What a wonderful idea in Jean's 160th birthday year. I love unravelling musical DNA. You can almost instantly recognize Sibelius, I know every bar of his symphonies, but I have a hard time pinning down his stylistic means. The pedal tones...the instant variation....the birth-like developments of his themes? The sforzato-instant decrescendo-slow crescendo-move? Great episode, David. Thank you.
This new series is amazing, Dave! Thank you so much for it! Speaking of endings, Rachmaninoff’s famous march-like signature ending phrase is so frequent that it’s become pretty funny in its predictability. It got me thinking about Villa-Lobos’ signature endings: two big gestures-one in the high register, the other in the very low. Quite distinctive and incredibly frequent! All in all, I’m really looking forward to the next videos!
I love the music of Sibelius and your discussion has helped this non-musician to appreciate it even more! THANK YOU for all the effort you put into these videos: you are a treasure Dave!
I really hope this'll end up being the first of many many episodes. And I'll probably be watching them all a couple of times. Not only is it a great concept, its delivery does give you genuine insight - especially with the musical examples so perfectly illustrating the point. Great stuff!
Yes. His typical melodic style is often a long note ending in a quicker figure. Another compositional footprint is that he often presents fragments of motives/themes, which he gradually builds together into larger themes and melodies. So he works kind of opposite to what Beethoven or most other composers do, who present the themes/melodies first, and then take them apart and work with the motives. Another feature is the use of church modes, and his formulaic and repeated motives, which reminds of the Finnish "runo song", a kind of narrative folk song with much repetitive melodies. Think of the beginning of the 3rd symphony!
Dave, when I was in the Army I listened regularly to Karl Haas' Adventures in Good Music on AFN/Armed Forces Network radio. I miss those talks of his, and you have taken his place!
I absolutely LOVE his "Amen" cadences, as if he's saying "I hardly ever finish with a perfect cadence as my endings aren't perfect - they're 'and that's Amen to THAT piece' endings!"
This is GREAT!!! As a composer myself, having heard all these works nearly hundreds of times, I wondered what you would say. I've never pinpointed any of these ideas throughout all my hearing of these masterpieces and this simple video cannot help but now permanently be part of my thinking with every work I write next. I can't wait to get these kinds of insights with all the other great composers. You keep coming up with new ways to make music "criticism" accomplish things, to my knowledge, no one has ever done before. Thank you so much!
A great idea for a series Dave! Surely the best compliment for any composer is for their music to be instantly recognisable and unmistakable for anyone else.
Love this new series! If you are able to use musical examples for every installment...you will have a bona fide hit with this series. I think Sibelius was the perfect composer to inaugurate it too! As a composer who also reads a ton of scores, there are so many takeaways in the way you approach this topic...so thank you for that as well. Also, in hearing Sibelius with this type of analysis, I think I now hear why Morton Feldman loved Sibelius so much...I could never quite understand THAT connection, but it's there...the way Sibelius lives in a texture and manipulates time and expectations by organically varying his themes in subtle, yet profound ways...they're both obsessed with scale and context!
Of course they would say Brahms 😆 The long-breathed melody borne by scurrying accompaniment has been my musical shorthand for the north ever since listening to classic radio as a kid where Sgt. Preston of the Yukon used the Donna Diana overture to great effect, I could so clearly hear the yapping tumbling dogs with the sled gliding after (also Dvorak's SQ 14 Scherzo, my dear old uncle had the Cleveland Quartet on Telarc with the snowy train on the cover, which helped). If Dvorak has train tunes perhaps we can say Sibelius has sleighing tunes haha
Hello Mr. Hurwitz, first of all I wanna send to you all the best wishes from Germany! This new series is very nice and I can't wait to listen to more "footprints" of other composer. It's always entertaining and interesting to listen to you and your amazing knowledge. Thank you very much! ❤
Great idea, and great start! Very much looking forward to the series. At first thought it seems like it would help with guess-the-composer quizzes, but on second thought, those quizzes quote mostly *tunes* - rarely any earmarks of compositional technique. We’ll see whether this series enhances my quiz abilities or not!
