Jean Sibelius

Arioso (Sibelius)

"", Op. 3, is an art song for vocal soloist (typically soprano) and accompaniment written in 1911 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who appears to have worked simultaneously on two versions of

Reception#

The British musicologist Robert Layton describes "" as possessing “the grave air of melancholy that distinguishes the elegiac Grieg, and much the same intentness and conviction … there is a touching directness of utterance about this music and more than a hint of the wide-ranging vocal writing” that Sibelius would master subsequently with the tone poem Luonnotar (Op. 70, 1913). The Sibelius biographer Andrew Barnett, too emphasizes the relation to the Norwegian master: """ is a very fine song, with a vein of Nordic melancholy and string textures that have often been compared to Grieg".

Discography#

The Swedish conductor and composer Ture Rangström and the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra, joined by the Finnish soprano Aulikki Rautawaara, made the world premiere studio recording of "" in 1942 for Telefunken. The table below lists this and other commercially available recordings of the version with string orchestra: The version of "" for piano accompaniment received its first studio recording in 1981, when the Finnish baritone Tom Krause and the American pianist Irwin Gage recorded it for Decca. Predating this, however, is a 1954 radio performance by the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the Norwegian pianist , which released in 1996. The table below includes these and other commercially available recordings:

Composer: Jean Sibelius