The Third Symphony of Sibelius

By Michael McMullin

The third, though comparatively neglected, is the first of the fully mature symphonies of Sibelius, in which his unique qualities find full expression in their own right. In the second these are emerging from a romantic background and are present as motives contrasting with this background. The work is full of conflict, Sturm und Drang, and is a struggle with the past; or it is the labour of birth. But there is no conflict of this kind in the third, nor in the fifth, sixth or seventh. (The fourth is something quite different, to be discussed in its own context.) Here we are in a new world, and not struggling to be born. In a way the case is comparable with Beethoven's third, the "Eroica", in which the real Beethoven is heard for the first time; or with the fifth of Shostakovitch.

The distinctive elements or combination of elements in Sibelius' mature symphonic style may be defined in terms of form, orchestration and philosophy, or view of the world. Or, in other words, of spiritual content, or level of reality or consciousness, or of the message or vision conveyed through his music for humanity at its present historical juncture, the form, orchestration and method, and technique generally, naturally have to be consistent with this content or message and part of it; it is the means by which it is conveyed, and all this is the subject of aesthetic analysis.

"In the opinion of Sibelius the form of a work was the necessary consequence of the musical content"• (Santeri Levas in: Sibelius? A Personal Portrait.) Our approach assumes that the musical content is synonymous with meaning; if music has no meaning, then any kind of analysis must be senseless. Meaning however implies the relation of something to everything else, ultimately to the whole of creation, and cannot exist solely "in terms of the music itself", or without reference to the "extra-musical", in spite of current prejudices on this subject. Obviously it cannot exist solely in terms of anything, as such an idea contradicts itself. Meaning is conveyed through symbolism, rooted in sense-perception, and art is symbolical in the first place through sense-perception, both direct and suggested.

It is precisely in carrying through these principles in an integral way that the music of Sibelius is so distinctive and Significant. In symphonic terms (epic) they are fully developed from the third symphony onwards, these symphonies have been called "symphonies of suggestion", and this is true in the sense that they are symphonies suggestive of a particular setting or background, of particular landscapes, or seascapes, They refer to natural forces and the contexts in which these are manifest, to vast vistas, spatial or temporal, and to the elements in nature as embodiments of cosmic principles. Ultimately we were concerned with archetypes or ultimate symbols, and symbols as the primary reality; the concrete or material world as a revelation of a higher and preceding reality. We are concerned with myth, rather than mere fact, and this is of course the world of the Kalevala.

The perception of a higher world starts however through sense-perception, "If you want to know the invisible take a very close look at the visible".1 Music exists in the first place in terms of the qualities of sound, and these are active or expressive as direct sensation* 'they are suggestive of the visible world by association, imparting both emotional and physical significance. In Sibelius' mature style the treatment of the orchestra forms an integral part of this process, the elements of the orchestra tend to correspond with the elements of nature. However generally they are interpreted, the strings, woodwind and brass are three different elements in terms of which the music is worked out, more distinctly than is usually the case. 'They are aspects of reality, or the objective forces which come into play and which are, largely, the theme of the symphony! they are not simply instruments through which the composer expresses himself, or for which he scores certain musical ideas. They are as characters which, obeying their own laws, form the drama, and which, related to a particular setting, carry a clear-cut symbolical content. It is this consistent relationship, this symbolisation of the medium in which the music is conceived, that is behind the concentrated logic of form and the singular effectiveness of Sibelius’ music. One can speak of three main colour-blocks, each of which can be further differentiated according to the qualities of each instrument (e.g. flute, oboe or clarinet), or they way they are used (e.g. strings tremolo, pizzicato or in block harmonies), the strings are often the medium or the concrete background; thus they can be the sea, the waters, in an oceanic setting, or the forests in another context (Tapiola, fifth Symphony). Thinking in terms of the fundamental four elements, this would include both water and earth or either. The woodwind then will be air, or pneuma, wind. In a sense, impetus, and motives coming from above, a higher medium, perhaps the spirit breathing upon the waters. The brass will have to be fire, or the entry of cosmic and archetypal forms: thus Ihor, or Jupiter, in the Fifth Symphony, or Tapio, the forest-god.

At the present day music is classified into "programme music" and "absolute music", but noone has ever given a clear definition of these terms. A "programme" might properly refer to the representation of a sequence of events, but not to a tone-poem, nor to the existence of any kind of symbolism, suggestion or association, for in that case all music must be "programme music"; while "absolute music" is what Korzybski calls a "spell-noise" - i.e. a meaningless sound that can be spelled out.2 In Sibelius the association of a particular setting with each symphony is, I would say, essential to its full understanding and to an appreciation of all its implications. The symphonic view is a world view, an Over-all view, in terms of universals; but it is arrived at, or expressed, through certain kinds of experience, or through a view of nature, or in terms of life on earth ("I always have a picture in mind" - Beethoven.) In the case of Sibelius symphonies in general, they do suggest very strongly and consistently certain settings or backgrounds, and if this is not appreciated or admitted they cannot be understood. It is comparable to viewing a reproduction of an impressionist painting in black and white, only not simply the colour but the aliveness and vitality are lost. It makes no difference whether the composer was consciously aware of or intended, or would confirm, the particular associations suggested - they could as well, or even better, arise from the unconscious, and almost certainly do in many cases. One does not consciously create one's dream symbolism; and art is, in a sense, a dream, but arises from a reality superior to the conscious one. In any case the terms or ideas used to interpret or suggest the symbolism are to make one more conscious of the effect, the inter- relationships of the parts, and the over-all form and ultimate meaning. Once they have thrown light on a relationship they may be discarded, or others substituted, and the fact that music is a symbolical effect precludes any absolute interpretation and allows only a relative one. In the logic of correspondences the emphasis is not on particular manifestations but on meaning, to which all particulars relate, and the perception of meaning is not a rational process but belongs to the function of intuition. With this in mind, the third Symphony of Sibelius can be referred to the symbolic associations of the ocean, as its setting and it and the Seventh are the two oceanic symphonies. The orchestration, the themes and the Hood suggest an oceanic symbolism. One can carry the symbolism further and point out that in general, in psychological terms, water or the ocean symbolises the unconscious; that we are coming to the end of the Piscean Age, that of the Christian Era and Western Civilisation. The astrological sign Pisces is intimately connected with the symbolism of Christianity, and it represents the ocean, as well as the two fishes. The scale of G major became the dominant mode or tonality of Western Culture, and there are good reasons for associating it with the sign Pisces.3 If is therefore not accidental that Sibelius' two oceanic symphonies are in C major, as that the Seventh begins with the ascending scale of C.

The third Symphony can be understood as a seascape. The strings become the material element in this setting, and here, as in the Fifth Symphony, form the background or medium on which play the motives and forces of action, they are the ocean, in which is the potential of energy and development, from the depths of the 'cellos and basses up to the surface in the violins; or they are the material of life, and are influenced by the motives in the woodwind, in the air or space above. These woodwind motives are persistent impulses, often giving the essential note of a whole movement, and sometimes recurring in different movements, like ever present urges. The main themes themselves become motives rather than melodies, consisting, in the Third Symphony, of successions of metamorphoses of a single figure. The theme is transformed as it is expressed in different aspects or in terms of different instruments, and the musical logic is such that the whole form evolves from it, so that each movement, and even the whole work, tends to be monothematic, in the sense that all the thematic material can be felt as an evolution or development from the original motive, although Sibelius never repeats himself. Formally the first movement conforms to the sonata pattern, while at the same time representing the principles of the quite different outlook and method of the later symphonies. This may be with reference to the past and the tonality of C major, or the diatoni scale, associated so closely with the Sonata period. It does not reappear until the other C major symphony, the Seventh, which, in a certain sense, can be regarded as a vast sonata form embracing the whole symphony, and including its quasi separate movements within its continuous whole. As a whole the Third parallels the Fifth in design, though the first movement of the latter does not make any allusion to sonata form. In both, the middle or slower movement consists of variations of one theme or rhythm of a similar type and structure. In the third, the theme itself remains unchanged, but it is transformed through the accompanying orchestral counterpoint, or the development of the background. The form amounts to instrumental or orchestral variations. The finales of both lead up to a climactic peroration on a characteristic theme, which is also the climax and goal of the whole symphony. The theme in each case seems to grow out of the background which is represented by the rest of the material, and it is the only clearly defined theme in the movement. The finale of the second Symphony also anticipates this feature, and although it does have another strong theme, its second theme comes to dominate in the end, and is closely akin to those in the Third and Fifth. In the third, this theme of the en ding is a consummation of, and exactly balances, the opening theme of the Symphony, each consisting of a short rhythmic phrase repeated thirteen times in varied form, in a characteristically Sibelian sequence.

Finally, the world-view represented by this music is more in keeping with a higher and future level of consciousness, towards which we may be moving, than that of any other twentieth century composer. It is consistent with the way in which higher thinking is developing at present on the frontiers of virtually every discipline and science, and with the new kind of knowledge coming into us. The third Symphony of Sibelius may be summed up in these lines of Rimbaud, suggested by the "Coda" of the first movement:

"Elle eat retrouvé!
Quoi ? l'Éternité.
C'est la mer melee
Au soleil."

First Movement: Allegro moderate.

The symphony opens with a primary theme in the 'cellos only, which consists of a figure repeated, in varied shapes, thirteen times. It suggests a potential, a feeling of latent development, with the orchestration in the depths of the medium, and darkness. It is followed by two versions; the first a translation into expansive energy, rising to the surface in the violins, and the second a motive of air and light in the woodwind, of dawning and new life. These seem to be active principles, and result in a third version, in the strings, a semi- quaver figure which suggests development and movement over the whole surface. It is followed by a tutti, in which there is an anticipation of the second subject in the horns, an expansion into the whole sphere of action. Here, with the end of the first subject, the subject matter of the movement has been presented, the active elements, with the resultant figure of active development in the strings, on the surface of the medium, which is to be the predominant idea in the first movement. We have risen from darkness to the light, or from the depths to the surface and the air above.