Regarding the orchestration, I would mention his preference for middle voices (along with Dvorak and Bruckner). Clarinets together with violas or cellos to create a thick, rich sound. There is almost complete elimination of the tuba for a clearer texture in later works (with the notable exception of The Tempest). Percussion is also used sparingly, mostly limited to timpani. However Sibelius's writing for timpani is also quite unique. By the way, the Brahms and Sibelius comparison was one of the oddest things I’ve heard.
This is a great video for us seasoned listeners who perceive composer footprints without being able to explain or rationalize them. I am looking forward with pleasure to the next episodes.
Thanks Dave. What a super-illuminating presentation. This going to be a fabulous series; I just know it. Playing examples is the cherry on the cake! Just want to say, that Naxos Sibelius series with Petri Sakari is (in my humble opinion) a real sleeper. There is a rawness, a ruggedness to the playing, which adds tremendously to the experience. "What's not to like?" as they say.
Sibelius’ masterful use of the trombones gives his music that certain expansiveness; not in and of themselves, of course. But it’s a huge part of his brass “footprint”.
I call Sibelius the less is more composer. His ability to create a convincing musical argument using sparse material, shows how great he was as composer. His 3rd Symphony is my favorite.
Maybe Smetana has a version of that kind of string writing? Bartered Bride overture or From Bohemia's Woods and Fields. Sounds only like Smetana, though. I'm always intrigued when Sibelius writes those arpeggio arches for strings going in contrary motion. One section going up-down and another down-up at the same time. It looks real purty on the page. Thanks for the inauguration of a great series.
This is going to be such an enlightening series. Please, please, do as many of these talks as you can manage (which I'm guessing would be hundreds). I've been,listening to Sibelius since I was a teenager and never noticed that long-short melodic shape, or at least never consciously picked it up. Thanks so much, Dave. Great way to start 2025!
Wonderful video, Dave! I’d love to see videos on two of the quirkiest, most characterful, and instantly identifiable composers of all time: Janacek and Nielsen.
Thank you so much! My favourite first. I was captured at once round 1971 (aged 10) by his 2nd Symphony- a violent raging psycho teacher at our UK boarding school loved it, Music Appreciation lessons his rare time of being in a good mood, we could relax a bit. Karelia Suite a winner too. (Oh and he loved Haydn symphonies). As for Brahms, i'm not keen and don't see him as most like Sibelius either!
Your record reviews are great, but many of your best videos are those that focus on aspects of composition. I look forward to your talk on Richard Strauss. I can pick that rascal out of any line-up, but I can't put my finger on what makes him so recognizable.
Talking about the ending of the 7th Symphony, I always felt like he was going to launch off into something completely new, but of course he doesn't; it just stops. I was at a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Wolfgang Swallish conducting, where the ending was so abrupt that the audience just sat in silence at the end, like they were thinking "what happened?" until they realized it was over.
That's an excellent point. The piece reminds me of Scriabin's "Vers la flamme", which also ends rather abruptly. Apparently Scriabin had intended to compose a longer piece, but he suddenly urgently needed some money and basically sold to his publisher the piece as it was there and then, so without finishing it.
Dear Dave, My four favourite composers ... [in no particular order, because they are equal for me], Bach, Haydn, Greig and Sibelius. [so in order of birth!]. Does that make me a freak! Love your vids! Best wishes from George in UK
Thanks, Dave, for starting with Sibelius. When you were picking the best Sibelius violin concerto you left out my favorite, Christian Ferras and Zubin Mehta in Paris, which is incredible to watch on UA-cam. Is there a Sibelius cult I can join?
I've always found Fauré's sound very characteristic, but I've never been able to put my finger on what it is. It would be great if you could say something about his footprints.
Bravo, Dave. I had only moments before catching up with your daily dose of musical education, been listening to Sibelius' s Second symphony. Footprints will be a marvelous series. The recording I'd been listening to was by the Suisse Romande and Ansermet. It begs the question: What ever happened to all their recordings? I never hear Ansermet or the orchestra mentioned in discussions, or box set releases, or ... anything. Have we consigned them to a black hole in outer space? Are there any Ansermet boxed sets? Maybe you can raise their disappearance in a forthcoming video. Keep up the good work. Cheers, Fred, in South Australia.
