Jean Sibelius wrote four works based on the poem "The Wood Nymph" by Finnish poet Viktor Rydberg: a song with piano accompaniment (1889); a tone poem for large orchestra (1894); a melodrama for speaker, strings, two horns, and piano (1894); and a piece for solo piano (1894). Aside from the text, the song is entirely independent of the other three works, which share a common tonality and common thematic material. All four works remained unpublished and unrecorded until 1996. The tone poem and the melodrama share the same opus number of 15. The tone poem or "Ballade for Orchestra" as it is subtitled, is one of Sibelius' longest single-movement tone poems, lasting nearly 22 minutes in performance. Like his other orchestral works of the early 1890s—the Lemminkainen and Karelia Suites and the first version of the tone poem En Saga—The Wood Nymph is a powerful work of tremendous energy and power. In four sections, the work starts with a portrait of Bjorn, the hero of the work, for full brass over a pulsing string background similar to that of Marcia of the Karelia Suite. In the second section, the heroic music continues as Bjorn sets off into the forest, but the accompaniment changes as he encounters the jealous goblins and nymphs portrayed in a chromatic dance in the winds. The third section of the work begins Moderato with an ardent theme in the cello depicting the Wood Nymph. Her dance before Bjorn is accompanied by winds, tambourine, and triangle. The fourth section of the work is dark and weighty, with an aching violin theme over the low brass and bass drum describing the broken hero whose heart has been lost to the wood nymph. Although it is not on the same level of inspiration as En Saga, The Wood Nymph's complete disappearance from the repertoire is inexplicable. The disappearance of the melodrama, however, is more easily explained. While the work is as attractively scored and as well-composed as the tone poem, the whole genre of the melodrama—that is, a piece of music with narrator—has disappeared from the concert hall. Like the tone poem, the melodrama is in four sections. However, the melodrama is much more compact than the tone poem, lasting a little over ten minutes in performance and is much more succinct in the thematic development. The solo piano piece based on The Wood Nymph is very brief and deals only with the final section of the music of the tone poem and melodrama. It has no opus number.

© James Leonard, All Music Guide