The second subject is a minor and extenuated aspect of the first theme, again in the 'cellos. It is an extension in space, and conveys not only a feeling of width but of lyrical melancholy, for the feeling of surrounding emptiness emphasises the separateness and isolation of the individual, versus the indifferent universe, and brings a consciousness of the past, of fate and death. Space is in a sense the past, or static extension, what has become, contrasted with becoming (time) 4 . Hence the lyrical, melodic is the feeling element in music and is the subjective or individual dimension. This theme is succeeded by the figure of the string development, at different levels through the medium, and becomes a motive above this in the woodwind, at its most fatalistic as a bassoon solo. The exposition ends with a codetta in which the theme is extenuated still further, as though into the line of the horizon, where there is rest and complete calm. In this emptiness, over a barely perceptible movement in the basses (ppp), part of the woodwind motive of the first subject occurs, now as a flute motive, and as though the motive that leads to the development, the only thing present in the extreme stillness of the extension.

The whole field of action has now been presented as well as the active elements, and the "development" or central section consists of the action in this sphere. It is therefore the principal part of the movement rather than what is understood by the idea of a "free fantasia" in the accepted idea of sonata form. It is the logical centre and contains the main idea - that of continual metamorphosis and movement. The idea is in fact development, quite literally, and in its most generalised sense. It is in three sections and the figure of development in the strings is the central theme running through it. In the first section this is in the first violins, while there is a constant reminder of the potential underlying it in the incomplete first figure of the primary theme, occurring intermittently in the 'cellos; the woodwind motive occurs twice. Both these are source of the development, which thus results from the interaction of the inner, latent energy and the external impulse. In the second section the development figure is in the violas alone, with the effect of space and emptiness and set in relation to the second subject, the theme of extension. This enters as an element of fate, in varying form and key, and in different aspects, as it appears in solo bassoon, clarinet and oboe successively. The three reed instruments have the same fatalistic quality, with different colouring, becoming more poignant and urgent until in the third section this theme is reduced to a motive based on its first phrase, like a fatal impulse extending to the whole, and leading to a climax of action. While the first violins reenter with the development figure) the motive is worked up alternately by flute and oboe, dovetailing and rising a degree each time, until at the climax it emerges as identical with the primary theme which returns in tutti with the beginning of the recapitulation.

If this theme originally suggested a potential, it is now expressed in terms of the energy of the whole* It is no longer latent but apparent, and has expanded into the dimensions of the whole orchestra. It is the summary and concentration of the metamorphosis of the development section which, driven by the urgency of the inevitable, returns to this theme now on a symphonic scale. The theme is the energy of action, but it is still potential, and the movement, though musically complete, is ideologically incomplete without the succeeding movements. It is a realisation in so far as an expansion of this theme into the whole seascape, an attainment of light, having begun in darkness as an underlying possibility. The effect of realisation is increased by the rounding off of the them in the recapitulation for the first time, and this, together with the gradular emergence of the theme in the development section, makes this first movement more closely related to the form of the last movement than to sonata form. The exposition is not a complete statement, but only a suggestion, an introduction of the elements involved, a setting of the scene; the development is a development not out of but into the theme, is not an analysis but a growth; and the recapitulation is the full realisation of the theme for the first time, risen up from the depths, and is not really a repetition but the climax. It is evident that the subject is instrumental more than melodic, and is the development of the upper strings until, at the climax, the theme is stated in them.

The second subject in the recapitulation is also in the violins and, besides being in E minor instead of B minor, has a different curve and is transformed in mood from one of restlessness to one of reconciliation. It is no longer questioning, a problem of space, but accepted as an actual extension, and is the very theme which has led up to this establishment of the upper strings. Such subtle thematic transformations are typical of Sibelius' method, and the effect of fulfillment is heightened by the transference of the accompanying rhythm to full woodwind, as if space were no longer empty but filled overhead. The following section concludes, again unlike the exposition, with a play of the woodwind motive, now in light and freedom. The coda is a new version of the codetta theme for horns and woodwind, with a quite different significance, suggesting instead of limitless extension the complete establishment of light over the whole (see the verse from Rimbaud). Intermittent with this is a recurrence of the active development motive in the strings as it originally appeared in the first subject. It gives an inconclusive end; the theme is ceaseless movement, the emergence from darkness into light, and it ends with the assertion of light and the motive of action, themes suggesting a dawning of possibilities not yet realized.
Second Movement; Andante con moto, quasi allegretto*

The form of this movement has already been alluded to as orchestral variation, there are four variations not of the melody but of the orchestration and accompaniment. It is a movement concerned mainly therefore with the background or the setting, and as we should expect it is here that the oceanic symbolism is developed in most detail. The mood is lyrical; that is, it is one of static extension. This is emphasised by the structure, which consists throughout of balanced four-part repetitions. The theme is a rhythmic phrase repeated four times, melodically varied in the second and fourth repetitions to secure a slow rhythmic rise and fall, and for articulation, to form a theme as a whole;- the characteristic structure, similar to that of the other themes in the Symphony. This theme is itself repeated four times in each of the four variations. The only motion is the slow to-and-fro movement, or rise and fall, contained in the melody, and in the 6/4 rhythm, a movement of waters, while the counterpoint or accompaniment to this irresistibly suggests the ocean. In the first variation the theme is in flutes and clarinets, with a very calm and distant effect in space, and the counterpoint is a lulling, rocking wave-figure in the violas, on the surface, and a pizzicato in the bass, the underlying depths. After the first statement of the theme there is a passing appearance in the clarinets of a motive which is to persist through the movement, in the same way as the flute motive does in the first movement. It is in strong contrast to the restful rhythm of the theme, an is like an insistent searching, an impulse against the static extension of the setting. It is the countermotive, which gives point to the whole movement.

In the second variation the theme is in the first violins, transferred as it were to another plane, in the extension of the surface itself. The orchestra counterpoint is increased; the wave-figure is in the violas and second violins, and has more movement, while the woodwind and horns have a figure from the end of the theme, a note of endlessness and unchangeability, the countermotive occurs again in the same place, this time in flutes and oboes.

Between this and the next variation there is the first of two episodes. It begins with a slow passage in divided 'cellos, of great calm, and extending to tike horizon as a background. In the darkness and emptiness prepared by this comes the countermotive in full woodwind, and in greater length. All the emphasis is here put on this searching motive, which leads into a figure in 4/4 time in complete rhythmic contrast to the theme, bringing the whole course of the movement to a temporary halt. After this the 'cello passage occurs again, and two marcato notes on the horns lead into the third variation.
It may be that this episode has "no structural significance" but, far from being no more than a relief between the variations, it has every significance of emotion and idea. The bass, going down to the depths of the ocean, forms a dark contrast with the woodwind motive* "The horn marcato, which continues through the next variation, seems to be a note of foreboding, and a movement starts in the body of the ocean, a pizzicato up and down in depth instead of horizontally on the surface. In strong contrast to this rhythmic energy the theme is again in flutes and clarinets, from afar, and then in flutes and oboes, with the added poignancy of these instruments. In the fourth repetition added expectancy is created by the omission of the theme, leaving the pizzicato accompaniment only, which increases in tempo and leads into the second episode. An impulsive woodwind figure in rapid semi-quavers resembles the flute motive of the first movement, as though in answer and opposition to the nostalgic searching motive of the previous episode. There is in it a wild note of insistent necessity, leading to the fourth variation.

The theme is again in the violins, with the counterpoint now in the vertical aspect, as in the preceding variation. The pizzicato is this time a great swell, rising and falling, combined with the horizontal wave-motion of the theme, an almost waltz-like lilting rhythm against the mass of the underlying swell. This is the climax, the movement and energy of the whole, with full-bodied harmonies. In the succeeding coda the movement concludes on the essential note prevailing through it, the woodwind countermotive, with its last phrase left expectantly in mid-air, looking to the possibilities remaining to be realized.

Third Movement: Allegro ma non tanto.

The third movement, entirely original in form, contains the fulfillment which seems to be awaited in the note of questioning and incompleteness on which the other two movements end. It is in two parts, the first of which is the growth of the theme against a general stirring up of the whole background, and the second is the Symphonic Theme itself, the climax of all three movements.

The first part is mainly a development of the background out of which the theme gradually emerges, a generation of movement and energy under the influence of motives in the woodwind. The first section of it consists of two germ phrases, the first in the oboe, and an answering phrase in the clarinet which ends in two emphatic notes. These phrases are like active impulses. The first, slightly reminiscent of the counter-motive in the andante, but become active, is followed by a ripple of movement in the violas, which also ends in two emphatic notes giving a feeling of suspense and dynamic possibilities. The second phrase in the clarinet is like an active impulse, a gust foreshadowed by the first. As though these were the beginnings of a little breeze, they are followed by a stir of movement in the medium or background, a semi-quaver spiccato figure in the violins; this is related and contrasted with the former condition of rest in an allusion in the woodwind to the theme of the second movement, by which the feeling of expectant stir in the whole is enhanced. The first section is one of anticipation generally.

In the second the two germ phrases are combined in a flute motive, a realisation of the active impulse, as though the arrival of a breeze. This is, in a sense, the theme of the first part of the movement, heralding what is to come, and leading to a figure of development of energy in the strings, which is followed by the first string figure again, like a play of movement over the whole surface. The two emphatic notes grow, as two crotchets in the woodwind against the three quavers of 6/8 time, and become prominent as two sforzandi in the second violins, separated by the length of a bar.
In the third section in the combination of these two figures a phrase em erges in the horns in which the symphonic theme is clearly discernible, over the second string figure, a generation of power in the medium. The entry of the horns introduces a new quality in combination with the theme, and has the effect of transcending or penetrating through all that is already there, of an element from a different plane. The whole works up to a crescendo and climax in which the heavy brass enters, the trombones with the two rhythmic emphases, in anticipation of the dramatic elements.
Under the influence of this, the fourth section consists of confused movement in all directions, an interplay of the two string figures and movement throughmany keys, a generation of energy in the whole background, until it merges into and is dominated by the theme. This is established in the violas, while the other movement gradually subsudes, everything being concentrated and summed up in this motive that transcends the whole.

The second part of the movement is an orchestral build-up on the theme. It is first stated fully in the 'cellos, leading into the violins (as in the first movement), and is made up of thirteen varied repetitions of a rhythmic phrase, the two parts of which are the equivalents of the two germs that have been growing throughout the earlier half. Its structure therefore is exactly the same as that of the first theme of the Symphony. It seems to be a realisation of the potential expressed in this, a transformation, like all the material in the work. It completely pervades the whole, and is the outcome of all the former motives and forces, to which direction is now given. It is built up as a symphonic assertion, bracing the whole orchestra, to the final climax of the brass tutti, where it is expressed in terms of dramatic forces. Over this the woodwind has a new sustaining figure, looking into the future.

