Very little of Jean Sibelius' incidental music has achieved renown. Isolated individual numbers have certainly taken their places in the repertory—one thinks especially of the Valse Triste from the music to the play Kuolema—and the suites drawn from the music to Pelleas and Melisande and The Tempest are still occasionally heard in concert and on record. But, on the whole, it is safe to say that this particular facet of the composer's musical imagination has never really gotten the attention it so richly deserves, and even such worthy examples as the incidental music to August Strindberg's Svanehvit (Swanwhite), composed in 1908, have gone by relatively unrewarded.

The play Swanwhite (written in 1902) is not at all what one would expect from the usually morbid Strindberg: it is a charming fairy-tale play inspired by the long and noble history of the Swedish folk-ballad. Sibelius, the musical hero of Finland, actually grew up in a Swedish-speaking household, and the passionate enthusiasm with which he saturates his score seems to indicate that he felt a deep kinship with the Swedish author, or, at the very least, with his subject matter. In 1909 he assembled this instrumental suite by extracting seven numbers from the original fourteen that accompanied the play.

The opening number, "The Peacock", is vintage Sibelius: an examination of the carefully balanced upper pedal-point (scored kaleidoscopically for oboes, clarinets, and harp) that runs throughout the piece is enough to determine its author. The Peacock's repetitive nature is by no means a musical flaw, but rather an attempt to mirror the static quality of Strindberg's narrative.

More immediately attractive is the second number, "The Harp", a charming miniature whose instrumentation makes appropriate use of its namesake. The best-known number of the suite, "Girls with Roses", takes the shape of an extremely slow (lento assai) waltz; for this most dreamlike of pieces. One can note some similarities between "Girls with Roses" and the popular Valse Triste—due, no doubt, to an effort on Sibelius' part to achieve another popular success. He had, much to his later regret, sold the best-selling Valse Triste for a pitiful sum and thus never got a chance to cash in.

"Listen, the Robin Sings" (No. 4 of the suite) is a delicate tone-poem that can be unconditionally praised. If its mood and texture recall something of the graceful openness that marks much of the earlier score to Pelleas and Melisande, its inventive opening bars and clever finish mark it as a piece all its own.

A pair of connected numbers follow, "The Prince Alone" (No. 5) and "Swanwhite and the Prince" (No. 6). Beyond the obvious connection of narrative, these two pieces are marked by a similar reliance on colorful modal inflections and on highly streamlined motivic constructions. Although lean in texture and musical means, neither is by any means dispassionate, and "Swanwhite and the Prince" is probably the most poetic piece of the Suite.

The final number, "Hymn of Praise", is rather disappointing after the highpoints of Nos. 5 and 6, being altogether thick and a bit unwieldy. Perhaps Sibelius was using the relatively unnoticed arena of incidental music as a kind of proving-ground for new and different methods of orchestral thought. While the immediate result might be disappointing, it is reassuring to look forward and recognize the doors that such efforts managed to open for the composer.

© Blair Johnston, All Music Guide