The Swan of Tuonela, Op.22, No.3

The original inspiration of the highly evocative music first performed in 1896 as The Swan of Tuonela was a quite different mythological figure. In 1893 Sibelius had sketched an opera, The Building of the Boat, based on a legend from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, according to which Väinämöinen falls in love with the Queen of the Moon who appears to him singing on a cloud. He later abandoned the opera and turned instead to a series of four orchestral legends based on episodes in the life of another Kalevala hero, Lemminkäinen. The overture to The Building of the Boat became the third of these legends and was presented as an evocation of the swan which sings while it floats on the dark waters surrounding Tuonela, the island of the dead. The idea is not entirely dissimilar to that of the Queen of the Moon singing as she floats on a cloud.

The singing voice is represented by the cor anglais, which utters a remarkably free melodic improvisation - repeating little but the basic motif – almost without interruption. The impression of floating is obtained by the constant syncopations in an easy 9/4 metre and the fluid modulations away from the basic A minor tonality. Except in a passage where the thirteen-part strings are joined in unison melody accompanied by heavy A minor triads, the function of all instruments except the cor anglais is harmonic and colouristic.