The third movement then contains the main theme of the Symphony, the final climax to which the rest has been leading. It is not, as in the typical "classical" symphony, added on to the end of a work which has its main emphasis in the first movement; but the whole is an integrated organic growth and development. The themes within each movement arise from one another, or from one germ, and there is a thematic relationship through the movements. The sonata form was never classical in a spiritual sense, the classical period having ended with Bach. Sibelius seems to return through this form to a new classical spirit, which finds its own form in his later works.

The three movements may be imagined as the presentation of the subject matter the theme of action; the contemplation of this at rest and the searching for a direction and meaning, the lyrical and reflective aspect; and the realisation of the Symphonic Theme, giving direction into the future. Or, most generally, as present, past and future, the three phases of art. The expression of the Syphony as a whole may best be estimated by comparison with those most closely related to it, the Second and fifth. The most important feature that they have in common is in the final movements. In all three the movement is dominated by one theme, and in each it is the same kind of theme, a persistent and pervading motive. In the Second Symphony this motive is still a second subject, though it finishes by overshadowing all else and the final orchestral climax is built up on it. In the third Symphony the form of the movement is based on the growl of one theme, which is now no longer a premonition of something but an assertion. It seems to be an assertion of a motive that, in the preceding symphony, has been called up from the past, and which here is justified and leads to a new heroic motive, ie the spring of a symphonic current flowing into the future. Here it is objectified or extraverted, is very much part of the present scene and the ocean. In the fifth Symphony the last movement is similar in construction, but the theme is stronger and seems to have entered into another dimension the realm of the archetypes or pure forms. As such it belongs to the future, or to all time.

Footnotes:
1) Quoted from the Talmud by Peter Baumann, in his notes to Qunther Wand's recording of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony.
2) Alfred Korssybski, "Science and Sanity" - Institute of General Semantics, 1933
3) of a Tone Zodiac proposed by me in the Astrological Journal, Spring 1984.
4) Kant, in the Prologue to the Critique* See also the citation from Spengler in my "Critique of Pure Music", M.R. Vol.45 N0. 1

The Three Dimensions of Music: The Principles of Musical Aesthetics

By
Michael McMullin

I. Music as Medium of Art
Though it is often stated that rhythm, melody and harmony are the "three dimensions" of music, this has the appearance of a casual observation, made without going much below the surface. It is not "scientific", or at least we do not know of a logical demonstration that rhythm, melody and harmony can really be compared with dimensions. They are three elements in music, and at first sight appear to be the three main factors, two of which stand in a kind of horizontal-vertical relation to the other. But are they all equally important, and are they all elements of the same order? If it is meant that melody is horizontal and harmony a vertical dimension, where is the dimension of depth? Rhythm would seem to move horizontally also.

It is the use of the term "dimension" that is open to argument. It is true that a dimension is only a mathematical abstraction and has no objective existence, and it may seem unnecessary to quibble over a loose application of the term to music. But in fact it is important to arrive at clear definitions and the power of thought depends upon the ability to name things consistently. To speak without proper foundation of rhythm, melody and harmony as dimensions is misleading. It sets these three elements in a false relation to one another, and this in turn affects our whole outlook upon the history and theory of music.

Music can exist without harmony, in the form of an unaccompanied melody. A melody must have rhythm, but rhythm by itself, tapped on a piece of wood or sung on a monotone, is not music. Such rhythm is movement in time, and in melody it is varied by movement in pitch. It looks as though this is indeed a combination of movement in two dimensions, but where is the third? If an unharmonised melody is music and music has three dimensions, harmony cannot be a dimension. It might be argued that a single musical tone contains the element of harmony because it can be split up into an harmonic series of partials. The harmonic constitution of sound however determines its "tone-colour", and this is not what is usually understood by harmony.

Musical sound is the fundamental material of which music is made, and its characteristic is that it is itself rhythmic or regular in frequency, as opposed to noise. If rhythm is to be singled out as an element and juxtaposed to melody and harmony, it must first be clearly defined. It is usually associated, both in music and poetry, with the metrical accents, marked in music by barlines. These occur every two or every three beats, and the accents themselves may be marked off rhythmically in pairs, one slightly stronger than the other, as in 4/4 time; or a rhythm of accents may be further elaborated, in various combinations of two or three. The characteristic that makes these groupings rhythmic is the regular recurrence of the accent every two or every three beats, or, in the larger units, every two or every three lesser accents. Rhythm in fact is a regular periodicity, which corresponds with the nature of the living organism, most obviously in the heart-beat and breathing, while ultimately pulsation is in the nature of all manifestation. The fundamental rhythm seems to be alternate. Where we have a rhythm of beats, they are naturally grouped into twos, even where there is no actual grouping and either beat may equally well be imputed with an accent, as in watching the pendulum of a clock. Possibly the rhythm of three is in reality an alternate rhythm, with the second beat split equally into two; or possibly it consists of a rhythm of pairs of first beats or accents only - music in three-time seems naturally to fall into a two-bar or two-beat rhythm.

If the beats are slow, and there is no accent, the alternation may be that between sound and silence, instead of between one beat and another. This would be a simpler rhythm, but there is no reason why the term rhythm should be confined to the bar-period in music. Any appreciable regular periodicity is a rhythm, including that of the sound-waves of a musical tone, or of light-waves, or of any sort of pulsation. The periodicity may be elaborated, as when an alternation of beat and silence becomes an alternation of beats, and then pairs of beats, and so on indefinitely on successive rhythmic planes. This includes the plane of rhythm indicated by the time-signature, but only in passing, and the grouping of bars into four-bar periods is equally a rhythm, as is the grouping of phrases into sentences and sentences into forms. These higher rhythms however, to be appreciable as alternations, have to be defined by changes of pitch. Such changes become rhythmic by a periodic return to the original pitch, or tonal centre, which is further kept in view by varying the pitch only in a simple relation to it. Thus we have scales of tones, the frequencies of which are in certain simple proportions to that of the original, forming a basic pitch-rhythm. In modal music, where the scales are several and less clearly defined that the diatonic scale, and where the tones are not consistently related to a centre by the use of chords, the tonic has to be emphasised at frequent intervals, and we find a continual return to it or its dominant, or 5th.

We can distinguish however three main planes of rhythmic complexity. Firstly, the fundamental rhythm of the vibrations of musical sound of a certain quality. Its rhythmic quality is what distinguishes it from noise, which is irregular. Secondly, the rhythm of the duration of this sound, marked by its division into perceptible beats, and extended by the grouping of beats into larger beats or accents. And thirdly the rhythm of larger groups which has to be marked by the use of sound of different frequency or pitch. It is perhaps permissible to call these three dimensions, or planes, of rhythm. The use of all three together gives us the possibility of a three-dimensional complexity, and the rhythms may be elaborated almost indefinitely in each dimension. When we have a sound-rhythm in three dimensions we have a medium in which artistic expression, in this case music, may exist.

But though this medium of rhythm is the material of music, it is not music itself. When a child produces a tone on a musical instrument it is at once intrigued by the sound, and is attracted to go on experimenting. This rhythmic sound has a peculiar quality in itself, a sympathetic physical effect on the ear. It is not art, but it suggests itself as a medium of artistic expression. It is the actual concrete and physical material, like colours in painting, while the other two dimensions of musical rhythm have to be deliberately produced by the human mind. All art is an expression of values in a rhythmic medium, the medium having a value in itself as a quality of sensation. The next level of rhythm, that of perceptible beats and duration, is imposed upon the first by the artist, which may be only the sounds made by a drum, and in its more basic forms appeals to body-rhythms and can be physically and emotionally stimulating or exciting, and conducive to dance, or other kinds of action. When we add the dimension of pitch we can have melody, which in its simplest rhythmic form may be something like a carillon of bells. But we now have a 3-dimensional medium which lends itself to a full range of expression, not only emotionally, as in speech, in terms of rising and falling, joy or sorrow, loud and soft, slow or fast and light or dark; but also, secondarily, to an unlimited extent in terms of suggestion and association, and this is true in all three dimensions, and means through the mind, memory, and the thinking function. Thus we have the possibility of an integral expression of values in conscious terms, and in terms of the psychological functions of sensation, emotion and thinking.

While a rhythm as such is defined as a regular periodicity, it is made to carry an expression in art only by a distortion of the basic regularity. Thus a fixed rhythm, while it may be stimulating physically, is not art, but art exists through the variations of it, as we express an emotion by a distortion of the regularity of breathing, for instance by holding or catching the breath. Through the irregularities imposed upon the underlying or implied rhythms, and their associations, ideas and meaning can be conveyed in all three dimensions by analogies of effect. If we have the following rhythm of duration:

and enlarge it by the use of notes of different pitch:

this in itself becomes a ground-rhythm which only acquires meaning when it is varied in the following bars:
iS.
K"—————V-


This larger unit would in its turn be meaningless as such if it were repeated over and over exactly as it stands. The rhythmic unit is significant only as a variant of the original rhythm:
This variation of the implied regularity of a rhythm gives the significant shape to the idea, or contains the form of the music. Thus the form is not a regular rhytfam but it is defined by the departure from this, and contains the meaning of the music.
4
In the above examples the durational rhythm remains regular from beat to beat, and the form beyond that is defined by the pitch alone. The durational rhythm however varies between the third and fourth examples, while the pitch remains regular over the larger unit. Such a unit is a melody, and the term melody means not only a movement in pitch but implies the existence of form. As soon as we have form in the material we have art, which can only exist in a three-dimensional medium.
When there is melody therefore there is music, and in this sense it is true that "form is melody writ large", for the higher forms are only an elaboration of melody and are defined by melodic units. The simplest kind of music is a plain unadorned melody, and if we consider of what this consists we see that first of all it is, as a whole, rhythmically complete; it can be divided into two corresponding parts, each of Jaduc&u«a&2MLJuliiliudfi
If we speak of a melody, we mean a complete form that is a simple rhythm defined by the melodic line alone. It is the simplest form that may contain a "meaning". In speaking simply of "melody", we are thinking of the curve in pitch or the line of sound that draws the outlines of the forms, whether simple or highly complex The melodic line moves in all the dimensions of rhythm, but by "melodic" we mean mainly the single line which defines the simple formal unit; and since the tone-colour remains constant within this, and the durational rhythm may also do so, as in the fourth example above, the movement in pitch stands out as the most conspicuous attribute of melody. The "melodic line" may therefore be thought of as corresponding to the pitch dimension, and the three elements in music, tone-colour, melody and form may be compared with the three dimensions of musical rhythm: quality, pitch, duration.

