Jean Sibelius

Skogsraet op. 15, Improvisation/Varsang op. 16

Sibelius orchestral works uncovered

It was already a small sensation when the conductor Osmo Vänskä recorded a completely unknown orchestral work by the young Jean Sibelius of more than 20 minutes duration in Lahti in 1996: suddenly Skogsrået (The Wood Nymph) had resurfaced. Yet finding the piece was not enough, for Sibelius in his later years had good-naturedly consented to his youthful work being performed in a badly shortened form, thus leaving his score in a rather confusing state. Since Vårsång (Spring Song), the second work in the complete edition volume, also has an extremely complicated source situation with two (or even three?) early versions, Tuija Wicklund was faced with a mountain of questions during the edition. At the end of the meticulous work of the editor, there are three complete orchestral scores from the years 1894/95, from a phase in which no one can suspect that the works were written in his youth: Sibelius had already made his mark in Finland at this time with his first masterpieces Kullervo (1892), En saga (1st version 1892), Karelia Suite (1893), Rakastava (1894).