He seems to have sensed within himself two contradictory impulses: an attraction to "primitive," even "barbaric" subject matter and a rage for symphonic order. Despite Kullervo's success, it doesn't satisfy him, and he withholds it from publication (it appeared, finally, in the Sixties). One of his most powerful scores, the symphony shows Sibelius in the midst of throwing off Bruckner and Wagner and trying to find a personal language. He began his first major work, a huge choral symphony based on Finnish legends, Kullervo (1892) and also married Aino Järnefelt. This was to provide him with a good deal of his artistic inspiration. He also began to read the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. He fell under the spell of Bruckner and Wagner, leaving the Brahmsian classicism that had marked his music heretofore. However, in 1890, with another state grant in his pocket, he traveled to Vienna, where he studied with Karl Goldmark and Robert Fuchs. On the whole, Berlin proved a rather crushing disappointment. Sibelius pretty much stopped producing original work during this time. His professor deemed the young man's works incompetent and set him to studying strict counterpoint for the rest of his stay. In 1889, having graduated from the Institute, Sibelius won a state grant to study music in Berlin. Nevertheless, Finnish folklore fired him. He continued to set Swedish song texts throughout his career, for example, to write his letters in Swedish, and to listen to Swedish-language news broadcasts. He never was particularly comfortable in the language. At this time Sibelius, whose native language as Swedish, began to learn Finnish and to become interested in Finnish folk poetry.
Meant by his family to become a lawyer, he switched to music in his twenties, mainly to become a violin virtuoso, but found himself increasingly drawn to composition.ĭuring his final years as a student, Sibelius became friendly with the pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni, at that time a professor of piano at the Helsinki Music Institute, and, more importantly, the Järnefelt family, important figures in the rise of Finnish-language culture. At age 20, he took "Jean" as his "music-name." Sibelius to a great extent taught himself the rudiments of composition. Sibelius himself came from Swedes (family name Sibbe) and was christened Johan Christian Julius. Up until the early 19 th century, it was first a part of Sweden and then, from 1809, a grand duchy of Russia. Finland, after all, was less a country than an ethnic enclave. Jean Sibelius (DecemSeptember 20, 1957), very largely created himself as the musical emblem of Finland, even down to the level of his name.