We have seen that a monotonous rhythm is not art, but merely the medium of artistic expression, and that form comes into being through an organised alteration in the regularity. This is an intellectual organisation; it is an expression imposed on the rhythm by intervention of the intellect. The pure rhythm has a physical significance, while art has also an intellectual significance. Art is an intellectual expression in terms of an actual physical or sensory effect. This effect, because rhythmic, is sympathetic, or pleasing; it is in accord with the nature of life itself. But when this is organised in the interests of an intellectual expression it is used for more than the immediate sensation of the sound, and acquires, through the indentations made on the rhythm, a secondary effect which acts on the plane of memory-association. Thus when we are discussing artistic expression we are no longer dealing with the physical dimensions of rhythm, nor simply with the factors in music which embody that expression in these dimensions (tone-colour, melody and form), but with the mental or psychological process itself. Here we are on the plane of effects which are brought about indirectly by suggestion and association.
Now these effects of suggestion are conveyed through the sensory medium of the sound. The actual physically perceived effects in this, in all three dimensions, recreates in the mind analogous effects experienced in life. These analogous effects are also sense-effects, and so they appear in terms of some concrete perception. There is therefore, besides the actual experience of the sound-rhythm, a reference in the mind to corresponding rhythms outside of the sound which are no less real experienced effects. These particular experiences become generalised as patterns; in other words they become symbolical.

Suggestion through a rhythm then is a symbolical effect Firstly, it is an active, concrete and objective experience in the present Secondly, because it is rhythmic, it exerts a sympathetic effect upon the subject, or has value. Thirdly, because it contains an intellectual content in the form, it suggests more than the one particular object or experience in which it originates, and therefore is significant It is through the intellectual suggestion that it is related to other things, and any particular experience suggested becomes symbolical in its turn; in fact an ever widening general relationship lies behind the particular form, as when a stone is dropped into water, the circles of ripples radiate out from the centre.
So we see that form is intellectual and that art requires form. This means that there must be a process of intellectual association. But as art acts in all the above three manners at once, and the form exists in terms of actual effects or experiences, the associations will be associations of experiences also. Similarly, as in the first place the concrete perception of the sound-rhythm is the medium, so on the intellectual plane we imagine a particular object or sensation, and this concrete image becomes a medium through which something else is experienced. The important point is that art is throughout concrete, never abstract like reaoning.

In poetry and painting objects in the external world are taken as points of departure and used for their associations of effect. Such objects become symbolic only when certain features with associative properties are selected as forms and expressed through an actual rhythm. The objective experience thus affects the observer as an individual, through a sympathetic rhythm, and acquires a "meaning", through the associative action set up. It becomes a link between the individual on the one hand and the external world or the totality, or God, on the other. This double relationship is what we mean by a symbolic effect

In music the same principle holds, although it is less obvious because music is the least representational of the arts and the most purely symbolic. As it is not the image itself that is important, but the aesthetic experience that takes place in terms of it, we are not concerned with the definite objects of association, but with the type of action or movement set up through these. It is better therefore to speak, not of a symbol, but of a symbolic action, for symbol is the action which sets up a relationship through the object It is the actual effect, experienced fundamentally in the present, and widening in its significance as it is enhanced by more and more experience brought in by association through the intellect, and as each effect is organised as part of a larger whole. The higher the plane of art, the greater the part played by the intellect in terms of form, though the method of effect remains the same, through the medium of sensory experience.
While the image is not important for its own sake, it follows that there must be an image. It may appear superficially that a type of movement may be represented or imagined in the abstract, divorced from any concrete object, but in fact such movement cannot be conceived without thinking of something that executes it. In music it is executed by the instrument of particular tone-colour and associations, but this in turn is symbolical. The sound of a particular kind is the objective experience, but there must be a corresponding experience on the imaginative plane. Exactly what this is depends on the context and may vary, but something must always be visualised to act as a symbol, through which the particular effect can be appreciated. Sometimes the image of the instrument itself suggests ideas directly, as the vertical rows of organ pipes may suggest the dim and vaulted interior of a cathedral, and the emotional line of the melody be conceived in this setting. Sometimes the only image at first suggested may be merely a visualised curve, perhaps no more than a line on paper, or the appearance of the written score. But on further contemplation these become symbols of other things; the curved line may become the motion through the air of something, which may have emotional implications, and/or be associated with particular objects, such as a bird, or wave-motion; and there can be an expansion to an indefinite number of planes of symbol, as the ripples widen from the centre.

It may now be more apparent what are the essential elements in music. These cannot be arrived at by an inspection of the surface, but only by an analysis of the aesthetic process in which each must play a part. If there are "three dimensions" in music, these must correspond to the "three dimensions" of art in general. Art is three-dimensional in the sense that it is an expression of a three-dimensional reality. We can know of things in the physical world only in terms of sensory experience, and while in ordinary language we refer to such experience by a quite arbitrary use of word-formulae, in art we reproduce experiences directly, in terms of real effects. It is non-verbal and direct communication. Any experience is relative, and not only the objective (outer) phenomenon has to be taken into account, but also the subjective and psychological aspects, or how it affects us, and we apprehend it emotionally and mentally as well as in terms of sense-effects. By acting in these three spheres at once, by expressing this triple relationship; art achieves depth, which is impossible to descriptive language. We cannot think rationally in three dimensions at once, and it is impossible to express reality in the neutral and linear terms of reason; at best we can only indicate, but not express, the truth by presenting our subject from various angles in turn. We can only reach reality directly through a symbol.

II. The Aesthetic Process
Though we may speak of art as three-dimensional, this is only a convenient analogy in comparing it with reason. We are not dealing with the dimensions of space, but with a process of action in time, and this is what we really mean by referring to depth, or the inner world. Only space, which is static, and outside, can be reduced to geometrical formulae, and the time element is beyond expression in mechanical terms. Time is change, and art is an expression of the process of change. It is better to refer to the three stages in the aesthetic process as phases of time, analogous to past, present and future, rather than as dimensions with the implied associations of space. Before we attain to a complete relativity there must be three phases of relationship, between (A) the individual observer, (B) the particular object observed, and (C) the totality of experience or the whole. Correspondingly, there are at the same time three phases of effect, involving three psychological functions: a sensory experience (B), an emotional response (A), and a mental significance (C).
Applying this analysis to music, we have in the sphere of rhythm alone the three planes of quality, pitch and duration, while in that of the elements in which musical expression is actually constituted we have the corresponding factors of tone-colour, melody and form. Each set of terms belongs to a particular sphere of discussion and the different spheres may not be confused; but, in order to obtain an organised terminology they may be correlated. In each case the central element (B) is the concrete medium or active material. This is the objective experience. If we require terms to apply to the three phases generally, in whatever sphere of art, we may call this the Dramatic Phase. The subjective, emotional phase (A) we may call Lyrical, and that of the general intellectual relationship (C) Symphonic or Epic: (A) (B) (C)
 LYRICAL DRAMATIC SYMPHONIC
Planes of rhythm: Pitch Quality Duration
Factors in music: Melody Tone-colour Form
Psychological function: Emotional Sensory Intellectual
Phases of symbolism: Subject Object Universal

Once we have the fundamental elements in music, such as are factors in a simple unaccompanied melody, the higher forms can be seen as a greatly increased elaboration of these. The higher the form, the more complex is the texture, and the more intellectual is the plane. This means a higher organisation, and on the higher plane the particular becomes more generalised or inclusive, or more archetypal. The form exists in terms of higher rhythmic units, and if these are to be felt as a coherent whole they have to be grasped and related together more consciously as a development of ideas. In a melody the idea is simple, but when we have the simultaneous occurrence of more than one voice or instrument there is then an interaction of ideas. The ideas stand in a vertical relation to one another as well as in succession, and it is clear that the formal expression may become vastly more complex If the form is an integral whole and all its parts are consistently related, each part must contribute to the idea of the whole and will be incomplete in itself. The melodic line must be strictly related to the context and cannot be developed independently as an end in itself, and the emotional expression must be subservient to the idea. There is therefore a much more formal, as opposed to melodic, intellectual as opposed to purely emotional expression. The idea itself, the symbolic character of each part, becomes more important and more prominent. But as the intellectual content in art must exist in terms of sensory and emotional effects, which means values, and the form in terms of tonal and melodic expression, a highly developed form does not mean that music is less melodic, but that the melody is more highly organised.

