Symphony No.3 in C major, Op.52

In November 1907, two months after Sibelius had conducted the first performance of his Third Symphony, Gustav Mahler came to Helsinki. The two composers exchanged views on the essence of the symphony as a form, which to Sibelius meant “the severity of style and the profound logic that creates an inner connection between all the motifs…” “No!” said Mahler, “The symphony must be like the world. It must embrace anything.”

Sibelius’s Third Symphony renounces the world - except, perhaps, for that small part of it around Järvenpää where the Sibelius family had set up house shortly before the work was first sketched in 1904. Certainly, there is very perceptible pastoral inspiration which ensures that, for all the consistency of its style and the profundity of its motivic logic, the symphony is not in the least severe in effect. It is a serenely happy score and at the same time a construction so rigorously developed from its basic motif - three adjacent notes in ascending or descending order - that by the end, in spite of its modest proportions, it transcends conventional symphonic form.

The opening Allegro moderato seems conventional enough. Presented without preamble in C major, the first subject is a gently rustic dance tune on cellos and basses which is followed, after a cheerful intervention on woodwind, by a more vigorous variant on violins and violas - both versions of the theme insisting on the basic shape of three notes up and three notes down. The second subject, basically three notes down and three up, is grandly anticipated by horns, ceremonially introduced by cellos and dramatically varied by horns and woodwind. Although they are quite different in mood and in rhythm, the two subjects are not dissimilar in melodic shape, as the development section goes on to demonstrate. Just at the point where that structural fact is firmly established, the recapitulation begins and the earlier material is joyfully reintroduced. A reflective coda looks both backwards and forwards.

The Andantino is in the remote key of G sharp minor. The main theme, on the other hand, is close to that of the first movement, at least in its melodic essentials. Anticipated by three rising pizzicato notes on lower strings and introduced by a pair of flutes, it passes gracefully through almost the whole of the movement. Below it, making its presence felt particularly strongly by crossing the prevailing rhythm, is a succession of rising and falling figures on cellos and basses. Even in the few passages where the main theme is absent the three-note motif remains.

Having achieved such consistency of style and such close thematic unity, Sibelius is able to make a remarkable innovation in the last movement. For the present, however, he proceeds as more or less conventionally and, after three bars of Moderato, offers a quick and pastoral scherzo in 6/8 time. As the flutes and then the oboes make inescapably clear in a deliberate echo of the Andantino, it shares the same thematic economy as the first two movements. In the middle of the playful development of these scraps of melody horns and violas offer a suggestion of a new march-like idea in duple time beneath the continuing 6/8 activity in the violins - but so briefly and quietly that it does not seem immediately significant. Later, the violas refer to that idea again and this time cellos join them to make something very much more substantial of it.

The extraordinary quality of Sibelius’s achievement here is that, with no break in continuity, he can change the metre to 4/4 and present his march tune as though it were the main theme of a fourth and last movement. Although he has left the scherzo incomplete, he has no need to return to it or even to refer back to it because the melodic essentials of the whole work are majestically represented in the theme which now strides towards a triumphant and structurally inevitable conclusion.

Gerald Larner©

In November 1907, two months after Sibelius had conducted the first performance of his third Symphony, Gustav Mahler came to Helsinki. The two composers exchanged views on the essence of the symphony as a form, which to Sibelius meant “the severity of style and the profound logic that creates an inner connection between all the motifs.” Mahler replied, “No, the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace anything.”

Sibelius’s Third Symphony renounces the world, with the possible exception of the pastoral delights at Järvenpää where the Sibelius family had set up house shortly before his first sketches for the symphony in 1904. It is, on the other hand, distinguished by a consistency (if not exactly “severity”) of style, and it is certainly based on a profound motivic logic. That logic could be reduced to three adjacent notes in ascending or descending order, a fragment of the scale which underlies the whole work. The first movement might, as Tovey remarked, be “more like a normal classic than any other in Sibelius’s symphonies.” But how, then, to account for its coda? Tovey does not attempt to account for it but says merely that it is a coda “of a kind peculiar to Sibelius.”

There is a “normal” first subject in C major - a theme on the lower strings (basically three notes up and three notes down), a variant of it on violins on their first entry, a reply on woodwind, and a sort of country dance on the mass of strings. There is also a normal second subject (basically three notes down and three up) grandly anticipated by horns, definitively introduced by cellos to the accompaniment of second violins and violas, and dramatically varied by horns and woodwind. But also, at the end of the exposition, there is a mysteriously abnormal passage involving the strings in very quietly ascending or descending scales. The development is devoted to the two main themes and to demonstrating how closely related they are, and is just on the point of doing so when the recapitulation begins. All the earlier material is triumphantly reintroduced - except the mysterious scale passage. It is the function of the peculiarly Sibelian coda to recall that passage and to find in it the essential three-note logic.

The Andantino is in the distant key of G sharp minor. The main theme, on the other hand, anticipated by three pizzicato notes on lower strings and introduced by a pair of flutes, is familiar, at least in its essentials. This theme, or the even more reminiscent clarinet version, runs (neither quickly nor slowly) through almost the whole of the movement. Below it, making its presence felt particularly strongly by crossing the prevailing rhythm, is a succession of broad scale figures on cellos and basses. Even in the few passages where the main theme is absent the scales or the three-note motif remain.

Having achieved such consistency of style and such close thematic unity, Sibelius is able to make a remarkably bold economy in the last movement. For the present, however, he proceeds as “normal” and, after three bars of Moderato, offers a quick and pastoral scherzo in conventional 6/8 time. If it is related thematically to the earlier movements (which it is) only the flutes, in a deliberate echo of the main theme of the Andantino, make it inescapably obvious. In the middle of the playful development of these scraps of melody, horns and violas offer a suggestion of a new idea in duple time, beneath the continuing 6/8 activity in the violins, but so briefly and quietly that it does not seem immediately significant. However, some time later, the violas refer to that idea again, and this time it is significant, for the metre changes to 4/4 and the cellos join the violas to make something very much more substantial of it.

By now Sibelius has reached a point equivalent to the coda of a four-movement symphony. There was no need to introduce and develop the main theme of the finale, since - with an abnormal but profound logic - the whole of the symphony so far has been devoted to just the function. Carrying with it motivic representation from the melodic material of the earlier movements, the new theme takes the symphony to its just and inevitable conclusion.