The December 1898 premiere under Robert Kajanus greatly pleased the composer, who wrote to Paul: ‘The music sounded excellent and the tempi seem to be right. I think this is the first time that I have managed to make something complete.’ Kajanus subsequently took the suite on tour around Europe with his orchestra, and Henry Wood performed it in London during his 1901 Proms season. Sibelius successfully offered the score to Breitkopf & Härtel: not only was this the start of a significant relationship with the prestigious German publishing house, the suite was in fact the first of any of Sibelius’s orchestral works to appear in print. Overflowing with blissful radiance and tender warmth, the gorgeous opening ‘Nocturne’ never fails to ravish the senses. It is succeeded by a deeply-felt, heartrendingly poignant ‘Elegy’ for strings alone (originally the score’s curtain-raiser). This leads in turn to the irresistibly jaunty ‘Musette’, designed to accompany a dance by Dyveke, and entrusted to a pair of clarinets and bassoons above a bed of gently rocking strings. Apparently, the Helsinki public cheekily gave this catchy tune the words ‘Now I’m going off to Kämp again’, a sly reference to Sibelius’s favourite watering-hole in the city! Next comes a ‘Serenade’ of intoxicating fireside glow, and the suite concludes with the furious bustle of the ‘Ballade’. In the autumn of 1903, Sibelius supplied the incidental music for the symbolist drama Kuolema (‘Death’) by his brother-in-law, Arvid Järnefelt (1861–1932). The following year, he returned to the first of the six numbers (marked ‘Tempo di valse lente’), adding flute, clarinet, horns and timpani to the original scoring for strings and giving it the title of Valse triste – in which guise it has, of course, gone on to acquire worldwide popularity. Sombre and
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