It becomes more significant, is on a higher and more intense plane of symbolism, and wider in its implications.
To achieve an integral form, therefore, it is necessary to see that instrument, melody and form each play an essential part. Each line in the score must be "three-dimensional", and logically related to the others in each dimension. The secret of an integral form, as also of an understanding and analysis of music, is an equal development in each dimension, or in each phase of symbolism, so that the whole is completely symbolic or completely organic. There must be meaning and purpose equally in the melodic line, in the instrumentation and in the form, for it is in these three spheres that a positive and creative expression is put into music. It is important that this should be understood, both for criticism and analysis and for teaching. Harmony and counterpoint and instrumentation refer to the technique of combining two or more voices sounding together, in order to achieve this expression, and are something like perspective and draughtmanship, and mixing colours and the technique of pigments in painting. To analyse a composition in terms of keys and chords is like analysing a picture in terms of these factors, and is confusing the means with the end. In so far as "harmony", as a technique, is concerned with tonality, then it is an aspect of melody. The pitch rhythm of melody depends on the establishment of a tonic, and on the relationship of the various notes in the melody to this tonic, or to the intervals from it of an accepted and already known scale. Melody itself is therefore necessarily tonal; it moves in relationship to a scale, and its rhythm depends upon the constant reference to an underlying tonic and its periodic return to this. Where there is modulation, a relationship to a new tonic is implied. When there is "harmony", or several lines of sound, the tonal relationships of the melody are merely stressed or modified. Either the tonic is kept in view by the chords formed on its scale by the lower parts, thus allowing a freer movement to the top part while still retaining an unambiguous tonal relationship; or the tonal relationship is changed by the lower parts, thus throwing the notes of the melody into a different relief from that which might have been implied by it alone. The resources and possible rhythmic scale of melody are in this way greatly increased, but no new element is added. It is solely a question of relative pitch, and key-rhythm is no more than extension of pitch-rhythm. The melody may follow a recognisable rhythm of keys, just as it is based on a scale, but this is not form, any more than a scale is music. The keys and modulations of a piece of music are a function of the melodic line and cannot be separated as something distinct which exists for its own sake.
If harmony is a question of relative pitch, and pitch is the sphere of melodic movement, the distinctive characteristic of harmony may be that several notes of different pitch are sounded together. In this case a chord must be distinct from an arpeggio, for if an arpeggio is "harmonic" then an arpeggio melody must also be harmonic, and it is difficult to see what would constitute "melodic" in opposition to this. It might be argued that the effect of several notes sounded together is something quite different from that of each note sounded separately, on the ground that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. When we are considering the whole however we are considering the effect of each note and line in the score relatively to the others, as they occur both simultaneously and in succession. This is form, which, when there is more than one line, has to be reckoned vertically as well as horizontally. That is, the form does not exist merely in the length, to be measured by the foot or minute, but it is the idea-content or meaning, which depends on the relationship between all the parts. Each line of sound is a melodic line, and has to considered as such in relation to a basic pitch-rhythm, and this pitch-rhythm is determined by the effect of all the parts together. But when the parts pursue independent melodic lines, they are related to one another as separate ideas going on at the same time, each with its own melodic, instrumental and formal character. Each line is related to the others as an individual, and therefore as an element of tone-colour, or as an instrument
When several lines are played on the same instrument they have not of course the same individuality of colour, and do not represent a combination of distinct ideas in this dimension. Nevertheless the lines may conserve a certain character by adhering each to a particular range of pitch, as in a fugue, and otherwise constitute separate strands of the same colour, and may represent a composite idea. For the particular expression of fugue it may even be desirable that the parts should be of the same kind, as human voices, strings, or different ranges on a keyboard instrument. The technique of combining several independent melodic lines is usually known as counterpoint, and we may now ask the question: what is the difference between harmony and counterpoint? In a progression of chords, at least one part, usually the uppermost, must stand out melodically. In "harmonic" music, either the other parts merely emphasise the tonal relationships already implied, or the melody, on a solo voice, is thrown into relief against another tonal background. In either case the other parts form a background and there is really a counterpoint in two parts, the melody against the chordal block. There are two separate ideas, the melodic line or solo part and the general chordal background as a whole, more or less undifferentiated into separate strands.

Now there are two types of chord, concord and discord. The concord consists essentially of a triad, with the third and fifth above the root, the third being either major or minor, corresponding with the two types of scale or mode. The quality of each chord, whether concord or discord, depends upon the nature of the intervals from the root, which thus becomes for immediate purposes a tonic. As the scale is a sequence of certain intervals rhythmically related to a tonic, so is the chord, which is like a scale within a scale. Any note in the chord discordant with the root stands out with a special emphasis as a melodically distorted interval, or as a departure from the rhythm. The minor seventh, for example, occurring in any part, that part becomes temporarily at least melodically conspicuous; a major seventh wants to rise a semitone, while a second at once suggests a suspension, with the lower note eventually falling melodically to form a third. It appears therefore, at least in mainstream music, that discords tend to be contrapuntal in effect They are expected
10 to behave in a certain way, to follow a certain independent melodic movement.

A discord such as a dimished fifth has a special strained effect as a melodic interval from the root, and the presence of such an effect accounts partly for what is referred to as the "colour" of a chord containing it. Similarly chords containing minor sevenths have a slightly clouded or diffused effect But can this strictly be compared with colour? In the case of concords, we have the special rich effect two or more lines sounding in thirds with one another, or sixths (the inversion), and the idea of playing "in harmony" suggests at once the sound of thirds. Any chord must contain thirds, and the third from the root at least, even in another octave, is required to sound in it When a fifth is added, this make another pair of thirds, without producing a discord. In early times the third was regarded as a discord, onty octaves, fifths and fourths being concords. These latter intervals do not produce a clash, but neither do they produce a blend, being too similar or close in the harmonic series. Clearly the third has a peculiar effect which was not desired in the very early church music. Strictly speaking it is a mixed effect, or a lack of unanimity; but, as is not the case with what are later considered discords, two parts may continue indefinitely in thirds with one another without offending the ear. When this happens, and the two parts are equal in colour, there is "harmony", or what sounds harmonious, but no counterpoint, and it seems that thirds provide the essential effect that characterises "harmony". Further, this effect is one of two similar parts mixed or blended, moving in parallel, and is not primarily a pitch effect, but one of instrumentation. Nor does it exist to the same extent, if at all, in the case of two instruments of contrasted tone-colour playing in thirds - or of a large separation in pitch, that is an octave or more apart. In such case the two lines are contrapuntal and distinct Two violins playing in thirds have a peculiar colour effect; there is an enrichment of the tone-colour of one violin, and a suggestion of multiplicity that does not exist in the case of two violins playing in octaves or fifths. In an orchestra, if all the violins play in unison and octaves, we merely get a very loud violin note, but not the idea of numerous voices.

The minor seventh, being another third added to the triad, has a similar effect, but is more disordant with the root and therefore more contrapuntal in character. If "harmonic" music means the presence of similar parts moving in thirds, and thirds are a multiplication of tone-colour, then we have blocks formed by parts of the same or related colouring, which move as blocks, forming a counterpoint against one another, or against a solo voice or instrument. Thus in an orchestra we have strings, brass and woodwind, and these may be again subdivided, or the instruments used individually. When a discord produces a chord of a certain "colour", this colour is instrumental and could not be duplicated in quality with different instrumentation. Discords either emphasise the tone-quality or diffuse it, and the degree of dissonance even is dependent upon the tone-colour. The effect of two flutes clashing in seconds: is quite different from the same played on violins, as far as the colour is concerned. What the two cases have in common is the melodic movement of the two parts in relation to one another, and the tonal clash of the discord. In the same way a diminished seventh chord on the piano has little in common in the way of colour with the same chord on the organ.

When two independent lines are combined, each must be formally intelligible in relation to the other, whether they are single lines or colour blocks. If they are single lines the music is said to be contrapuntal or polyphonic, but when one or both are blocks moving in thirds it is said to be "harmonic", and has its real nature obscured. It is true that any line may move relatively little, or remain stationary for some time, in the form of a chord, pedal note or ostinato figure. In such cases it forms an even more distinct colour block, in contrast to a moving part. It marks a rhythm, both in pitch and time, which is varied by the solo, and forms a background. It has no form of its own until it moves, when it becomes contrapuntal. If "harmonic" means remaining relatively stationary and marking a rhythm, it applies to music which consists of a solo against a background. The music is mainly in the solo part, which is melodic. There is however only one melody at a time, as opposed to polyphony, and it is consequently on a much simpler formal level (hence the coincidence of "harmonic" with "Romantic"). As far as the melody interacts formally with the background, it is chiefly in terms of colour-relationship; if this does not make sense it is less aesthetically developed as music. There is a counterpoint, not of melodic movement so much as of instrumentation. The whole background, in as much as it gives out a rhythm in terms of which the melody takes shape, is comparable to musical sound itself, the rhythmic medium in which music exists, and it is dramatic. An instrument sounding generally in chords, rather than in distinct parts, perhaps over its whole range, is manifesting its potentialities of sonority as an instrument, more than anything else, and this again is in the dramatic phase, or the dimension of tone-colour.

This is of the greatest importance in orchestration, and whether an orchestra is treated contrapuntally in terms of distinct colour-blocks or whether it is treated as though it were an organ or pianoforte, depends on whether "harmony" is regarded as an end in itself, and the important thing the chord produced by all the instruments together, or whether it is regarded merely as the technique of combining several lines of sound. "Harmony" in the former sense is an abstraction. In the latter sense it is concerned as much with instrumentation as with counterpoint It cannot mean anything other than a way of looking at music, that is in cross-sections, on paper, rather than as a living experience. The "harmonic" method, that is the division of the music into certain rhythms of tonality, or "chords", may be useful as a technique or method of procedure, as a rather mechanical way of avoiding incongruities between the parts, and of marking a regular rhythm, but it is no more than a convenient method. If music consists of nothing but chords, it is incoherent, amorphous and deficient in formal organisation to the extent that it is deficient in melody - and one can think of composers to whom this applies. The more it consists of an interaction between melodically and colouristically distinct parts, forming an intelligible whole, or the more polyphonic, the higher the formal level.

The conclusions to be drawn from this lead in many directions and have an important bearing upon the whole of music. So long as rhythm, melody and harmony are thought of as "the three dimensions of music" we cannot have a sound system of aesthetics, and therefore we cannot have a standard of criticism. These are three things of quite different order, and failure to understand what they are and the real part they play may produce confused thought, confused methods of analysis and of teaching, and even confused composition. Thus we have schools which see music as leading towards an unlimited development "harmonic" combinations, or as consisting mainly of accented beats. Instrumentation or tone-colour is the element which emerges as one of primary importance, and corresponds with the rhythmic medium, sensory perception, or the concrete object. "Abstract art" has to be a contradiction in terms, and neither abstraction nor "realism", in the sense of representation or description, have anything to do with aesthetics. Tone-colour is the result of various mixtures of harmonic partials, so the various constituents of chords produce colours in the same way. This is a distribution and diffusion of instrumental colouring that already exists, and that is a fundamental factor, to think of it as something else called "harmony" is misleading, and produces a confusion between this factor and pitch. It has primarily an objective, concrete and symbolic or suggestive function, and this applies equally to arpeggio effects. For example the use of slow-moving diminished seventh chords on the pianoforte can be very suggestive of slowly surging water; this can be compared with rapidly moving water effects of scale or arpeggio passages such as we find in Bach's Chromatic Fantasy, and more explicitly in "impressionistic" works like the "Fountains of the Villa d'Este", "Jeux d'Eaux" and many others.

