I remember my first
hearing of Erkki Melartin's Symphony
No. 5 chiefly because the music was
in such lush contrast to the drab cover
of that Ondine disc - little more than
the composer's name and the words 'Symphonies
5 & 6.' I'm sure I had passed it
by several times before I finally borrowed
it from the library in the Finnish city
where I was living then in spring 1994,
half fearful that I'd hear nondescript
Finnish modernism.
What I heard was pure
delight. I liked it well enough to go
looking all these years later to see
whether I could buy the Melartin No.
5. I found more than I anticipated:
A boxed set from 1999 of all six Melartin
symphonies recorded by Leonid Grin and
the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra …
with more winsome cover art this time
around.
For the boxed set Ondine
has put a painting of Finnish wilderness
on the cover, Eero Järnefelt's
Maisema Kolilta, A View from
Koli. Surely this is more fitting
cover art for Melartin, a composer who
was also a painter, and whose music,
understandably, has sometimes been described
in glowing visual terms. (Incidentally,
the cover art ought to be significant
to Sibelians, since Koli is the fell
in eastern Finland that was partly the
inspiration, according to Sibelius biographer
Erik Tawastjerna, for Sibelius's Symphony
No. 4.)
The art also goes a
long way toward telling the prospective
buyer what's in store, as long as the
buyer doesn't expect Sibelius. Instead,
picture Mahler/Bruckner on a northern
vacation, perhaps borrowing a few tricks
from Sibelius. This is music that deserves
a wider hearing, and probably didn't
get the attention it merited when it
first appeared. My first go at the Melartin
symphonies will very likely give me
the nudge to buy the Melartin Violin
Concerto.
The fine essay accompanying
these recordings is by Erkki Salmenhaara,
a historian of Finnish music. I also
found an essay by Osmo Tapio Raihala
at the Finnish Music Quarterly Web site
helpful. Both these authors probably
mention Mahler and Bruckner more often
than anyone as influences on Melartin's
art. Melartin studied in Vienna and
later conducted the first concerts of
Mahler's music in the Nordic countries
while leading the orchestra in Viborg
from 1908 to 1911.
To my mind passages
in at least the first five of the Melartin
symphonies can be heard as nature music.
Salmenhaara uses the word "pastoral"
to describe passages in the symphonies
3 and 5; parts of Nos. 1 and 4 are implicitly
pastoral because of the folksongs embedded
in them; and we know from Melartin's
own words that he wrote a part of the
No. 2 as a "solitary autumn melody."
There's delightful, atmospheric music
here that's intended to give us a sense
of place and season.
The other common denominator
is folk music. When not actually quoting
from folk music, as in the No. 1 and
No. 4, Melartin is weaving melodies
that could have come from folksong.
That's the case in No. 3, which contains
no folksong material.
I am not absolutely
certain, but the boxed set recordings
by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra
under the direction of Leonid Grin seem
to be simply a repackaging of the earlier
discs released in the 1990s. At any
rate the digital recordings all date
from 1992 to 1994. Sound quality is
very good throughout and there are glowing
performances from a Finnish orchestra
perhaps not as familiar to listeners
as the ones in Helsinki and Lahti.
Symphony No. 4,
Summer Symphony (1912): This
was the favorite with concert audiences
in Melartin's own day, and perhaps still
is the favorite with listeners. A gem-like
the second movement, Scherzo (Vivace),
tells why. Play this movement (Disc
2, Track 6) if you want to make someone
a fan of Melartin. It is an exuberant
distillation of at least one aspect
of the northern summer, like sunlight
made audible. To my mind the third movement
adds an element of wistfulness (the
northerners' consciousness that winter
is coming?) before a soloist and then
three female voices together enter the
work.
Raihala's essay for
Finnish Music Quarterly magazine says
the "Summer Hymn" that helps anchor
the symphony is actually a melody of
Swedish origin, though familiar to all
Finns. It helps make this symphony a
beautiful product of National Romanticism.
If you like the voices in the second
movement of Carl Nielsen's Symphony
No. 3, you'll love the singing in Melartin's
No. 4, which seems to me similar in
spirit.
This may be one of
his most visual works. At least the
Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, in
his review of the Melartin Symphony
No. 4, focused on the visual qualities
of the music: "Seldom has the summer
nature, its limpid, delicate landscapes,
the hushed piety of the white summer
night been described with such delightful
and confident strokes of the brush."
Symphony No. 5 (1916):
There is writing here as fragile as
lace or birch trees. I think I hear
Sibelian touches toward the end of the
first movement. The second movement
has moments of such heartbreaking romanticism
that I thought of Rachmaninov. Here,
as elsewhere, and despite the fragility
of the piece, there is deep, sonorous
writing for brass. (I'm not sure if
it is simply Melartin's music or if
it is superb playing by the brass section
of the Tampere Philharmonic, but the
brass seems to stand out time and again
in these recordings.) The third movement
is some of my favorite music from the
entire Melartin cycle. It begins with
a birdlike solo for flute. There is
a sense of intimacy and restraint, as
though Melartin is saying something
weighty in the very lightest of terms.
Perhaps that might explain Melartin's
title for the No. 5, 'Sinfonia Brevis.'
