Overture in E major and Ballet Scene

Abandoned early symphonic project by Jean Sibelius (1891)

11 minutes (JS 145)^[2]
8 minutes (JS 163)^[3]

PremiereDate

23 April 1891 (1891-04-23) (JS 145)^[2]
28 April 1891 (1891-04-28) (JS 163)^[3]

LocationHelsinki, Grand Duchy of FinlandConductorRobert KajanusPerformersHelsinki Orchestral Association

The Overture in E major and Ballet Scene (in French: Scène de ballet),^[a] respectively JS 145 and 163, are two single-movement works for orchestra written in 1891 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius while he was a postgraduate student studying in Vienna.^[1] The Overture received its premiere on 23 April 1891 in Helsinki with the Finnish conductor Robert Kajanus conducting the Helsinki Orchestral Association;^[2] five days later, Kajanus and his orchestra premiered Ballet Scene.^[3] Sibelius, who remained overseas, was unable to attend either concert. (Shortly after mailing the manuscripts to Finland, Sibelius was overcome with self-doubt and had written to Kajanus begging, to no avail, to have the pieces removed from the program.)^[4]^[5]

The Finnish conductor Robert Kajanus (left) premiered both the Overture in E major (ad right) and the Ballet Scene

The Overture and Ballet Scene are notable for two reasons. First, they are Sibelius's earliest compositions for orchestra (prior to them, he had mainly written chamber music, pieces for solo piano, and a few songs), which eventually became his chosen medium of artistic expression. Second, Sibelius had conceived of the two pieces as Movements I and II in a first symphony, although he abandoned this ambition in April 1891 and converted them into stand-alone concert items. The Overture and Ballet Scene thus demonstrate that, already in Vienna, Sibelius was thinking symphonically, and indeed, a year later in 1892, he premiered the five-movement choral symphony Kullervo (Op. 7). The Symphony No. 1 in E minor (Op. 39) arrived in 1899.

Instrumentation

The Overture in E major is scored for the following instruments,^[2] organized by family (woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings):

2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, and 2 bassoons
4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, and tuba
timpani, cymbals, and triangle
violins (I and II), violas, cellos, and double basses

The Ballet Scene, on the other hand, is one of the most luxuriously-scored orchestral works in Sibelius's oeuvre. To the forces listed above for the Overture, it subtracts timpani from the percussion section but adds castanets; moreover, both flutes double piccolo, while one oboist and one clarinetist switch, respectively, to cor anglais and bass clarinet.^[3]

Discography

The Estonian-American conductor Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra made the world premiere studio recordings of the Overture in E minor and Ballet Scene (both then still in manuscript) in 1989 for BIS.^[1] The table below lists this and other commercially available recordings:

No.	Ensemble	Conductor	Rec.^[b]	Runtime^[c]		Recording venue	Label	Ref.
No.	Ensemble	Conductor	Rec.^[b]	JS 145	JS 163	Recording venue	Label	Ref.
1	Neeme Järvi	Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra	1989	10:40	7:46	Gothenburg Concert Hall	BIS	^[d]
2	Atso Almila	Kuopio Symphony Orchestra [fi]	1998	11:34	8:23	Kuopio Music Centre [fi]	Finlandia	^[e]
3	Osmo Vänskä	Lahti Symphony Orchestra	2004	11:17	8:36	Sibelius Hall	BIS	^[f]
4	Leif Segerstam	Turku Philharmonic Orchestra	2014	11:41	7:59	Turku Concert Hall	Naxos	^[g]

Notes, references, and sources

Notes

^ In Swedish: Ouvertyr and Balettscen; in Finnish: Uvertyyri and Baletti-osa.
^ Refers to the year in which the performers recorded the work; this may not be the same as the year in which the recording was first released to the general public.
^ All runtimes are official, as printed on CD or LP liner notes.
^ N. Järvi–BIS (CD–472) 1990
^ A. Almila–Finlandia (3984–23391–2) 1999
^ O. Vänskä–BIS (CD–1565) 2006
^ L. Segerstam–Naxos (8.573300) 2015

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Dahlström 2003, pp. 588, 600.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Dahlström 2003, p. 588.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Dahlström 2003, p. 600.
^ Tawaststjerna 2008, pp. 88–93.
^ Barnett 2007, pp. 66–67.

Sources

Barnett, Andrew (2007). Sibelius. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11159-0.
Dahlström, Fabian [in Swedish] (2003). Jean Sibelius: Thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke [Jean Sibelius: A Thematic Bibliographic Index of His Works] (in German). Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel. ISBN 3-7651-0333-0.
Tawaststjerna, Erik (2008) [1965/1967; trans. 1976]. Sibelius: Volume I, 1865–1905. Translated by Layton, Robert. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571247721.