What is called "impressionism" in painting is precisely a new emphasis upon this objective or directly sensory phase of symbolism, and refers to sense-impression in a general sense. It is achieved largely through colouristic effects, and the term tone-colour has the same implications in music. Ninth chords in Debussy can be compared with impressionistic colouring in painting, and almost any symphonic poem proclaims this principle, while the harp itself has a most conspicuously colouristic effect and not an "harmonic" function. French poetry of the same period is referred to as "symbolist", and this again means the same thing, for this focus upon the sensory medium amounts to a more conscious awareness of the process of symbolism which is the language of all art. If music is to be significant as sensory perception, as well as emotionally and intellectually, it is necessary to understand the nature of symbolism, and how a phase of it is fulfilled in each of these spheres. To relate to the world as a balanced or integrated psychological whole, which means realistically, in the proper sense, we must do so in terms of all four of the psychological functions, sensation, feeling, thinking and intuition. In the arts it is at the high summer or full moon periods in the cycles of cultures or civilisations that the best balance is achieved in this respect, and these are properly speaking the classical periods. In the case of our Western culture this was the sixteenth century, carried over to a large extent into the seventeenth in the form of Baroque. The following sonata period, usually referred to as "classical", is dominated by the development of opera, and the principle of duality, either in the form of hero and heroine, or instrumentally as first and second subjects in sonata form, and their interaction is in this literal sense dramatic. It is in this period too that the form of the concerto is developed, with dramatic interplay between the solo instrument and orchestra. There is a shift in emphasis toward the individual, as standing out from or opposed to the whole, and this is continued further in the following romantic period, where there is a very marked shift in the balance, towards the feeling function and the lyrical. Here a Dramatic period occurs as an intermediate stage between the Classical and Romantic, in a process of decline, in a sense and taken overall, where form becomes less integrated than in the polyphonic period, with a lesser grasp of the whole, and a less developed symbolism. This is obvious in comparing a typical sonata movement with a fugue, especially with something like the great organ Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor by Bach. A loss of a feeling for the unity of creation means a less developed intuition, which is the fourth psychological function, and the one whereby the greater meaning is perceived, entailing the greater spiritual understanding. When we come to the modem and "post-modern" phases, we are in the winter season of the culture and this function, which is associated with the right half of the brain, has fallen into disuse, leaving meaninglessness as the prevailing state of mind. This represents in its typical and overall social manifestation a regressive decline from a feeling for the whole to a sense of separateness, and ultimately from seeing the material world (sensation) as symbolic and meaningful to seeing it as the haphazard detritus from a supposed "big bang", that somehow accidentally became assembled into various "mechanisms", of which we are one kind. This self-contradictory and illogical, not to say unreal state of affairs represents an exact contradiction of the aesthetic process, and of anything that can property be referred to as art, at any time in human history.

