Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Tempest Suites 1&2, Op.109
Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jussi Jalas
Ace of Diamonds Recording, printed in England
“Tempest” Suite No.1, Op. 109, No.2
“Tempest” Suite No.2, Op. 109, No.3
This week on Blue Riband: artistic director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors stopped by to talk to Erin Baldwin about making his debut in the role during a pandemic year. He also talks about what’s in store for the entirely digital festival, which runs from October 22—November 1st. On smART Magazine, the online publication I recently launched for Lighthouse Immersive, dancer/choreographer/artistic director Guillaume Côté joined us for an interview on how the digital and performing arts can interact to create unique dance experiences. Check it out, pass it on :)
The month-long affair with one of my favourite composers, Sibelius, continues this week with a duo of suites for a theatrical staging of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A colour-contrast from the monochromatic landscape of last week’s Symphony No.3 which, even without the programmatic context, reflect the temperament of a shakespearean drama with its manyfold hues. In it there’s the Sibelius I’m not used to, tambourines, percussive fanfare and so on. At a distance it could be dismissed as an uncharacteristic encore to a storied career—he wrote this the year after his seventh and final symphony, and wrote little else for the thirty years thereafter—but in the over 200-page score for these suites, there seems to be an abbreviation of almost everything music meant to the composer. From the seven-minute swarm of the Overture—reminiscent of similarly stormy stretches of his tone poems Tapiola and Nightride, and perhaps too of the first lines of Yeat’s The Second Coming—which ends the nine-part Tempest Suite No.1, to the sober and clairvoyant opening of The Oak, a melodic passage on flutes over ostinato strings.
Written in 1925, these suites are a snapshot of an unusually modern Sibelius, free from the iciness of his renowned Violin Concerto (coming up next on here), and replete with a mediterranean variety of imagery and programmatic spontaneity. Definitely looking forward to hearing it live sometime soon; it’d fit into concert program just as well as Pines of Rome or Pictures at an Exhibition, or some such grand tour of various and improbable sceneries.
SONG OF THE WEEK: ‘Kid’ — Brazos
We used to build cities out of old plastic blocks
And at the end of the day
We'd tear them down for fun
Now we've got to build a solid structure to stand on
Now we've got a second set of teeth to take care of
“Portrait of the Nigerian Youth - Protester, Yaba, 2020’ — by Manny Jefferson
Phosphorescent Blues——the brightest pill in the cocktail of albums it took to get through and out of that period. During my stay at the shelter I found a couple bands—prime among them were Brazos and Bruce Peninsula—and thought I’d never get around to, that there wouldn’t be time enough to exhaust everything they had to offer. Though Bruce Peninsula made a return this year, the official launch of which had to be post-poned from the initial April date, less luck with Brazos. Hailing originally from Austin, Texas, Brazos was born of the musical machinations of lead singer Martin Crane, who has since branched to a career in film music. Phosphorescent Blues came out in 2009, same year as Bruce Peninsula’s catalytic studio album, A Mountain is a Mouth. The past would be easier to forget, once and for all, if it didn’t have such damn good music—one of the protest songs, sung in a rally after the Lekki Massacre of EndSARS protesters in Nigeria this week, brought me perhaps too far back, to a scene from my childhood too dim to be real, and yet inexplicably there in the song. I remember listening to ‘Day Glo’, the sixth song on Phosphorescent, in the common room at the shelter, as well as ’Tell’, and ‘Pues’ too—and making a mental list of all the things I’d like to do thereafter, and the bands I’d like to come back to.
Throwback to: YR3, WEEK12, YR2 WEEK12
Click here for the full 2020/2021 roster of selected recordings