“THE SWAN OF TUONELA” (“TUONELAN JOUTSEN”), LEGEND FROM THE FINNISH FOLK EPIC “KALEVALA”

Here is no swan, singing before death, a fable that suggested to Villiers de l’Isle-Adam one of his cruelest tales, and served Anna Pavlowa for an entrancing, memorable dance-pantomime to Saint-Saëns’ familiar music. This is the swan that glides and sings on the river of black water around Tuonela, the Kingdom of Death. Sibelius, to whom the Finnish epic Kalevala furnished subjects for several of his earlier compositions, by economic means, by an unerring choice of his instruments, portrays the scene and gives the song—after the hearer is acquainted with the explanatory note in the score. Suppose that the hearer had no knowledge of the legend, had never read of Lemminkainen’s adventures; how, to win the maid Pohjola, he set out to accomplish certain tasks, among them to shoot a swan on this River of Death. How would the hearer then be impressed? Surely he would be moved by the strangeness of the music, by the mysterious first measures, by the unearthly melancholy of the song, by the quiet intensity of it all. He would find in the music a tragic mood, simply but unmistakably expressed. To us this legend of Sibelius, for itself, is commanding music.

The Swan of Tuonela is the third section of a symphonic poem Lemminkainen, in four parts, Op. 22, 1. “Lemminkainen and the Maidens”; 2. “His Sojourn in Tuonela”; 3. “The Swan of Tuonela”; 4. “Lemminkainen Homefaring.” These pieces are drawn from the Finnish epic Kalevala. A note on the score of The Swan of Tuonela runs thus: “Tuonela, the Kingdom of Death, the Hades of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a broad river of black water and rapid current, in which the Swan of Tuonela glides in majestic fashion and sings.”

Lemminkainen is one of the four principal heroes of the Kalevala. Mr. W. F. Kirby, in his translation of the epic, describes him as a “jovial, reckless personage, always getting into serious scrapes, from which he escapes either by his own skill in magic or by his mother’s. His love for his mother is the redeeming feature in his character. One of his names is Kaukomieli, and he is, in part, the original of Longfellow’s ‘Pau-Puk-Keewis.’”

In the thirteenth and fourteenth Runos, it is told how Lemminkainen asks the old woman of Pohja for her daughter Pohjola. She demands that he should first accomplish certain tasks: to capture on snowshoes the elk of Hiisi; to bridle fire-breathing steeds. Succeeding in these adventures, he is asked to shoot a swan on the river of Tuonela.

I will only give my daughter,

Give the youthful bride you seek for,

If the river swan you shoot me,

Shoot the great bird on the river;

There on Tuoni’s murky river,

In the sacred river’s whirlpool,

Only at a single trial,

Using but a single arrow.

Lemminkainen came to the river. A cowherd, Märkähattu, old and sightless, who had long waited for him, slew him there by sending a serpent “like a reed from out the billows” through the hero’s heart, and cast the body into the stream. Lemminkainen floated on to Tuonela’s dread dwelling. The son of Tuoni cut the body into pieces. The hero’s mother, learning of his fate, raked the water under the cataract till she found all the fragments. She joined them together and restored her son to life by charms and magic salves, so that he could return home with her.

The piece is written in A minor, andante molto sostenuto 9-4 time. Mrs. Rosa Newmarch (Jean Sibelius) says of it:

“The majestic but intensely sad, swan-like melody is heard as a solo for cor-anglais, accompanied at first by muted strings and the soft roll of drums. Now and then this melody is answered by a phrase given to first violoncello or viola, which might be interpreted as the farewell sigh of some soul passing to Tuonela. For many bars the brass is silent, until suddenly the first horn (muted) echoes a few notes of the swan melody with the most poignant effect. Gradually the music works up to a great climax, indicated con gran suono, followed by a treble pianissimo, the strings playing with the back of the bow. To this accompaniment, which suggests the faint flapping of pinions, the swan’s final phrases are sung. The strings return to the natural bowing and the work ends in one of the characteristic, sighing phrases for violoncello.”

The second theme is given out by the strings to a slow but rhythmed accompaniment of wood-wind, brass, and drums.

The score calls for oboe, English horn (solo), bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trombones, kettledrums, bass drum, harp, and the usual strings.

RICHARD
STRAUSS

(Born at Munich, June 11, 1864)