Sibelius: An Essay on his Significance

August 1985 Vol. 46 No3
BY
MICHAEL McMULLIN
When Sibelius died at the end of September, 1957 it was expected that something would be revealed of his creative activities during the thirty years that had elapsed since his last important published work. It seemed certain that there must be an eighth Symphony, which had even been scheduled for performance in 1939, and probably a ninth, and at one time it had been stated that the composer had decided that these works should not be released until after his death. It was known that he never ceased composing and that, in fact, he became during this last period less and less willing to be interrupted in his work; yet we were told after his death that he left no works in manuscript. Thus, far from being any nearer to an explanation of his long silence, we are presented, as a final gesture, with a complete enigma by one who, in many other respects, had been one of the most enigmatic figures of our time.
Most of the attempts that have appeared in print to account for the silence of Sibelius are too superficial to be worth attention. The fact is that for an artist of comparable stature to cease suddenly at the height of his creative power, in full maturity to drop the curtain and live in retirement for thirty years is a phenomenon unique in the history of art. Admittedly we cannot point to great masterpieces written by composers at the age of 90; but Sibelius would have been no more than at the time of the publication of Tapiola, his most powerful conception in that genre, and a sudden intellectual falling-off at that age, and at that height of achievement, a failure of creative energy or a drying-up of inspiration, would be exceedingly improbable and still without parallel. We must look rather for a philosophical explanation, connected with Sibelius's relation to art and with the historical situation in which he found himself.
The music of Sibelius appears for the most part, with the exception of earlier works and of those of the period of the fourth Symphony, to be aloof and detached from the contemporary world and to ignore the currents of the times that are so vividly expressed and exemplified in the music of other composers. For this reason Sibelius is often described as "not modem", with the implication that he is either out of date or a reactionary. The old world of European culture is felt to have passed so completely that its forms, systems of tonality and even musical sound itself have to be thrown out and an entirely fresh start made in order to express what is in the minds of modern composers. This is a true feeling, and in fact the new music does succeed succinctly, as music always does, in portraying the exact spiritual state of modem man and the underlying reality of modern civilization. This reality is dissociation or schizophrenia, and the new music corresponds, even to the dissociation of musical language. The conditions it reflects are discord and the soullessness of the machine, accompanied by alienation and despair of the individual, particularly the artist. In Sibelius, on the other hand, we find the very opposite characteristics — not a reflection of what we have around us but an emphasis upon what we need to make us whole. It is as though his music were a dream—that is to say a "big dream", a message from the unconscious to the conscious mind, to be interpreted as a pointer to a cure for alienation and neurosis.
The most un-modern thing about Sibelius's music is its quality of classicism. This means not an exterior conformity to so-called classical models but an interior spiritual classicism, an equilibrium between emotional, sensory and intellectual elements and, above all, the intellectual mastery and creative formal integration that characterize the art of classical periods. On the large scale and in a form embracing a whole outlook this quality becomes epic, or symphonic. We have in the later symphonies of Sibelius the phenomenon of an art that is classical and epic appearing out of nowhere in the middle of a post-Romantic era.
Besides this quality of classicism and creative form, Sibelius's music has two salient characteristics that relate it to currents that were flowing strongly in the latter part of the nineteenth century. One of these was a newly awakening nationalism in art, which was naturally associated mainly with small or more-or-less fringe or outlying nations that were aspiring to a new independence. This inspired an idealism that sought to restore and nurture the national cultural heritage of these nations and their folk-epics and also to express the soul and qualities of the land itself. The second of these currents is that centred in the Symbolist movement in France, which places a new emphasis on what I have called the Dramatic phase of art, or the associations arising from sense-impressions, and the sensory medium. In music one can say that tone-painting becomes dominant, not as representation, but as symbolism deriving from the concrete, objective world. The beginning of this current can be seen in the "impressionist" works of Liszt, the piano parts of the songs of Schubert and also in certain works of Beethoven. This current may merge to some extent with the nationalist current in so much as the tendency towards tone-painting agrees with the desire to express the features of the national landscape and gives rise to tone-poems such as those of Smetana; but this merging is only incidental in most cases, and the two currents are in reality distinct, one being ideological and not specifically artistic, the other being a question central to aesthetics. In Sibelius, however, they merge in a very special way, and both become artistically fundamental. Thus, while the main current of art in Europe flows from Romanticism through Wagner, Strauss and their successors into increasing dissociation and "abstraction", Sibelius came to represent a current in the reverse direction—towards, not "abstract", but concrete art and ending; not in dissociation, but in a new integration and in the development of symbolism into a highly evolved formal dimension.
There are, of course, other twentieth-century composers who did not, or do not, go the way of dissociation, and there are other currents, such as the reactionary one of "neo-classicism", just as we have every conceivable kind of movement and cult in politics and ideology. Sibelius came to a fullstop at the first quarter of the century, and the only composer, or even artist of any kind, of comparable stature to come after him was, in this writer's opinion, Shostakovich. He again is a fringe phenomenon, not really belonging to the main corpus of European culture, which, we could agree with Spengler, is finished. Russia is in certain ways even less "Western" than Finland and more than half Asiatic—politically quite outside. The music of Shostakovich, however, while sometimes having affinities with Sibelius in tone-painting (see the tenth Symphony), is for the most part very contemporary, not in technique or in being itself an example of schizophrenia, but in being the commentary by a great artist on the disastrous world in which he finds himself: "... in einer Zeit des geistigen Niederganges der Menschheit", to quote from the autobiography of Albert Schweitzer. In this he follows on from Mahler, more than from anyone else, whose later ironic vein has remarkable resemblances to that of both Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
One of the most striking qualities of Sibelius is the originality of his melodic idiom. In the first place, real melodic inventiveness and originality is an extremely rare quality and is, perhaps, one of the most important marks of a great composer of the first order. Sibelius's melodic idiom is certainly expressive of the Finnish environment; it has a uniquely Northern atmosphere and also expresses the remote and strange character of the Finnish language. It embodies the mysterious atmosphere of magic and sorcery that were traditionally associated with Finns and Lapps, This particular flavour is no doubt derived from translating into music the Kalevala, which it perfectly matches and with which much of Sibelius's earlier music is concerned. The Kalevala is a rather unique kind of folk-epos, and besides this there is no other example of a folk-epos being rendered in music so effectively by a civilized artist, of a musical idiom being created out of one in this way. The same feeling and atmosphere pervade works like En saga and The Bard, which are not directly linked to the Kalevala, and this expression has far more significance than mere nationalism or the expression of a particular type of landscape. It has nothing to do with Finnish folk-music, which is of a quite different, even contrasted, character. It does, however, suit the landscape, and the vast and similar areas eastwards, in which we can also find related languages; it is as different from the mountainous landscapes of Norway and Sweden as is the language itself. The steppes and forests of Russia are much closer in character and suggest the same kind of brooding atmosphere of vast extension, as we find in Shostakovich sometimes, especially in his tenth Symphony. The ocean presents the same aspect of extension, and it is natural, therefore, that Sibelius is equally at home in seascapes and makes use of this different oceanic environment and symbolism to an almost equal extent. This gives rise to a correspondingly different musical idiom—one might almost say style, which necessarily has affinities with Debussy's La mer, since both arise from the same background.
If his idiom matches these subjects and environments, they in turn exactly match what Sibelius has to say in terms of them, and so it is not important whether his idiom arose out of the environment or vice versa. It is important, however, to realize that there is much more involved than tone-painting for any obvious or popular, local or temporary motive and that what Sibelius has to say has deep, symbolic significance for all of us. This significance resides partly in the content, conjuring up the forgotten past, the age-old and archetypal symbols of the Kalevala, the feeling of infinite antiquity of die forests (En saga), brooded over by ancient deities (Tapiola), still very much alive beneath the surface. The Kalevala is an imaginative epic of elementals, of the forces of nature, with which Sibelius becomes identified. It harks back to Shamanistic times and to a feeling of oneness with nature.
The significance of Sibenus's music resides also in the method, which is at one with the content and concerns one of the basic principles of aesthetics. The word “symbolism” refers to the fact that all aesthetic effects and significance are realized in the first place through sense-effects and direct experience and continue to be so realized on successively higher planes through intellectual association. All artistic expression is concrete, whether or not we are consciously aware of it and whether we like it or not, and there can be no such thing as "abstract art". Symbolism is an identification with the outside world, or the realization of universal principles through particular concrete perceptions or associations. In painting, the inescapability of an association with objective visual perception is obvious. The nature of symbolism becomes clear in comparing either a representational painting or a mere design with the works of one of the great periods of Chinese landscape-painting. The Chinese have always shown in every sphere a predilection for the concrete, and the aesthetics of Chinese landscape-painting are based upon the religious insight of Zen Buddhism, a profound feeling for the ultimate unity of all things in nature, including man, and for the significance of all of them as parts in a whole. A study of this nature-symbolism will help us to understand that of Sibelius and the role of landscape-painting in his music. Sibelius's immediate precursors in this respect are the French symbolists and especially, of course, in music, Debussy. We may relate, for example, Debussy's three Nocturnes for orchestra on the one hand to Chinese art and, on the other, to Sibelius; there is the same entering-into and identification with the phenomena of nature, the same impersonal translation of their significance and the same dwarfing or complete absence of human figures in the landscape. Nuages, in particular, could almost equally well have been written by Sibelius, and it would be very difficult to find a musical work by anyone other than Debussy so akin in style and method to the major tone-poems of Sibelius. "Of all the arts", wrote Debussy, "music is closest to nature"; and the artist should "take counsel of no man, but of the passing wind that tells us the story of the world". This is symbolism, not imitation of nature/and it should be noted that Debussy himself was as opposed to "realism", "naturalism" or literary music (the musical equivalent of narrative verse) as was Mallarme: "exclus-en Ie reel, parce-que vil". He foresees the future development of music in the line leading to Sibelius:
We do not listen to the thousand sounds with which nature surrounds us ... This, to my mind, is the new path. But believe me, I have only caught a glimpse of it. Much remains to be done and he who does it... will be a great man.
Sibelius has carried this phase of symbolism still further, in terms of instrumentation, and has developed what I would call symbolic orchestration resulting in an integration of orchestration and form of an original kind. The implications of this may be studied in a work like Tapiola, both in the role of individual instruments and in the part played in the form by the main instrumental groupings of strings, woodwind and brass. In Tapiola the strings throughout are the forests, the woodwind various elements or moods within them and, of course, the wood-sprites in the section devoted to these; while the heavy brass is reserved for the two great climaxes, where the rounded-off version of the theme appears, the entry of the great dramatic or elemental forces, or the appearance of the forest god, Tapio, and the subjugation of the forests to him. The one theme persists throughout and consists of transmutations in terms of these various elements of a short figure, the whole resulting in a formal organization and a potency of suggestion that make this work unquestionably the most powerful creation of its kind in musical literature.
The same principle of symbolic orchestration is applied in the symphonies, and it is above all as a symphonist that Sibelius is an entirely isolated and unique phenomenon. A symphonic poem is centred on the associative phase of the aesthetic process, the suggestive, concrete or what I have called the Dramatic phase, while a symphony is, or should be, reflective and draws further consequences; it is philosophical rather than dramatic, "symphonic", or epic or all-embracing and developed, above all, in the formal dimension. It is in the creation of highly integrated forms that Sibelius is so remarkable—and this in combination with the principles we nave been studying above. Debussy stops short at the Dramatic and, hence, may aptly be termed a "Symbolist", while Sibelius goes on to become a symphonist. As such, in terms of everything I have implied in the word "symphonic", in relation to the three phases of art, Lyrical, Dramatic and Symphonic, and in terms of symphonies for orchestra, he is to be compared only with Beethoven; in principles of formal integration, and formal metamorphosis, also with Bach. Sibelius's works tend to be monothematic and built upon thematic transformation of short figures, like a fugue, and in exactly the same way as the later works of Beethoven, or even the C minor Symphony, even though this is not yet generally recognized in either case.
Sibelius's mature symphonic style does not emerge until the third Symphony, the first two belonging more to the Romantic era. These are strongly characterized by his Kalevala style and they are full of conflict and dramatic confrontations as well as of lyrical, poetic feeling for the northern landscape. The second Symphony begins to have some very Sibenan characteristics; the first movement looks forward in some respects even to Tapiola, opening with a very similiar short motif in the strings, even with the same key signature, though in D major as compared with B minor. The motif has a very similar significance in the two cases, but here it is continually contrasted with a theme of conflict in the brass, which, as Cecil Gray pointed out, is very prominent in these first two symphonies, while in the later ones it is very much more restrained and used sparingly and, consequently, to more powerful and purposeful effect. The opening string motif underlies much of the action and is developed in various ways, as a kind of background, anticipating the role of the strings in the fifth Symphony, even to very similar passages. It represents an element quite distinct from that of the woodwind motif that immediately follows and accompanies it, and it appears again in its original form to end the movement. The form of the movement has been described as the development of fragmentary motifs into a fully formed theme; however, the action involving these fragments, leading to all the conflict, and the theme itself, would seem to represent an element deriving from the initial woodwind motifs and distinct from, or contrasted with, the opening think this contrast is the more important feature. It is continued and again represented by strings and brass, where the second theme, or element, even takes on, significantly, a character reminding one of Finlandia. There is by no means an integrated form, in either movement, but a constant juxtaposition of contrasted elements and motifs, on the same principle as in sonata movements, but more so, and the effect is of disjointed fragments and conflict rather than cohesion.
The third movement offers a close parallel to the symphonic poem Pohjola's Daughter, where the chief demiurge of the Kalevala, driving through the darkness to the Northland, is confronted by the daughter of the North "sitting on a rainbow" (the Northern lights?), weaving her shuttle to and fro—an obvious anima figure, representing the unconscious. In the Symphony there is a similar furious ride, halted by a similar confrontation with an extremely feminine and anima-like theme, with its initial nine repeated notes.
The second Symphony, in what may be called its forest symbolism and telluric element, stands in a line with En saga, the fifth Symphony and Tapiola, while nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7 have a quite different setting and context. The finale is especially interesting, representing an apotheosis of the two contrasting elements noted in the other movements. Here the more obscure and underlying element, represented by the string figure that opens the Symphony, but now looking more like a "second subject" and which, on its first appearance, in D major, is quiet and almost insignificant, in its second statement, in D minor, is built up into one of Sibelius's great perorations, over a swelling or surging movement in the strings, looking forward to the seventh Symphony, and ends as the dominant motif or theme. In this it anticipates the finale of the Third and—still more—that of the Fifth. It has been suggested before that these two contrasted elements or types of theme, or simply contrasted themes, that run through the second Symphony, each of which reaches full development in the finale, represent, on a certain level, the inner soul of Finland, for example, as contrasted with the outer, political forms, or even Russian domination. It is certainly a question of outer versus inner, the pomp and circumstance of the mundane world versus the inner and spiritual reality (on a more fundamental level, the conscious mind confronted by the unconscious). There is something very significant about Sibelius's confronting us at this time with remote archetypes of an inexorable nature, strongly contrasted with the preoccupations of consciousness; for these archetypes are realities of the collective unconscious and confront us in dreams and wherever unconscious contents come to the surface. Sibelius was contemporary with, and parallel to, the great psychologist C. G. Jung, who taught us these things and also that such confrontations, and the recognition and integration of these realities, is the only possibility for modem humanity to regain any sort of sanity or to attain to psychological integration:
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
T. S. Eliot
With the third Symphony we enter a new symphonic world, one that is truly symphonic as opposed to dramatic. There is a new integration, both of substance is achieved and expressed through the form, from this Symphony onwards. This is not merely a technical or thematic integration but a one as well, and in that sense it constitutes a new classicism. In a similar sense, as well as a more literal one, this Symphony is oceanic. The ocean, of water (which also symbolizes the unconscious), replaces the forests—which also become an ocean, in their way, in the fifth Symphony—as the setting, or context. In the third Symphony it is possible to interpret the first movement in terms of sonata form, but at the same time it is conceived in terms of the new elements of instrumental groups and associative symbolism and of the metamorphosis and evolution of thematic material throughout the whole Symphony. It is in a way a dissertation on, almost a symbolization of, sonata form, an interpretation of it in new terms, and the central idea is development and metamorphosis. The associative symbolism and unifying medium throughout the Symphony is oceanic; and, while it is in three movements, each movement is a different aspect of the same idea.
In the fifth Symphony there is no longer any reference to sonata form, and the new formal elements alone are decisive. This is in many ways the most characteristic, original and completely Sibelian of the symphonies and, perhaps, the greatest. In its three-movement scheme and in the relationship of the movements it is parallel with the Third, the formal kinship being especially close between the middle movements and also the finales. Here again we are in the context of the forests, as we are to some extent in the second Symphony and in Tapiola, and these form the background. The fundamental melodic idea is the perfect 5th, in trumpets and horns, as the augmented 4th is the basic unit of the fourth Symphony and the major 7th the leading idea of the Seventh. These intervals perfectly characterize the respective symphonies with which they are associated, and in their very simplicity they express the all-embracing nature of the symphonic form. In the first movement there is a clear distinction between the original idea or motif, the trumpet theme featuring the perfect 5th, and the background, represented by the strings. All the thematic material is derived from this opening motif, and the movement consists of transformations of it in the furthest aspects of the setting, embracing ultimately the whole in its widest significance, and it is monothematic. There are six or seven (the seventh is more to be regarded as an extension of the sixth) such transformations, the last two and the latter part of the movement being climacteric and in a faster tempo, which has led to pedagogic hair-splitting as to whether it is to be regarded as one or two movements. During this development or metamorphosis there are four entries of the trumpet theme in its original form, including the final tutti and climax, suggestive of a fugal stretto over a pedal-point. Each of these entries is separated from one another by two transformations (fugal "episodes"?)—an arrangement that does not in the least resemble sonata form but could much more convincingly be made to correspond with the form of certain fugues of Bach. There is at least a much closer correspondence and similarity of method. At the beginning of the movement there is a reprise of a section including the theme and its first two transformations, in fuller and more developed form, which at once suggests to analysts the repeat marks at the end of the exposition of a Viennese sonata. This reprise may just as well be compared with the counter-exposition of a fugue.
The slow movement (variations) closely parallels that of the third Symphony, and the theme is an obvious transformation of the horn or trumpet theme of the first movement, while the finale is a most remarkable piece of music, ending on the greatest of Sibelius's perorations, which constitutes the climax of the Symphony. In this it follows the pattern of both the second and the third Symphonies, and it is more natural to have the climax at the end of a work. The movement opens with the strings, misterioso, divided and tremolo, moving in a pattern related to the symphonic theme (trumpet theme) and particularly to its ultimate form in this movement, which tends to emerge from the tremolo in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the finale of the Third. These strings are very suggestive of the forests—they are the background, the associative medium, rather than a "subject" or theme in the sonata sense, or they are an instrumental theme. Out of this tremolo, or over it, emerges, at first in the horns, the famous "Thor swinging his hammer" theme, which really amounts to a discursive assertion of the perfect 5th. This theme is the final transformation of the thematic material of the whole Symphony and, in this finale, might be compared with the appearance of Tapio; but it is mightier than he and may well be Thor indeed, or Jupiter (Zeus). We are certainly in the realm of universals, or planetary symbols (gods).
In the sixth Symphony the definition of form by instrumental colouring is carried much further. The ideas, or "themes", are primarily instrumental, and the melodic material is reduced to the general character of a conjunct movement and to a mood induced by the Dorian mode with an emphasis on the dominant, the note A (see Ex.I). This Symphony is one of textures and delicate colours, without strong melodic definition. The emotional range, therefore, is deliberately restricted and never departs far from the mood of the figure quoted, which is restrained and classical in poise. It is a water-colour, almost a monochrome, a pastoral symphony and, though to a large extent instrumental in its definitions, and closely associated with elements of a landscape, it is a symphony, if intensely poetical, and not a tone-poem, by the distinction already given. Ex. I recurs frequently, in various forms, in all the movements so that the work is to a large extent monothematic, so far as it is thematic in a melodic sense. It consists throughout of different instrumental treatments of the same mood, of variations of texture, so that it might almost be said to be in one movement. This is borne out by the fact that it is difficult to remember to which movement any particular section belongs, for the movements are not distinctly defined or contrasted and do not belong to entirely different aspects of the matter, as do the three movements of the Fifth, but are elements in one landscape-painting.

