{"id":1350,"date":"2010-01-01T03:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-01-01T08:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1350"},"modified":"2018-08-06T22:17:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T02:17:07","slug":"sibelius-kullervo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1350","title":{"rendered":"Sibelius\u2019 Kullervo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/listening-2010-jan-kullervo-by-landstrom.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-1352\" title=\"listening 2010 jan kullervo-by-landstrom\" src=\"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/listening-2010-jan-kullervo-by-landstrom-150x150.jpg\" alt width=\"150\" height=\"150\"><\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As I\u2019m begin\u00adning the year with a re-read\u00ading of the <em>Kale\u00advala<\/em>, the Finnish mytho\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal epic that has haunt\u00aded me since child\u00adhood, it\u2019s log\u00adi\u00adcal for me to begin the year\u2019s musi\u00adcal lis\u00adten\u00ading with Sibelius\u2019 largest scale work based on it, the spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar uni\u00adfied sequence of tone poems about the <em>Kale\u00advala<\/em> hero Kuller\u00advo. I have two record\u00adings of <em>Kuller\u00advo, Sym\u00adphon\u00adic Poem for Sopra\u00adno, Bari\u00adtone, Cho\u00adrus and Orches\u00adtra<\/em>, Op.7: Jor\u00adma Pan\u00adu\u00adla con\u00adduct\u00ading the Turku Phil\u00adhar\u00admon\u00adic Orches\u00adtra, and Paa\u00advo Berglund direct\u00ading the Helsin\u00adki Sym\u00adpho\u00adny Orches\u00adtra. They\u2019re both fine, but I pre\u00adfer the Berglund. Eeva-Liisa Saari\u00adnen\u2019s sopra\u00adno in it is superb.<br>\n<!--more--><\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000;\"><br> Sibelius was afflict\u00aded with an obses\u00adsive-com\u00adpul\u00adsive per\u00adfec\u00adtion\u00adism. Towards the end of his life, it drove him to destroy almost every\u00adthing he com\u00adposed, includ\u00ading an eighth sym\u00adpho\u00adny. He dis\u00adcour\u00adaged the per\u00adfor\u00admance of those ear\u00adly works which he deemed unwor\u00adthy. For this rea\u00adson, <em>Kuller\u00advo<\/em>, which had pre\u00admiered in his youth to much acclaim in the year 1892, did not have a com\u00adplete per\u00adfor\u00admance between 1893 and 1958, and was not com\u00admer\u00adcial\u00adly record\u00aded until&nbsp;1971.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Yes, it\u2019s a youth\u00adful work, and not very sophis\u00adti\u00adcat\u00aded.&nbsp;But it was his opus sev\u00aden, for heav\u00aden\u2019s sake.&nbsp;Sibelius was in his mid-twen\u00adties. The work is splen\u00addid, and dis\u00adplays a pre\u00adco\u00adcious mas\u00adtery of orches\u00adtra\u00adtion. The tunes are catchy, and Sibelius has no trou\u00adble hold\u00ading your atten\u00adtion for well over an&nbsp;hour.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Kuller\u00advo is the most trag\u00adic char\u00adac\u00adter in the <em>Kale\u00advala<\/em> epic. Every deci\u00adsion he makes is a mis\u00adtake, and the gods wreak their vengeance on him with alacrity. Sibelius cap\u00adtures this atmos\u00adphere exact\u00adly, and the lyrics tak\u00aden from the orig\u00adi\u00adnal <em>runos<\/em> are splen\u00addid\u00adly evoca\u00adtive whether they are sung by the cho\u00adrus or the soloists.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I\u2019m begin\u00adning the year with a re-read\u00ad\u00ading of the Kale\u00advala, the Finnish mytho\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal epic that has haunt\u00aded me since child\u00adhood, it\u2019s log\u00adi\u00adcal for me to begin the year\u2019s musi\u00adcal lis\u00adten\u00ading with Sibelius\u2019 largest scale work based on it,&nbsp;the&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1350\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,14,947,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bq-reading-2010","category-c-listening","category-cq-listening-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1350"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7859,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350\/revisions\/7859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}