About this Piece

The Lemminkäinen Suite is a collection of four symphonic poems, written originally between 1893 and 1896, revised several times, and published as a whole in 1954. Three of the poems are based on a legend from the Kalevala that depicts the adventures of Lemminkäinen, the most thoroughbred male shaman in Finnish narrative poetry. The fourth symphonic poem, The Swan of Tuonela, originates from an overture Sibelius wrote for his opera The Building of the Boat, a work that had foundered. Musical ideas drafted for the opera seem to have ended up in other movements of the suite as well.

The sequence of the four movements of the Lemminkäinen Suite does not follow the unfolding of events in the Kalevala, which means that Sibelius, in the spirit of Liszt, used the poetry loosely for the sake of inspiration and atmospheric effect, reimagining it in purely musical terms. Nonetheless, the suite progresses as follows.

Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island: In the first episode, “Lemminkäinen, full of joyance, Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,” chased by the folks of Pohjola, leaves his parental home, sails to the open sea, and arrives at the shore of an island. “Then the minstrel, Lemminkäinen, Roamed throughout the island-hamlets, To the joy of all the virgins, All the maids of braided tresses.” Thematically, this first movement corresponds to Richard Strauss’ Don Juan (1889).

The Swan of Tuonela: Sibelius set the scene for the second part, writing in the score: “Tuonela, the land of death, the hell of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a large river of black waters and a rapid current, in which the swan of Tuonela glides majestically, singing.”

Lemminkäinen in Tuonela: Lemminkäinen proposes to the daughter of Louhi, mistress of Pohjola. Louhi assigns him three tasks to solve, the last one being to hunt the swan from Tuonela’s river that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. But before Lemminkäinen sees the swan, a shepherd kills him, dismembers him, and throws his body into the river. Told about the death of her son, Lemminkäinen’s mother sets off to look for him, collects his remains from the river, puts them together, and revives him.

Lemminkäinen’s Return: This final episode of the suite was based on rune 30 in the Kalevala, and the corresponding lines of poetry were printed in versions of Sibelius’ score:

Then the lively Lemminkäinen, 
He the handsome Kaukomieli, 
From his care constructed horses, 
Coursers black composed from trouble, 
Reins from evil days he fashioned, 
Saddles from his secret sorrows, 
Then his horse’s back he mounted, 
And he rode upon his journey, 
At his side his faithful Tiera, 
And along the shores he journeyed, 
On the sandy shores proceeded, 
Till he reached his tender mother, 
Reached the very aged woman. 
(English translation by W.F. Kirby)

Though the suite has a vague narrative throughline, we can consider the Lemminkäinen Suite an expression more of absolute music than programmatic; and the individual poems roughly correspond to the movements of a symphony: “Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island” to a sonata allegro, “The Swan of Tuonela” to a slow movement, “Lemminkäinen in Tuonela” to a scherzo, and “Lemminkäinen’s Return” to a rondo finale. But unlike movements of a symphony, each poem feels complete on its own, played without the others.

In Finnish art, the 1890s was a decade of Symbolism and Art Nouveau. The Symbolist movement laid emphasis on immediate and personal expression in contradistinction to the objective world of Realism and Naturalism. The aesthetics of Art Nouveau opposed the rigidity of Classicism and relied on the imitation of natural forms, especially those of plants and animals. The Lemminkäinen Suite is the most important manifestation of these currents in Finnish music. Its symbolism stems from the mythical world of the Kalevala, and its techniques—instability of harmony, a musical line that flows freely and rhapsodically but still obeys strict inner discipline, and an exceptionally rich network of almost unnoticeable associative developments—have striking similarities to the principles of Art Nouveau.

—Ilkka Oramo