In truth there's nothing remarkably
brief about it. Melartin's Nos. 1 and
2 are shorter works, at about 26 minutes
and 28 minutes, respectively, compared
to the No. 5's 32:46. However there
does seem to be an economy of expression.
Symphony No. 3 (1906/07):
Along with No. 5, this is my personal
favorite among the six, and another
pair of ears backs me up on this. My
9-year-old son has heard me play all
of these symphonies repeatedly of late,
and on two separate occasions he approached
me to ask what piece was playing. Both
times it was the Melartin No. 3. Incidentally,
Ondine's 1995 release of Grin's recording
of the Melartin symphonies 1 and 3 won
the Finnish Broadcasting Company's Record
of the Year award.
The No. 3 is written
in Sibelius's favorite 'Nordic' key,
F major but as with all of Melartin,
it could scarcely be mistaken for Sibelius.
It opens with a tidal sway and surge
that, to my mind, suggests the sea.
The initial theme is one of those places
where Salmenhaara uses the word "pastoral".
It's a cyclical work,
knit together by a theme that appears
in all four movements. Some of the most
interesting writing is in the Scherzo,
(Disc 1, Track 7) where Melartin's notes
in the score show he has written a 'Chorale
of Death' into the piece. Nevertheless,
the work does not come off as gloomy.
There is bright along with the dark.
Symphony No. 6 (1925):
Raihala's article at the Finnish Music
Quarterly Web site points out that the
Symphony No. 6 was originally called
'Elementtisinfonia,' 'Symphony of the
Elements' apparently an allusion to
classical notions of earth, water, air
and fire. Melartin apparently followed
the 20th century fashion of recanting
on any hint of pictorialism or program
music (one thinks of Albert Roussel
ultimately disavowing his announced
intent to depict in his Symphony No.
2 the three ages of man: youth, maturity,
and old age).
But there is indeed
an elemental strength about this music,
like seas and continents in opposition.
That may stem from the fact that, in
Melartin's words, the No. 6 is "tinged
with atonality." The symphony is in
no well-defined key, and Salmenhaara
notes that its tonal center moves progressively
from C in the first movement, to C sharp
in the second, then to D, and finally
to E in the finale. It is the most 20th
century modern of Melartin's symphonies
and shows he was well aware of what
was happening in lands to the south.
But it would be beyond Melartin's powers
to write music that is unrelentingly
grim. The old Melartin of symphonies
1-5 keeps peeking through, like sun
from behind clouds, to ease the tension
of this work with moments of rare beauty.
A particularly pleasing feature is a
sort of Oriental theme (Salmenhaara
and Raihala both say Japanese) that
appears briefly, then vanishes.
Symphony No. 1 (1902):
This work hasn't seized me in the way
that the others have, but it's a good,
self-assured effort from a young composer
in a time and place where almost none
of his countrymen are writing symphonies.
Salmenhaara notes that this is only
the fourth symphony ever written in
Finland, the others being one by E.
Mielck and the first two by Sibelius.
As with Sibelius Nos. 1 and 2, there
are Tchaikovskian elements in the Melartin
No. 1. Salmenhaara believes he sees
also some influence of the Sibelius
Symphony No. 1 (which Melartin certainly
would have known) in the use of timpani
in the Scherzo. Raihala points out that
the pleasing Scherzo (Disc 1, Track
3) was popular as a concert piece in
its day, perhaps because it alludes
to a Finnish folksong, 'Ol' kaunis kesailta,'
'It was a fair summer evening.' At the
time the symphony was written, any expression
of Finnish identity could be construed
as furthering the move toward independence
from Russia.
Symphony No. 2 (1904):
Melartin was a Karelian, from eastern
Finland. For me one of the high points
of this symphony is the first subject
of the finale, which Melartin identified
as "sounding in Karelian-national fashion,
with a certain marchlike mien." Once
again, that would have been a political
gesture when this symphony appeared.
As with the First, there are stylistic
devices that might remind listeners
of Tchaikovsky or young Sibelius (before
the Symphony No. 3). Fortunately for
music scholars, Melartin wrote a piece
for a Swedish language music review
at the time in which he discussed the
work at length, characterizing different
passages as a "solitary autumnal melody"
(suggesting Sibelius, Salmenhaara thinks),
'a threatening fifths motif,' 'cry-of-despair
motif,' 'defiant subject,' 'more hopeful
motif,' 'the warlike theme.'
That 'solitary autumn
melody' brings me back to Järnefelt's
cover art, clearly an autumn scene that
shows a touch of sun under clouds. That
mix of sun and shade might be a good
way to describe the Melartin Symphony
No. 3, in particular, and perhaps the
Melartin cycle in general. But I wonder
if there truly is such a visual quality
to Melartin's music, or if I only think
so because of Raihala's observation
that Melartin was also an amateur painter
who even held two solo exhibitions of
his works? It would be a fair guess
that, perhaps more than most composers,
Melartin thought visually as well as
in sound. At any rate, the endorsement
of Leevi Madetoja is good enough for
me. Melartin does what a painter does,
but in sound. These are symphonies worth
looking into.
Lance Nixon
Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra/Leonid Grin
