“Freedom! My Finlandia is the story of this fight. “We fought 600 years for our freedom and I am part of the generation which achieved it,” he wrote. No, I don’t believe I know I can.” Clearly, he felt that he was winning a place for his country as well as himself, and when the Finnish parliament declared independence from Russia in December 1917, this feeling was crystallised in the music of Finlandia. One can feel Sibelius’s sense of the purpose of his music in his writings of the time: “I can win a place, I believe, with my music. When the Helsinki Philharmonic took Finlandia on the orchestra’s first major tour of Europe, Sibelius also began to make a name for himself outside of Finland. I now grasp those Finnish, purely Finnish tendencies in music less realistically but more truthfully than before.” Known as the “Finlandia Hymn”, this choral section was later published as a separate piece with a collection of Masonic ritual music in 1927. Here, Sibelius intended to create a sense of a Finnish tonality without resorting to drawing from native folk music, as he wrote to his wife Aino at the time: “I would not wish to tell a lie in art. An ominous feeling dominates this early section, representing the years of occupation and oppression that had dogged Finland’s past, but this gives way to a stirring choral section that has a semi-sacred feel. Probably inspired by a view over the area of Aulanko, Finlandia feels imbued with a sense of stately purpose, accumulating a feeling of giddy energy from the strident, almost martial brass fanfare and rolling timpani that open the piece. These included “Happy feelings at the awakening of Finnish Spring”, “A Scandinavian Choral March” and even “Impromptu”. As the work grew in popularity, however, it had to be performed under politically inoffensive pseudonyms to avoid Russian censorship.
The piece was premiered in July by Robert Kajanus and the Helsinki Philharmonic. This finale was so well-received that Sibelius revised it as a standalone piece the following year with the title Finlandia – a moniker suggested by an unknown fan. The work ended, however, in the rousing “Finland Awakes” – an optimistic look towards the country’s future. Starting in the mists of Finnish legend with the Kalevala-inspired “Song of Väinämöinen”, the piece moved through musical depictions of events such as the introduction of Christianity to Finland, the Thirty Years’ War and a Russian invasion of 1714. So, to mark the occasion Sibelius chose to create a set of seven musical tableaux depicting momentous occasions in his country’s history.
#JEAN SIBELIUS FINLANDIA FREE#
It was advertised as a fundraiser for pensions of newspaper workers, but its real purpose was to help finance a Finnish free press. Press censorship was a strong characteristic of Russian rule, and in 1899 Sibelius was asked to compose some music for a “Press Celebrations” event. This was the political backdrop against which Finlandia was formed. Later, it would prove a continual font of inspiration for Sibelius, whose patriotic feelings chimed in with many other Finnish dissenters. Part of the Finns’ cultural fightback derived from the 1835 the publication of Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala – a collection of indigenous legends and folktales which formed a kind of mythic history of Finland.
Finnish nationalism rose up in response to this foreign influence, and Tsar Nicholas II’s introduction of another wave of Russification policies in 1908 only served to strengthen anti-Russian feeling. For almost the entirety of the 19th century, Finland existed as a “Grand Duchy” within the Russian empire, which sought to decrease Finland’s autonomy by imposing so-called “Russification” policies. But in 1808 what ostensibly began as a temporary occupation of Finland by Russia in order to put strategic pressure on Sweden became an invasion that would last over a century. From as far back as the Middle Ages, Finland was in the competing spheres of influence of the empires of Sweden and Russia.
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