In the seventh Symphony there is a return to the dimensions of the Fifth with, again, strong melodic definitions, but the whole is explicitly in one continuous movement. Here the setting is once more oceanic and the key C major (as in the Third), but the basic theme or idea is the diatonic scale of C major with which the Symphony opens, representing in itself the basic musical idiom and melodic material of our culture. The great trombone theme, which plays a decisive formal role and which enters three times in the course of the work, is built on the tonic common chord of C major, as though to emphasize the idea of the diatonic scale. As Cecil Gray pointed out, the work is dominated by the progressions of the clausula vera, the full close, the progression from supertonic to tonic, or D to C, and from leading-note to tonic, or B to C. The tension between the leading-note and the tonic is the maximum produced by any combination of notes in music, and this is the source of the quite extraordinary tension that prevails in this Symphony, culminating in the unforgettable final bars where first the D and then the B are sounded over a chord of C major, with C in the basses, as though this were a final, definitive and symbolical full close.
The Seventh is the most enigmatic of the symphonies and is Sibelius's final testimony in relation to history. It is like a huge question-mark, or it is in itself a gigantic full close. As it has turned out, it appears to have been the full close to Sibelius's work as an artist, and the question presents itself, not only of why this is so, but of whether it is not also a full close to European music. The answers to both questions are probably related and contained within the seventh Symphony itself. The fact that both the sixth and the seventh Symphonies begin with an ascending scale, of a different kind in each case, and from a different period, seems to suggest a reflection on history. The Seventh, besides its theme of the melodic major scale and its basic features, the tonic chord and the progression of the full close, contains other features that bear this out, such as the extended polyphonic passages for divided strings, the antiphonal scale-passages for strings and woodwind and even the suggestion of sonata form in the third section, the Allegro moderate, or even in the Symphony as a whole. Formally it seems the culmination of the symphony, the ultimate achievement of a symphonic movement on the largest formal scale, embracing and constituting a whole symphony, to which all the tendencies of Sibelius's method and aesthetic principles as a symphonist lead up. After this it would be difficult to see where Sibelius could go, or that he could go any further, and much of the interest of awaiting an eighth Symphony lay in this very fact. Similarly, it is impossible to see how Tapiola could be surpassed in the genre of the tone-poem. Sibelius's position may perhaps be compared with that of Beethoven after the C sharp minor Quartet, except that Sibelius lived on for another thirty years.
As a result of following this line of development that led him to the seventh Symphony, Sibelius reaches a position of isolation. Intrinsically, the music of Sibelius cannot be looked upon as a last flowering of European culture. The line through Debussy and Sibelius goes in the opposite direction to that represented by Wagner, "this setting sun", as Debussy described him, or Mahler, in many ways perhaps the greatest and most impressive of the Romantics. In Mahler we feel an intense historical consciousness and a feeling for the cultural past. He is the great poet of the Farewell, of the Abschied, and in his great and most moving farewells, like those in the ninth Symphony and of Das Lied von der Erde, we seem to be taking leave of European culture and looking back on it from the last days of autumn (“Der Einsame im Herbst"), as on something that is over, with infinite nostalgia and regret. There is nothing autumnal, or nostalgic, about Sibelius's late music; it comes from a different region and is not involved in the present. In the fifth Symphony and Tapiola we are in a superhuman sphere that is beyond history and the world that we inhabit. The fourth Symphony is clearly concerned with the historical present and with the crisis of the contemporary artist. Its third movement seems to be the profound searching of an artistic and philosophical mind amid spiritual desolation, in a waste land comparable with that of T . S. Eliot. In this it is readily appreciable as contemporary art and is often singled out from the others for this reason. In the fourth Symphony we see the shadow, the opposite side of the coin, the underworld. One thinks of the fires of "Mordor", the dark realm in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, or of Hades. We are in a world of gloom and despair, which may be compared with that of Shostakovich's eighth and fifteenth Symphonies, or his quartets. In the fourth Symphony Sibelius, as it were, passes through the contemporary scene on his way from calling up the archetypes of the remote past (Kalevald) to a symphonic classicism looking into the future (quite a long way into it, into the Aquarian Age). The fifth Symphony has elements of each, the Sixth and Seventh refer only to the language and means of expression of classical European (Piscean) music (modes, classical polyphony, diatonic scale), as though in recapitulation. The Sixth was explicitly associated by Sibelius with Palestrina. The Seventh returns to the ocean (Pisces), which is also a symbol of the last stage of a cycle, preceding rebirth.
All the biographers of Sibelius have mentioned a period of crisis represented by the fourth Symphony, but none has indicated what this crisis was. Whatever its nature, there is an inner transformation of some sort, the outcome of which is the extraordinary following three symphonies, of an incomprehensible classicism quite out of period. Sibelius has stepped outside of historical time. Not only has the spiritual content of these works not been understood, but it has scarcely even been discussed. In fact, almost as little is known about Sibelius's thought and inner life generally during his productive years as about his creative activities during the thirty years of silence. His extreme reticence on this subject makes him as remote as though he were removed in time by several centuries. His biographers and commentators consequently fill in this unknown part of their subject out of their own heads. We do know that he was a man of very wide culture and awareness, with a very active mind, intensely alive to and interested in all that was going on. We know enough of him to form a conception that does not belie the intellectual stature that is witnessed in his music. We have enough scraps of information to come to the conclusion that he was a philosopher, and we know that he was a student of history; on one occasion, while still a student, he was found engrossed in the history of civilization, in company with his teacher, Wegelius. In trying to define Sibelius's relation to the period, in certain respects we think again of Bach. He, too, was isolated in his own time, was overtaken by "modern" experiments and innovations, was "out of date", to the extent that he was relegated to oblivion for a hundred years. He was not a prophet of the future, like his sons, but a monument of European art, from which the future receded. He speaks for the principles of musical aesthetic itself and, through it, of a philosophy of life that is. independent of time and place. If there were to be a future for our art and music, Sibelius would be its prophet. If not, to whom is one addressing oneself, and what remains to be said? The voice of the bard is that of the old harper in Sibelius's tone-poem. His own intimations on this question may perhaps be represented by the full close of the seventh Symphony.

The first movement of the fifth Symphony
The Symphony opens with the basic theme or motif of the whole work, in the horns. I have called it the symphonic theme, or, later, the trumpet theme, and in this form it is given out only on brass instruments, characteristically trumpets, and occurs four times in the first movement. I have marked this theme I, and it consists of two distinct phrases, a and b (i), from which is evolved all the melodic material in the Symphony.
For 18 bars the theme is taken up in fragments in the woodwind, during which the second phrase is developed into a semiquaver figure that I have designated b(u). This is further developed into a semiquaver motif marked (II), because it could be taken for a second subject, though it plays no further role as such in the usual sense. It can be derived from b(u), especially a four-note phrase in which it ends, leading into C sharp. It does represent, however, a different subject in another sense, a different aspect—that of extension of the theme over the landscape as a whole, in its spatial or, one could say, fatalistic aspect. It leads to G major and to the entry of the strings in slowly rising tremolo, the background, or the forests themselves.; Against this background the woodwind in octaves gives out the first transformation of die theme. A, as though heard as a motif over the forests and the vastness of nature. This leads to sl crescendo and tutti, after which a second transformation, B, of the theme is takes up in the strings, or in the forests themselves, against a surging tremolo figure in the cellos and violas, suggestive of an ocean swell.
The whole section comprising A and B can be taken as a development of the background. There is a new entry of I, in solo trumpet, against the same tremolo swell in the bass. This leads to a development of tremolo figures on (II) and to a reprise of the whole exposition up to now, including A and B. This is, however, not just a repeat but a developed, fuller and enriched version, an explosion of theme and background.
B now leads into C, the third, chromatic, thematic transformation, which becomes a typically Sibeuan fatalistic and spatial extension motif in solo bassoon, played out against rapidly surging and rustling figures in the strings. An ullargando leads to the Largamente transformation, D, in the strings, closely related to C. Trills and sforzandi in woodwind lead up to an accelerating tempo and a brass tutti, with I in the trumpets.
In the succeeding section, Allegro moderate, two further transformations follow, E in the whole orchestra, in B major, the strings tremolo, and over a tremolo ostinato in cellos and violas. Over the same ostinato, but back in E flat, there follows a march-like, or martial, transformation in solo trumpet, Fi, followed by a development of this, F2. This is taken up in the strings (tremolo) and develops into Molto vivace. The strings build up a rapid figure out of F1 (a plus b (i)), against scale passages in woodwind, leading into Presto and a grand tutti, or peroration on I in the trombones.











(The foregoing quotations from Sibelius’s fifth Symphony are made by kind permission of Messrs. Wilhelm Hansen A/S, Copenhagen.)