sibelius’s own metronome markings. The first study score was published in 1935. Helsinki, Spring 2017
Kari Kilpeläinen
1 For the sources and a more detailed description of the genesis and the first performances of Tapiola, see Jean Sibelius Works I/16.