Tremolos in the finales of the 2nd and 3rd symphonies - I could listen to them forever. I also become a heroic Finnish nationalist, even though I'm not Finnish!
initial reaction is Sibelius sounds so AMERICAN! in these excerpts you’ve presented, all of which are gorgeous btw. This warms my heart and hurts my brain. Thanks Dave.
@@DavesClassicalGuide haha I know right?! En Saga signal a cinematic, Gershwin-y type sound world - in no way dying on this hill, just sharing my listening experience on what was a very late Monday night. I'll keep on listening. Thanks Dave.
@@MD-md4th haha. We got a real winner here. Are you referring to the term or my admittedly silly and completely subjective opinion as a whole? Either way your comment is unclear and useless.
So if we approached Sibelius as if he were Bruckner - that is, ripe for improvement and second guessing, we could maybe perfect the ending of the 5th in a manner more in line with the authentic Sibelian essence. The current ending certainly breaks up the momentum, but that is all it does - which leaves room for patching on a balmy amen ending, appropriately scaled, of course :)
Coincidence -- Just yesterday (Sunday) I broadcast six hours of Sibelius. During my preparation I came across a review of the fifth symphony by Timothy Judd, writing in his blog The Listener's Club. At one point he writes: "The Fifth Symphony evokes nature’s divine logic. On one level, it gives us a sense of motion through continuous development. On a deeper level, it enters into a mysterious, eternal stasis. In a way which mirrors the cyclic nature of Finnish folk music, the Fifth Symphony is filled with rotating cells which end up where they began. This is music influenced by the bleak, remote landscapes of northern latitudes, where perceptions of time may be altered by seasonal cycles which involve extended periods of darkness alternating with light." At another point in his review he remarks of the "Swan Theme" that is the climax of the final movement: "the theme is a majestic musical palindrome, sounding the same forwards and backwards." Perhaps this sense of circularity is another footprint.
Well, there's a lot of pseudo-poetic blather in that description, but there is a circularity to Sibelius tunes in certain symphonies and tone poems that we can associate with the language of the Kalevala. This was an entirely self-conscious effort on Sibelius' part. Interestingly, you don't find that idiom in, for example, the suites of incidental music that do not deal with Finish mythological or nationalistic themes.
Brahms ??!! IF, and only IF, there's a need to compare this unique composer to any other composer, I would pick Beethoven or Bruckner, in their ability to use very small cells of rhythm or melody and extend these fragments into larger works of profound inevitability.
What a wonderful idea in Jean's 160th birthday year. I love unravelling musical DNA. You can almost instantly recognize Sibelius, I know every bar of his symphonies, but I have a hard time pinning down his stylistic means. The pedal tones...the instant variation....the birth-like developments of his themes? The sforzato-instant decrescendo-slow crescendo-move?
Great episode, David. Thank you.
This is the type of program people are looking for. This type of useful criticism points out the important values to look for in a compose's work.
This new series is amazing, Dave! Thank you so much for it! Speaking of endings, Rachmaninoff’s famous march-like signature ending phrase is so frequent that it’s become pretty funny in its predictability. It got me thinking about Villa-Lobos’ signature endings: two big gestures-one in the high register, the other in the very low. Quite distinctive and incredibly frequent! All in all, I’m really looking forward to the next videos!
I love the music of Sibelius and your discussion has helped this non-musician to appreciate it even more! THANK YOU for all the effort you put into these videos: you are a treasure Dave!
This series is amazing. My favourite content from this channel is u speaking about the music and giving us insight what to listen for.
I really hope this'll end up being the first of many many episodes. And I'll probably be watching them all a couple of times. Not only is it a great concept, its delivery does give you genuine insight - especially with the musical examples so perfectly illustrating the point. Great stuff!
Love Sibelius' string writing, the way you describe it and your examples. Such a vibrant, exhilarating sound.
Amazing video for the start of what must be an amazing series. Suggestion for next composer: Ol' Anton B!
Wonderful performances as well. I've ignored most of Naxos's Sibelius, but I will be exploring.
Yes. His typical melodic style is often a long note ending in a quicker figure.
