![]() Sir Colin is undoubtedly sincere, but elsewhere there is a commercial tinge to such intrusions on one's privacy. There is an air of voyeurism in the restoration of unwanted pieces: a dirty little peek at sides of life wished to be hidden. The lopsided, sometimes beautiful but often clumsy impression it leaves behind argues that Sibelius may have known what he was talking about. He does the piece at every opportunity, including a recent visit to Avery Fisher Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, and he recorded it with that orchestra for the LSO Live label. Yet so eminent a Sibelius admirer and conductor as Colin Davis will not let "Kullervo" go away. When he became a better composer, he preferred to forget about "Kullervo," hoping that posterity would, too. Sibelius made himself famous at 26 with "Kullervo," a lumbering quasi oratorio of epic ambitions and nationalistic fever. They aren't around to censor what happened before the achievements that mattered. For the public reputation of the artist, I'm not so sure. One argument says that we need to know everything about great people and that every surviving scrap about them is fair game. Be assured also, it will be rushed into print. Yet have no doubt that some diligent attic explorer in Illinois will someday discover the equivalent of "Where I Went on My Summer Vacation" by Ernest Hemingway, age 12. But there is a danger of being carried away by such matters.įor most Hemingway readers, the Nick Adams stories are his "first" narratives of travel and adventure. Firsts, lasts, mosts and fewests consume us. But fans, whether of baseball or of music, love statistics and precedents. Sibelius, to his evident misfortune, lost or forgot some juvenilia, these items among them. And it may be that we have a case of criminal cradle-robbing on our hands: the musical equivalent of child abuse.īrahms had the good sense to burn what he didn't want us to remember. To take matters a step further, did Sibelius, as he was leaving behind a creative life, have the moral right to demand that history accept "Intimate Voices" as his only string quartet? Here there will be loud arguments. ![]() ![]() Did he want us to remember it as his only string quartet? Probably. The first question to be asked is whether Sibelius himself thought of "Intimate Voices" as his only string quartet. Thus the issue arose, was a correction in order? I argued for what you are reading now. A reader wrote in, politely and correctly informing me of "three seldom-performed earlier quartets," which date "from the composer's youth and were apparently 'forgotten' for many years." Another reader conveyed the same information and made a similar plea on behalf of an incomplete quartet by Grieg, who had also been said to have produced only the one quartet recorded here. Is Reviving a Composer's First Works Child Abuse?Ī RECENT record review in these pages described Sibelius's "Intimate Voices" as his only string quartet.
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