' (''The Lover''), Op. 14, is a suite by

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

. He completed it in 1912, scored for string orchestra,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

and

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

. He based it on his earlier composition of the same title, a song cycle of four movements for

men's chorus A men's chorus or male voice choir (MVC) (German: ''Männerchor''), is a choir consisting of men who sing with either a tenor or bass voice, and whose music is typically arranged into high and low tenors (1st and 2nd tenor), and high and low bass ...

a cappella completed in 1894. The works are based on a Finnish text in Book 1 of the ''

Kanteletar ''Kanteletar'' is a collection of Finnish folk poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot. It is considered to be a sister collection to the Finnish national epic ''Kalevala''. The poems of ''Kanteletar'' are based on the trochaic tetrameter, generally ...

''.

History

In 1894, Sibelius completed ', a cycle of four a cappella songs for

on a Finnish text in Book 1 of the collection of Finnish folk poems, the ''

''. He first set it in 1894, as an entry for a local competition. He won the second prize, while the first prize went to his former teacher. Sibelius arranged the cycle for men's chorus and string orchestra in 1894, and for mixed choir in 1898. Sibelius used the cycle as the basis for the orchestral suite ' for string orchestra,

and

, to which he assigned the

opus number In musicology, the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition, or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer's production. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among composit ...

14. He completed it in 1912, when he also wrote his Fourth Symphony. Sibelius often conducted the suite together with his symphonies because the piece "captivated audiences".

Music

Structure of the song cycle

# ' # ' # ' # '

Structure of the suite

# ', Andante con moto (common time, D minor) # ' (The way of the lover), Allegretto (, B major) # ' (Good night, farewell), Andantino (cut time, F major & D minor) In the first movement, the strings sound light and beautiful. The choral part of the second movement was changed to "murmurs on the strings and wonderfully flexible melodic progressions." The third movement is deeply emotional as its model.

Recordings

The orchestral work was recorded along with other music by Sibelius, including '' Snöfrid'', the Cantata for the Coronation of Nicholas II, '' Oma maa'' (My country) and '' Andante Festivo''. On volume 54 of a complete Sibelius Edition by BIS,

Osmo Vänskä Osmo Antero Vänskä (born 28 February 1953) is a Finnish conductor, clarinetist, and composer. Biography Vänskä started his musical career as an orchestral clarinetist with the Turku Philharmonic (1971–76). He then became the principal cla ...

conducts the

Lahti Symphony Orchestra The Lahti Symphony Orchestra (''Sinfonia Lahti'') is a Finnish orchestra, based in the city of Lahti. The orchestra is resident at the Sibelius Hall. The orchestra was founded in 1910, and placed under the control of the Lahti municipality in 194 ...

. A review notes the works "ethereal polyphony" and compares it to the melancholy of the Sixth Symphony. The work was also recorded by Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Literature

* Tomi Mäkelä: "Jean Sibelius und seine Zeit" (German), Laaber-Verlag, Regensburg 2013

References

External links

* {{Authority control Choral compositions Compositions for string orchestra Suites by Jean Sibelius 1894 compositions 1912 compositions