Another compositional footprint is that he often presents fragments of motives/themes, which he gradually builds together into larger themes and melodies. So he works kind of opposite to what Beethoven or most other composers do, who present the themes/melodies first, and then take them apart and work with the motives.
Another feature is the use of church modes, and his formulaic and repeated motives, which reminds of the Finnish "runo song", a kind of narrative folk song with much repetitive melodies. Think of the beginning of the 3rd symphony!
Dave, when I was in the Army I listened regularly to Karl Haas' Adventures in Good Music on AFN/Armed Forces Network radio. I miss those talks of his, and you have taken his place!
I remember listening to Haas on AFN when I was stationed in Germany.
I absolutely LOVE his "Amen" cadences, as if he's saying "I hardly ever finish with a perfect cadence as my endings aren't perfect - they're 'and that's Amen to THAT piece' endings!"
The IV/V to I cadence at the end of the 2d Symphony is one of the greatest endings in the repertoire.
Yes, please! Would love to see more 'footprints' videos.
This is GREAT!!! As a composer myself, having heard all these works nearly hundreds of times, I wondered what you would say. I've never pinpointed any of these ideas throughout all my hearing of these masterpieces and this simple video cannot help but now permanently be part of my thinking with every work I write next. I can't wait to get these kinds of insights with all the other great composers. You keep coming up with new ways to make music "criticism" accomplish things, to my knowledge, no one has ever done before. Thank you so much!
A great idea for a series Dave! Surely the best compliment for any composer is for their music to be instantly recognisable and unmistakable for anyone else.
Love this new series! If you are able to use musical examples for every installment...you will have a bona fide hit with this series. I think Sibelius was the perfect composer to inaugurate it too! As a composer who also reads a ton of scores, there are so many takeaways in the way you approach this topic...so thank you for that as well. Also, in hearing Sibelius with this type of analysis, I think I now hear why Morton Feldman loved Sibelius so much...I could never quite understand THAT connection, but it's there...the way Sibelius lives in a texture and manipulates time and expectations by organically varying his themes in subtle, yet profound ways...they're both obsessed with scale and context!
YES, exactly on point !!!
Of course they would say Brahms 😆
The long-breathed melody borne by scurrying accompaniment has been my musical shorthand for the north ever since listening to classic radio as a kid where Sgt. Preston of the Yukon used the Donna Diana overture to great effect, I could so clearly hear the yapping tumbling dogs with the sled gliding after (also Dvorak's SQ 14 Scherzo, my dear old uncle had the Cleveland Quartet on Telarc with the snowy train on the cover, which helped). If Dvorak has train tunes perhaps we can say Sibelius has sleighing tunes haha
I'm going off now and go listen to all my Sibelius recordings. Thank you Mr Ultimate Classical Music Guide.
I think you're shining well with this series, Dave. Thank you. Looking forward to more.
Hello Mr. Hurwitz, first of all I wanna send to you all the best wishes from Germany!
This new series is very nice and I can't wait to listen to more "footprints" of other composer.
It's always entertaining and interesting to listen to you and your amazing knowledge. Thank you very much! ❤
Great idea, and great start! Very much looking forward to the series. At first thought it seems like it would help with guess-the-composer quizzes, but on second thought, those quizzes quote mostly *tunes* - rarely any earmarks of compositional technique. We’ll see whether this series enhances my quiz abilities or not!
Regarding the orchestration, I would mention his preference for middle voices (along with Dvorak and Bruckner). Clarinets together with violas or cellos to create a thick, rich sound. There is almost complete elimination of the tuba for a clearer texture in later works (with the notable exception of The Tempest). Percussion is also used sparingly, mostly limited to timpani. However Sibelius's writing for timpani is also quite unique.
By the way, the Brahms and Sibelius comparison was one of the oddest things I’ve heard.
This was a very satisfying and illuminating presentation.
Your ability to speak so easily about various composers' writing styles is really impressive. Love this kind of video.
This is a great video for us seasoned listeners who perceive composer footprints without being able to explain or rationalize them. I am looking forward with pleasure to the next episodes.
Great video, and a really engaging idea for a series. I can't wait to watch more!
