Sibelius’ incidental music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest
A meditation on ‘lateness:’ mortality, legacy, and creative fulfilment.
It is 1925 and the great Finnish master is bombarded by requests for his Eighth Symphony by the young conductor, Serge Koussevitzky. Dithering for inspiration, Sibelius’ life is forever changed with a commission for incidental music for The Tempest. The last act of Shakespeare’s play resonates with him in a more powerful way than he could ever have imagined, and he must confront the end of tonality and his creative voice in the world.
Shakespeare’s profound final play, detailing the loss of his own poetic powers, triggers the ‘Silence of Järvenpää:’ the final 25 years of the Sibelius’ life when at the height of his fame he could compose no longer. “The Tempest (Stormen)” is Sibelius’ penultimate work and one of his most astonishing achievements. Deeply pictorial and personal, it is at once a precursor to cinematic music and a farewell to symphonic tonalism.
The story revolves around three couples – Prospero and Ariel, Jean and Aido Sibelius, and Serge and Olga Koussevitzky. Their three worlds: Shakespeare’s imaginary island, backstage at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and deep in the forests of Finland, stay separate until the very end, when Sibelius finally faces the natural terminus of his creativity.
In development.
Researched with help from the Koussetivzky Music Foundation and the Library of Congress
This new concert theatre work uses actual correspondence shared between the Sibelius’s and Koussetizky’s between 1915-1940. Below is the telegram Sibelius sent Serge curtly announcing his 8th Symphony would yet not arrive – NICHT DIESEN SAISON. Sent in the middle of Koussevitzky’s historic Sibelius symphony cycle, promising to conclude with a premier of his newest, this one telegram must have been devastating. The symphony never came.
