6 Songs

Den första kyssen Op.37 No.1 (1900)

Var det en dröm? Op.37, No.4 (1902)

Våren flyktar hastigt Op.13 No.4 (1891)

Säv, säv susa Op36 No.4 (1890)

Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte Op.37 No.5 (1901)

Sibelius’s first language, like that of many Finns of his generation, was Swedish. Although he started learning Finnish when he went to school at the age of eight and although the rhythms of the Kalevala echo unmistakably through much of his instrumental music, as a song composer he was far happier with Swedish poetry than with Finnish. Indeed, he wrote only five songs in Finnish and not far short of ninety in Swedish - many of them settings of poems by a Swede-Finn of an earlier generation, Johan Ludvig Runeberg. It is clear from the opening of the Runeberg setting Den första kyssen that Swedish verse translated easily into melodic terms for Sibelius. The lyrical simplicity of the Swedish romans was not for him, however, as the changes of vocal colour, the emphatic piano entries and the harmonically tortured last line of the same song demonstrate. Var det en dröm? flows more uniformly on its initial impulse until the change of harmony introduced in the third stanza to heighten the effect of the impassioned return of the opening material. With its witty characterisation, Våren flyktar hastigt, the second Runeberg setting in this group, is one of the more subtle of Sibelius’s songs, while Säv, säv, susa with its tragically expressive middle section is one of the saddest. Developing in style from romans to opera by way of a chilling change of harmony in the third stanza, Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte is an outstandingly dramatic inspiration.