Great idea for a series. Awesome educational content
Thanks Dave. What a super-illuminating presentation. This going to be a fabulous series; I just know it. Playing examples is the cherry on the cake! Just want to say, that Naxos Sibelius series with Petri Sakari is (in my humble opinion) a real sleeper. There is a rawness, a ruggedness to the playing, which adds tremendously to the experience. "What's not to like?" as they say.
Now we are talking! My favourite composer of all time. ❤
Shostakovich would be a great addition to this series. His orchestral works have so many footprints.
Sibelius’ masterful use of the trombones gives his music that certain expansiveness; not in and of themselves, of course. But it’s a huge part of his brass “footprint”.
I call Sibelius the less is more composer. His ability to create a convincing musical argument using sparse material, shows how great he was as composer. His 3rd Symphony is my favorite.
This is a fantastic video and series for me as a new composer.
Maybe Smetana has a version of that kind of string writing? Bartered Bride overture or From Bohemia's Woods and Fields. Sounds only like Smetana, though.
I'm always intrigued when Sibelius writes those arpeggio arches for strings going in contrary motion. One section going up-down and another down-up at the same time. It looks real purty on the page.
Thanks for the inauguration of a great series.
Great start to what looks to be a great series. Thanks!
Another well done video & beginning of a new, fun series 😊
Dave, I very much appreciate your informative and descriptive style as I dive headfirst into the spellbinding world of classical music.
Loved your anecdote about the Finnish Sibelius group.
This series is a great idea.
This is going to be such an enlightening series. Please, please, do as many of these talks as you can manage (which I'm guessing would be hundreds). I've been,listening to Sibelius since I was a teenager and never noticed that long-short melodic shape, or at least never consciously picked it up. Thanks so much, Dave. Great way to start 2025!
The is going to be my favorite series, I think
Wonderful video, Dave! I’d love to see videos on two of the quirkiest, most characterful, and instantly identifiable composers of all time: Janacek and Nielsen.
Dear Dave, what a fabulous new series, thank you. And thank you for starting with Sibelius with whose, uh, feet, I am not that familiar. Wesley
A SUPERB video.
Thank you so much! My favourite first. I was captured at once round 1971 (aged 10) by his 2nd Symphony- a violent raging psycho teacher at our UK boarding school loved it, Music Appreciation lessons his rare time of being in a good mood, we could relax a bit. Karelia Suite a winner too. (Oh and he loved Haydn symphonies). As for Brahms, i'm not keen and don't see him as most like Sibelius either!
Fantastic Dave, thank you! I can’t get chugga chugga out of my head!
Your record reviews are great, but many of your best videos are those that focus on aspects of composition. I look forward to your talk on Richard Strauss. I can pick that rascal out of any line-up, but I can't put my finger on what makes him so recognizable.
Caught up with this one after the Rachmaninov. This series is going to be a masterpiece.
Talking about the ending of the 7th Symphony, I always felt like he was going to launch off into something completely new, but of course he doesn't; it just stops. I was at a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Wolfgang Swallish conducting, where the ending was so abrupt that the audience just sat in silence at the end, like they were thinking "what happened?" until they realized it was over.
That's an excellent point. The piece reminds me of Scriabin's "Vers la flamme", which also ends rather abruptly. Apparently Scriabin had intended to compose a longer piece, but he suddenly urgently needed some money and basically sold to his publisher the piece as it was there and then, so without finishing it.
@@wappingbpy I've never heard that piece by Scriabin. I'll check it out, just out of curiosity.
Dear Dave,
My four favourite composers ... [in no particular order, because they are equal for me], Bach, Haydn, Greig and Sibelius. [so in order of birth!].
Does that make me a freak!
Love your vids!
Best wishes from George in UK
Thanks, Dave, for starting with Sibelius. When you were picking the best Sibelius violin concerto you left out my favorite, Christian Ferras and Zubin Mehta in Paris, which is incredible to watch on UA-cam. Is there a Sibelius cult I can join?
Mozart’s 40th symphony starts with a good ole string chugga chugga!
Wonderful idea for a series of videos. Looking for Villa-Lobos's footprints.
