Ambiguity and Variety of Colours: Keys and Modes in Sibelius's Chamber Music
Pages 49 to 59
Cite this article
- LÜNENBÜRGER, Jorma Daniel,
- Lünenbürger, Jorma Daniel.
- Lünenbürger, J.-D.
https://doi.org/10.3917/musur.081.0049
Cite this article
- Lünenbürger, J.-D.
- Lünenbürger, Jorma Daniel.
- LÜNENBÜRGER, Jorma Daniel,
https://doi.org/10.3917/musur.081.0049
Notes
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[*]
Musicologist and Music Teacher, Berlin.
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[1]
Tomi Mäkelä, Jean Sibelius. „Poesie in der Luft “, Wiesbaden, 2007, p. 31. German original: Synästhetische Sonderbegabung.
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[2]
Erik Tawaststjerna, Jean Sibelius, Volume I, 1865-1905, Berkeley, 1976, p. 15.
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[3]
Glenda Dawn Goss, Jean Sibelius. The Hämeenlinna Letters, Esbo, 1997, p. 98 ff.
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[4]
Fabian Dahlström, Sibelius-Werkverzeichnis. Jean Sibelius. Thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke, Wiesbaden, 2003, p. 615, 620.
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[5]
See my paper at the International Edvard Grieg Conference in Bergen (Norway) in May/June 2007, “Grieg as the ‘father of Finnish music’? Notes on Grieg and Sibelius with special attention to the F major Violin Sonatas”, published by the Grieg Society, http://www.griegsociety.org/filer/1169.pdf.
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[6]
Fabian Dahlström, op. cit., p. 610.
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[7]
Letter to his uncle Pehr from July 6, 1889, see Glenda Goss, op. cit., p. 105.
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[8]
I have discussed these phenomena already in 2005 at the Fourth International Jean Sibelius Conference in Denton (Texas), see Jorma Daniel Lünenbürger, “Sibelius’s Berlin Period and the G minor Piano Quintet”, Sibelius Forum III, C. Davis ed., Frankfurt am Main, forthcoming.
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[9]
Fabian Dahlström, op. cit., p. 598.
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[10]
Arnold Whitall, “Bitonality”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition, S. Sadie ed., London 2001, vol. 3, p. 637.
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[11]
Joseph C. Kraus, “Sibelius’s ‘Internal Voices’: Structure and Process in the Quartet in D Minor (‘Voces intimae’)”, Intimate Voices: Aspects of Construction and Character in the Twentieth-Century String Quartet, E. Jones ed., University of Rochester Press, forthcoming.
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[12]
Glenda Dawn Goss, Preface to Jean Sibelius, Kullervo op. 7, Study Score, Wiesbaden, 2005, p. XVI.
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[13]
Friedhelm Krummacher, “Intimität und Expansion. Das Streichquartett Op. 56 von Sibelius im Verhältnis zur Gattungstradition”, Musik im Norden, Kassel, 1996, p. 214.
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[14]
Friedhelm Krummacher, op. cit., pp. 206-226; Antonio Baldassarre, “Gattungsgeschichte als Problem. Das Streichquartett Voces intimae d-moll op. 56 (1909) von Jean Sibelius”, Das Streichquartett in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, B. A. Föllmi ed., Tutzing, 2004, pp. 87-109; Lorenz Luyken, “Stimmen. Linien. Verwirrung der Begriffe. Leseübungen an Sibelius’ Streichquartett op. 56”, Die Tonkunst 4 (2007), pp. 422-434.
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[15]
Erik Tawaststjerna, Jean Sibelius, Volume II, 1904-1914, Berkeley 1986, p. 119, also interpreted it as “the very climax”.
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[16]
Called the second mode of limited transposition by Olivier Messiaen, it is also known as gamme de Rimski-Korsakov as Olga Botchkariova called it (Olga Botchkariova, “Ce que racontent les Voces intimae. Essai d’interpretation”, Sibelius Forum. Proceedings from the Second International Jean Sibelius Conference, Helsinki, 25-29 November 1995, V. Murtomäki et al. ed., Helsinki, 1998, p. 58f).
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[17]
Fabian Dahlström, op. cit., p. 259.
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[18]
Erik Tawaststjerna, op. cit., p. 121; Friedhelm Krummacher, op. cit., p. 220ff.; Antonio Baldassare, op. cit., p. 107f.
His synaesthetic talent in combining natural impressions, colours and sounds allowed Sibelius to use a broad variety of keys in his first cyclic chamber music works. In 1889, he began to use ambiguous modal sound planes and modes other than major and minor, mostly to express a Finnish tone. Examples from the F major violin sonata, the piano quintet and the quartet op. 4 anticipate the rich palette of sound nuances in Sibelius’s later works for orchestra. In the quartet Voces intimae Sibelius used modes in variable ways. Beside the traditional modes and whole-tone scale sections we also find an enormous variety of colours in the ingenious use of major and minor keys.
Ambiguïté et variété des couleurs : tons et modes dans la musique de chambre de Sibelius
Ambiguïté et variété des couleurs : tons et modes dans la musique de chambre de Sibelius
Le talent synesthésique de Sibelius pour la combinaison d’impressions naturelles, de couleurs et de sons lui a permis de faire usage d’une large variété de tonalités dans ses premières œuvre de musique de chambre. En 1889, il a commencé d’utiliser des plans sonores modalement ambigus et des modes autres que le majeur et le mineur, principalement pour exprimer un caractère finnois. Des exemples dans la sonate pour violon en fa majeur, le quintette à clavier et le quatuor op. 4 annoncent la riche palette des nuances sonores de ses œuvres pour orchestre ultérieures. Dans le quatuor Voces intimae, Sibelius utilise les modes de différentes manières. Outre les modes traditionnels et des sections par tons entiers, on trouve une vaste palette de couleurs dans l’usage ingénieux des tonalités majeures et mineures.
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