A CHOICE IS MADE
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A CHOICE IS MADE |
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You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do
George Norman Douglas (1868 - 1952)
As can be seen from a letter to Pehr, written sometime between the 19 June and 21 September 1881, Sibelius discovers the classics: ‘Thank you, my good and very dear uncle, for the violin that you have sent to me on loan. […] It is really a good violin. I attended a concert of the violinist [Gerhard] Brassin and the pianist [Carl] Pfeiffer. I never heard anything like that before. The violinist played with great feeling and expression, but also brilliantly, and at places almost too fast. Of all the pieces, it is the sonata in A major of Beethoven that I liked the most. The piano was almost drowned by the violin, but the pianist had played a piece (of Mendelssohn) so well that it was almost unbelievable.’ The 21 September he proudly announced to Pehr: ‘Levander complemented me immensely for my violin, he found my sonorities strong and with feeling. I have started French at school, as you and my aunt advised me to.’
In May 1885, Janne passed his baccalaureate not without difficulty, nineteenth out of twenty with only six out of ten in history, in spite of a good essay on ‘Gustav II Adolph, founder of Protestantism’. His maternal grandmother, the only one of the two still living, reproached him for ‘not having any ambition in life’. In fact he did not know what profession to choose. Even in music there was incertitude. He had always lived a provincial city and was better known as a musician (mostly in private circles) than a composer. Music nevertheless remained the only area that really interested him. Accepted at the Imperial Alexander University of Helsinki, as yet the only one in the country, he asked himself in what section he should enrol. After a visit to the capital he wrote to his Uncle Pehr the 2 June: ‘Just after the decision of the University I jumped with joy, jostling everybody on my path I ran to Holmgren and got my student’s cap. I have never been so happy. […]. Helsingfors delights me: when you get used to it, Tavastehus is no longer up to it. I have been to four concerts, and particularly liked one of them. […] Once I received my diploma, I went to buy Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano, three Tartini sonatas for the same ensemble and Etudes Speciales by Mazas. My objective for the summer: become strong and well, practice a little and enjoy my freedom.
Another letter dated 10 July 1885 to Pehr showed that these resolutions were kept: ‘I studied Bérliot’s concerto [and] composed a quartet for 2 violins, viola and cello. It is in four movements, determined by the first movement, that makes 340 bars and is in E flat major; the second movement is in G major; the scherzo in D flat major; the final in E flat major. Every day I play the studies of Mazas and Kreutzer, Kitti is plunged in Hünnerfürst. The day before yesterday, I played in the open air on a hillside, on the big rock that you saw, and imagined that an orchestra was seated on the slope. The crows were the woodwinds, the pies the bassoons, the seagulls the clarinets, the thrushes the violas, the warblers the violins, the pigeons the cellos, the martins the flutes, the farm cock the conductor and the pig the percussionist. As you can imagine I was in a dangerous position and had to quickly make a retreat, the violas started to drop dirt on me; I went a little lower but it was worst. They did everything to get me, but they were beaten by your Janne’. At the beginning of 1885, he played a piece of violin music before his old school director Eva Savonius, which he explained was still without a name: ‘If you like call it Song of Freedom. […] How wonderful to think I don’t have to go to school anymore. All I want to do now is to play’.
Uncle Pehr, who was a little disconcerted, continued to provide Janne’s main moral and financial support: ‘The moment is coming when I should know how to get enough money to live in Helsingfors. The only thing to do is borrow. […] I need at least 250 this autumn because I need a new coat and should pay my musical studies, the university courses, etc. I would therefore like to know is you could accord me a loan and under what conditions. […] I have already asked Uncle Axel, but he has said that for the moment it’s not possible. […] I have started to compose the music for the opera of Walter Konow Ljunga Wirginia’ (4 August). Nothing is known of the possible existence of a score, but six pieces for piano, violin and cello associated with this ‘work’ have been identified in 2001 (JS 165). As the latter only survived as the part for violin. ‘We all agree with what you think about Uncle Axel. […] Mamma said that I am not practical enough to become a pharmacist. […] Up to now, I only know a tiny part of the world, Mamma looked after me for every thing. In many respects, I am still a child, especially for the things of life. Therefore, I am counting on people who know about the various professions, in particular those such as pharmacist, lawyer [and] doctor. […] Kitti is made for medicine but not me’ (14 August). ‘I have asked a few questions to experienced people, and the all advised me to study law and become a civil servant in the Senate. […] I don’t really want to become an advocate or a lawyer. All the pharmacists assistants that I know have strongly advised against me taking up the profession. […] My dear uncle, forgive me for troubling you, but after all, you are the person on this earth who has replaced my Pappa’ (25 August).
Finally Sibelius enrolled at the Faculty of Law of Helsinki. A friend asked him why he had made this choice, he replied: ‘What else could I do?’ There was no question for him of uniquely consecrating his life to music, at least officially, because his grandmother was firmly opposed to it. He told Karl Ekman: ‘My maternal grandmother would have never admitted to seeing me embrace a career as modest and uncertain as that of a musician. […] The very idea of music as a profession was abominable to her. Taking into account what she represented for my mother and us children since the death of my father, I have naturally done everything not to disappoint her.’ He arrived in Helsinki either at the end of September or the beginning of October 1885, after having passed some time in Loviisa. ‘On my arrival, I went directly to our dear old house. I recognised all the old stones and all the corners where I used to play. What pleasure to relive these moments again, the happiest of my childhood. Loviisa has not changed, but now there are many people of the kind that one would not like to be associated with’ (to Uncle Pehr, 17 September). In the Helsinki he was not alone. His mother, his sister, his brother and his aunt Evelina, who came to help Maria Charlotta, moved in with him at Brunnsparken (now Kaivopuisto), Villa N°19. From the window of his room, Janne could contemplate the entry to the port of Helsinki. His existence however remained difficult: half of his allowance henceforth was taken up by the rent (600 marks per year). In a letter to his fiancé, Aino Järnefelt dated ‘Vienna 20 November 1890’, Sibelius had however declared that he had never seen his mother borrow money.
Janne completely neglected his studies in law and launch himself enthusiastically into music. In Helsinki, other than the composer Frederick Pacius (1809-1891), the principal personalities in this domain numbered four: Richard Faltin, Karl Flodin, Robert Kajanus and Martin Wegelius. Richard Faltin (1835-1918), who was originally German (born in Danzig) and moved to Viipuri in 1856 then Helsinki in 1869, was a composer, conductor and organist, he taught music at the university as successor to Pacius from 1871 to 1896. Karl Floden (1858-1925), a student of Faltin, an influential critic in the Swedish language dailies Nya Presen (1883-1898), Aftonposten (1899) and Helsingfors Posten (1900-1905) founded the artistic and musical review Euterpe and lived in Buenos Aires in Argentina from 1908 to 1921. Robert Kajanus (1856-1933), composer and conductor, founded in 1882 in Helsinki the first professional orchestra in northern Europe: The Orchestral Society of Helsinki, mostly financed by private sources, it was the forerunner of the present Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Martin Wegelius ‘1846-1906), after studying in Vienna, Leipzig and Munich, became known in his birth place, Helsinki, as a composer, and founded an institute of music in 1882 where - Grieg having refused the position - he became the first director. Up until his death he totally consecrated himself to the institute, supervising everything down to the very smallest detail and to the point of sacrificing his own career as a composer. Sibelius had arrived in Helsinki three years after the foundation of the Kajanus orchestra and the Wegelius institute, events without which his career would have probably taken another path, which gave lustre to the musical life of the capital that it had not previously known.
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