I've always found Fauré's sound very characteristic, but I've never been able to put my finger on what it is. It would be great if you could say something about his footprints.
Bravo, Dave.
I had only moments before catching up with your daily dose of musical education, been listening to Sibelius' s Second symphony. Footprints will be a marvelous series.
The recording I'd been listening to was by the Suisse Romande and Ansermet. It begs the question: What ever happened to all their recordings? I never hear Ansermet or the orchestra mentioned in discussions, or box set releases, or ... anything. Have we consigned them to a black hole in outer space? Are there any Ansermet boxed sets? Maybe you can raise their disappearance in a forthcoming video. Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Fred, in South Australia.
There was a huge Ansermet box released just a year or two ago. He’s never lacked for attention.
Dear Dave!!
Please continue this series whith Beethoven!
Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
Tremolos in the finales of the 2nd and 3rd symphonies - I could listen to them forever. I also become a heroic Finnish nationalist, even though I'm not Finnish!
I suggest Janáček for this series.
Yes for sure Janacek...I second that!
initial reaction is Sibelius sounds so AMERICAN! in these excerpts you’ve presented, all of which are gorgeous btw. This warms my heart and hurts my brain. Thanks Dave.
Huh? But then, I have no idea what "American" sounds like!
@@DavesClassicalGuide haha I know right?! En Saga signal a cinematic, Gershwin-y type sound world - in no way dying on this hill, just sharing my listening experience on what was a very late Monday night. I'll keep on listening. Thanks Dave.
@@craggyisland8770Gershwiny? What an absurd comment.
@@MD-md4th haha. We got a real winner here. Are you referring to the term or my admittedly silly and completely subjective opinion as a whole? Either way your comment is unclear and useless.
So if we approached Sibelius as if he were Bruckner - that is, ripe for improvement and second guessing, we could maybe perfect the ending of the 5th in a manner more in line with the authentic Sibelian essence. The current ending certainly breaks up the momentum, but that is all it does - which leaves room for patching on a balmy amen ending, appropriately scaled, of course :)
Uh, I don't think so...
I was actually thinking that the ending of the 5th IS a kind of Amen ending. I love it. (And I'm rarely caught actually thinking, haha.)
But the ending of Sibelius’ 5th is so unique and fun!
Sibelius' string tremolos remind me of contemporary minimal music. But his music always sounded a bit modern to me.
Excellent presentation, Dave. I've been trying to find a new copy of your Sibelius book with no luck in the usual places. Is it still in print?
You should be able to order it from the publisher:
rowman.com/ISBN/9781574671490/Sibelius-Orchestral-Works-An-Owner's-Manual
It's listed as available.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you very much. Looking forward to reading it.
Coincidence -- Just yesterday (Sunday) I broadcast six hours of Sibelius. During my preparation I came across a review of the fifth symphony by Timothy Judd, writing in his blog The Listener's Club. At one point he writes: "The Fifth Symphony evokes nature’s divine logic. On one level, it gives us a sense of motion through continuous development. On a deeper level, it enters into a mysterious, eternal stasis. In a way which mirrors the cyclic nature of Finnish folk music, the Fifth Symphony is filled with rotating cells which end up where they began. This is music influenced by the bleak, remote landscapes of northern latitudes, where perceptions of time may be altered by seasonal cycles which involve extended periods of darkness alternating with light." At another point in his review he remarks of the "Swan Theme" that is the climax of the final movement: "the theme is a majestic musical palindrome, sounding the same forwards and backwards." Perhaps this sense of circularity is another footprint.
Well, there's a lot of pseudo-poetic blather in that description, but there is a circularity to Sibelius tunes in certain symphonies and tone poems that we can associate with the language of the Kalevala. This was an entirely self-conscious effort on Sibelius' part. Interestingly, you don't find that idiom in, for example, the suites of incidental music that do not deal with Finish mythological or nationalistic themes.
I guess the next one on this series might be Martinu
Nope.
Rachmaninov would be interesting as well.
Brahms ??!! IF, and only IF, there's a need to compare this unique composer to any other composer, I would pick Beethoven or Bruckner, in their ability to use very small cells of rhythm or melody and extend these fragments into larger works of profound inevitability.