Jean Sibelius

Symphonies

Kullervo (1892)
Symphony No. 1 (1899, rev. 1900)
Symphony No. 2 (1902)
Symphony No. 3 (1907)
Symphony No. 4 (1911)
Symphony No. 5 (1915, rev. 1916, 1919)
Symphony No. 6 (1923)
Symphony No. 7 (1924)
Symphony No. 8 (mid 1920s–c. 1938, abandoned)

Concertante

Violin Concerto (1904, rev. 1905)
Two Serenades (1912–1913)
Two Serious Melodies (1914–1915)
Six Humoresques (1917–1918, No. 1 rev. 1940)
Suite for Violin and String Orchestra (1929)

Tone poems

En saga (1892, rev. 1902)
Spring Song (1894, rev. 1895)
The Wood Nymph (1895)
Lemminkäinen Suite
- 1895, rev. 1897, 1900, 1939; includes The Swan of Tuonela
Finlandia (1899)
Pohjola's Daughter (1906)
Nightride and Sunrise (1909)
The Dryad (1910)
The Bard (1913)
Luonnotar (1913)
The Oceanides (1914, rev. 1914)
Tapiola (1926)

Opera & theatre

The Building of the Boat (1893–1894, abandoned)
The Maiden in the Tower (1896)
King Christian II (1898)
Kuolema
- 1903; includes Valse triste
Pelléas et Mélisande (1905)
Belshazzar's Feast (1906)
Swanwhite (1908)
The Lizard (1909)
The Language of the Birds (1911)
Scaramouche (1913)
Everyman (1916)
The Tempest (1925)

Cantatas

Cantata for the University Graduation Ceremonies of 1894
Cantata for the Coronation of Nicholas II (1896)
Cantata for the University Graduation Ceremonies of 1897
The Origin of Fire (1902, rev. 1910)
The Captive Queen (1906)
My Own Land (1918)
Song of the Earth (1919)
Hymn of the Earth (1920)
Väinämöinen's Song (1926)

Other voice(s) & orchestra

The Rapids-Rider's Brides (1897)
The Breaking of the Ice on the Oulu River (1899)
Snöfrid (1900)
Marjatta (1905, abandoned)
Impromptu (1902, rev. 1910)
The Raven (1910, abandoned)

Other orchestral

Overture in E major (1891)
Ballet Scene (1891)
Karelia Suite (1893)
Rakastava (1894, arr. 1912)
Scènes historiques I (1899, arr. 1911)
Overture in A minor (1902)
Romance in C major (1904)
Cassazione (1904, rev. 1905)
Pan and Echo (1906)
In memoriam (1909, rev. 1910)
Scènes historiques II (1912)
Suite mignonne (1921)
Suite champêtre (1922)
Suite caractéristique (1922)

String quartets

String Quartet in E-flat major (1885)
String Quartet in A minor (1889)
String Quartet in B-flat major (1890)
String Quartet in D minor, Voces intimae (1909)
Andante festivo (1922, orch. 1938)

Piano trios

Piano Trio in A minor, Hafträsk (1886)
Piano Trio in D major, Korpo (1887)
Piano Trio in C major, Lovisa (1888)

Other chamber

Water Droplets (c. 1875–1881)
Pieces for brass septet (1889–1899)
Piano Quintet (1890)
Malinconia (1900)
Violin Sonatina (1915)

Piano

Six Impromptus (1893)
Piano Sonata (1893)
Ten Pieces, Op. 24 (1895–1903)
Kyllikki (1904)
Three Sonatinas (1912)
The Bells of Kallio Church (1912, arr. 1912)
Two Rondinos (1912)
Five Pieces, The Trees, Op. 75 (1914)
Five Pieces, The Flowers, Op. 85 (1916–1917)
Five Esquisses (1929)

Songs

Seven Runeberg Songs, Op. 13 (1891–1892)
"Serenad", JS 168 (1894–1895)
Six Songs, Op. 36 (1899–1900)
Five Songs, Op. 37 (1900–1902)
Seven Songs, Op. 17 (1891–1904)
Five Songs, Op. 38 (1903–1904; includes "Höstkväll")
Six Songs, Op. 50 (1906)
Two Songs, Op. 35 (1908)
"Kom nu hit, död", Op. 60/1 (1909, orch. 1957)
"Arioso", Op. 3 (1911)
Five Christmas Songs, Op. 1 (1897–1913; includes "Giv mig ej glans, ej guld, ej prakt")
Six Runeberg Songs, Op. 90 (1917)