Sibelius – A poor mans Mahler?

As I was walking the dog this frosty morning, I decided just how good the LPO sounded with Vanska the other week. The string intensity was incredible – the beginning of the 4^th Symphony was searing. You can see why the Vienna Phil gave up with it after initial rehearsals! But it got me thinking.

Sibelius 5 (1915) - based on the interval of the 5^th, swans flying etc. and then Bruckner 4 (1874) and Bruckner 3 (1873) both obsessed with intervallic dominance in its thematic material…

It’s a comparison I had never thought of before – probably due to my ignorance. I then thought about the string writing, use of the horns and I got this feeling that maybe I was thinking about Bruckner in the wrong way.

I have recently started to ‘get’ Bruckner, or so I thought. I have to admit that I use to always think of him as a poor man’s Mahler, like Nielsen a poor man’s Sibelius. I am now convinced that’s totally wrong. There are obviously similarities but it’s like saying Mahler is a poor man’s Strauss. Bruckner recently, I have been thinking is so academic (in a good way), but so rustic – thinking of the 2^nd subject in Bruckner 4 1^st movement – sing ‘on a walk in the country, on a walk in the country’ to the second subject and you will see what I mean. There is this amazing freedom, created out of an almost obsessive approach to construction. I suppose it is slightly how I feel about Dvorak 6 Symphony – possibly one of the most neglected masterworks of the symphonic repertoire.

I was so surprised when I first heard Bruckner’s slow movement from his 3^rd Symphony, it sounded like a premonition of Elgar. The string writing was clear of tremolo and there was this rounded nature and serious intensity. This tremolo business - it plagues string players in Bruckner, how to do it, how to survive it! I like David Halen’s (leader of St Louis Symphony approach) – many different speeds of tremolo create a powerful fuzziness! It reminded me of Sibelius’s approach in his symphonies (although not quite such an obsessive approach) and also the opening of his orchestral song Luonnotar.

What do all these random musings mean? No, Sibelius is by no means a poor man’s Mahler. However, it has made me think more romantically about Bruckner, less about the ‘tunes’ in Sibelius and more the orchestral atmosphere he is trying to create and thirdly that Mahler is so different to Bruckner.

Nielsen is still…yawn!