Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 82, in Full Score

by Jean Sibelius

One of the greatest of Scandinavian composers and a truly original figure in twentieth-century music, Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) put his native country — Finland — on the musical map. According to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, he was "in the fullest sense of the term a musical patriot [who] enriched Finnish music, both officially and spontaneously, with a large number of works likely to form Finland's national art treasures."
Like the composer's other symphonic music, the Fifth Symphony is entirely personal in content and form, taking on its character from the composer's life experiences, and distinguished by a simplicity and lucidity that have made it one of Sibelius's most popular works. Neither "deliberately modern nor studiedly archaic," notes Grove's, "it is simply, in its most characteristic manifestations, unlike any other music."

Genres: Music

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2001

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sibelius may well have experienced this world as nothing more than a vale of tears, but his 5th emerged from that twilit soul of his like a brief vision of some almost attainable other place. Radiant and pure, it is a lone ray of sunlight piercing through a small gap in life’s layers of darkening overcast, a view across a shimmering lake, distant swans flying high above. It is one of my absolute favourite pieces of music. The extraordinary closing 5 minutes are so beautiful it hurts.


History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
And lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

— Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite works of all time.