Four Legends from the Kalevala is scored for an orchestra of medium-size with English horn and harp in the second and bass tuba in the fourth. It was the fourth of Sibelius' orchestral works following studies at the Vienna Conservatory in 1890-1891 with Karl Goldmark and Robert Fuchs. Four Legends was written in 1895, based on mythic events in Finland's national folk epic. The long first and third Legends—Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island (aka Saari) and Lemminkäinen in Tuonela—bewildered listeners and displeased critics at the Helsinki premiere on April 13, 1896. The second Legend, however, The Swan of Tuonela, and the concluding one, Lemminkäinen's Homeward Journey, were immediately successful and were published with minor revisions in 1900. Sibelius labored over the two longer ones during 1896-1897, then put them aside. They remained in a drawer until 1935, almost a decade after the composer had officially stopped composing. In 1939 he made "final" revisions, his last thoughts for orchestra. Lemminkäinen was the handsome, hereditarily randy son of Lempi, the god of erotic love. In the first musical Legend, based on "Runo 29," he takes refuge on a remote island from a horde of Pohjolanders whose leader he beheaded in a sword fight. The island's male population has gone to war, leaving behind 100 widows and 1,000 virgins. During the next three years, Lemminkäinen beds all but one before the men return, forcing him to flee again. The music's principal subject groups in E flat major characterize first the seducer and then the dance music of his overjoyed conquests without being specifically pictorial, as Richard Strauss had been a decade earlier in Don Juan. Structure here, and again in Legend No. 3, is organic rather than conventionally symphonic: it evolves from malleable materials heard early on, reworked with great ingenuity and expressive beauty leading to a powerfully dramatic climax. Sibelius prefaced the score of Legend No. 2 with lines from "Runo 14": "Tuonela, the land of death, the hell of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by black waters and a rapid current, on which the Swan on Tuonela floats majestically, singing." The mood-painting is somber in A minor (anticipating the Symphony No. 4 16 years later), with a haunting English horn solo characterizing the black swan. In the dark-hued and gripping third Legend, based on "Runo 14," Lemminkäinen is told to kill the swan by Louhi, the cunning mistress of Pohjola, to gain the hand of a daughter. But a blind cowherd intuits his murderous intent and from a river reed fashions a poisonous serpent that kills the swan hunter. When the cowherd throws Lemminkäinen's body into the swirling river, the son of Tuonela's ruling deity angrily hacks it into 40 pieces. Lemminkäinen's supernatural mother manages, however, to retrieve the pieces and reassemble them so that her restored son in Legend No. 4 can exultantly ride home in E flat major.

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3.The Swan of Tuonela

The Kalevala is a collection of folk poetry from Northeastern Finland and Archangel Karelia (Russia), compiled by Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884). The original collection, from 1835, consisted of 32 cantos, but Lönnrot expanded it to 50 in 1849, to fashion the popular version that would later inspire Sibelius to compose several works, including the Lemminkainen Suite: Four Legends from the Kalevala. The central character of the stories is Lemminkäinen, a sort of Finnish mythological figure, somewhat along the order of Don Juan. The Swan of Tuonela is the third of the four Legends and has been called the composer's first bona fide masterpiece.

It begins in a somber mood, the music depicting the Swan singing as it serenely glides atop the river—a river where one senses hovering mists and an eerie quiet. The English horn has a prominent part here, playing the lovely, melancholy main theme (the Swan singing), a creation whose exoticism and mesmerizing character impart both a sense of loneliness and of soothing consolation. The music intensifies midway through, but cannot quite generate enough momentum to break away from the ethereal and mystical mood established at the opening. The English horn returns in the latter half to sing its music again, but the mood darkens further, especially in the string writing, which favors the violas, cellos, and lower ranges of the violin, and divulges a sort of funereal manner. Lasting 9 to 10 minutes, The Swan of Tuonela is probably the finest of the four Legends from the Kalevala.

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4.The Return of Lemminkäinen

The Kalevala became very popular in nineteenth century Finland and eventually inspired Sibelius to compose the symphonic poem Kullervo, Op. 7, as well as the Lemminkäinen Suite. Elias Lönnrot (1802-84) compiled the Kalevala, a collection of Finnish and Karelian folk poetry originally consisting of 32 cantos, later expanded to 50. Lemminkäinen's Return is the fourth and final of the Four Legends of the Kalevala that make up Sibelius' Lemminkäinen Suite. Although it is the shortest of the four, typically lasting about six or seven minutes, it is undoubtedly the most buoyant and colorful.

It opens with a bold chord, after which the orchestra begins to seethe with energy and a sense of expectation, building toward eruption, but glorious eruption. Soon the main theme for this movement, heretofore heard in fragments, begins to take shape, imparting an energetic and joyful spirit in varied instrumentation: winds, strings mainly in their lower ranges, and brass all spray the sonic landscape with vivid, rich colors to depict the triumphant return of Lemminkäinen, a sort of Superman/Don Juan character who had abandoned his wife for adventure and womanizing. Throughout the work the music is lively and effervescent, imbued with a folkish sense and the kind of energy one encounters in the Scherzo of Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 (1900-1902). But Lemminkäinen's music here is happier and more fantasy-like, and ends triumphantly.

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