![]() ![]() Yet whatever its date, the symbolic meaning of those twenty-four measures cannot be gainsaid: they reveal indisputably that Sibelius thought compositionally in terms of vibrating strings. It seems unlikely that Vattendroppar comes from so early a time. Later Finnish nationalists who were in the business of promoting Sibelius as a young genius claimed that already at the age of ten, the prodigious youngster was showing his future path . Glenda Dawn Goss goes further, placing Water Droplets in the context of both Finnish nationalism and Sibelius's special brand of 'musical feeling': In the early 1880s, Jean (violin) formed a trio with his siblings, Linda (piano) and Christian (cello). with a simple Alberti (broken-chord) accompaniment", in which the main theme is first presented (measures 1–4) and then twice repeated with modifications (measures 5–8 and 9–12). Structurally, it is, according to Daniel Grimley, "a little Mozartian study . Water Droplets, which Edition Fazer (now Fennica Gehrman) published in 1994, is in the key of E minor and has a 4Ĥ time signature. Indeed, Sibelius may have written the piece as an exercise for himself and Christian, who played the cello. Their reasoning is that in the mid-to-late 1870s Sibelius likely did not yet know the violin and cello well enough to write Water Droplets, because he would not begin violin lessons until the autumn of 1881, when he became a pupil of the local Hämeenlinna military bandmaster, Gustaf Levander. While Tawaststjerna dates the duo to 1875 (when Sibelius would have been nine or 10 years old), other scholars-for example, Fabian Dahlström, an authority on the composer's manuscripts-posit that Water Droplets more likely dates to 1881, when he was a 15-year old. Because the autograph manuscript is lost ( Erik Tawaststjerna, Sibelius's most expansive biographer, implies Sibelius destroyed it in "the bonfires which warmed his old age"), Water Droplets cannot be dated with precision. The piece only survives as a copy-likely made in 1915-by the Finnish composer and scholar Erik Furuhjelm, who was then writing the first biography of Sibelius in honor of the composer's semicentennial to complete the book, he needed to examine Sibelius's juvenilia and early professional works (such as the withdrawn choral symphony Kullervo). Scholars believe the first composition that Sibelius committed to paper is a short, 12-measure duo for violin and cello pizzicato, which he titled Water Droplets ( Vattendroppar in his mother tongue of Swedish). grasped the exceptional nature of musical talent, and watched its growth with sympathy and understanding" -was the subject of another early work, Aunt Evelina's Life in Music ( Faster Evelinas liv i toner), an "embryonic Sinfonia domestica" that the boy also never bothered to write down. Moreover, Aunt Evelina-who "very early on . Later in life, Sibelius claimed that his first composition had been a piano piece for children's theatre called Desert Scene ( Ökenscen) no trace of this work has ever been found, perhaps because he never committed it to paper. Sibelius's first attempts at composition-improvisational in nature-were at the family piano, on which his Aunt Julia began teaching him at age seven. The children typically summered in Loviisa with their paternal grandmother, Katarina (née Åkerberg), and Aunt Evelina. Throughout his childhood, Sibelius-then called Janne-lived within this extended family circle, which moved around Hämeenlinna several times. ![]() ![]() Maria was forced to move back in with her widowed mother, Juliana Borg (née Haartman), and two unmarried sisters (Tekla and Julia) shortly thereafter, she gave birth to Sibelius's younger brother, Christian, on 27 March 1869. ![]() Sibelius's father, Christian Gustaf, died of typhus on 31 July 1868, leaving behind his pregnant, 26-year old wife Maria (née Borg), as well as two young children: Jean (then two) and his older sister Linda Christian had mismanaged his affairs, and following his death, his estate was declared bankrupt. Edition Fazer (now Fennica Gehrman) published the piece in 1994. Regardless, Water Droplets retains a degree of historical significance as Sibelius's earliest written work. Scholars nevertheless speculate that Sibelius wrote the duo sometime between 1875 (nine to 10 years old) and-more likely-1881 (15 years old). The "tiny piece", which is just 12 measures long, cannot be dated with precision, because the autograph manuscript is lost. Water Droplets (in Swedish: Vattendroppar in Finnish: Vesipisaroita occasionally translated to English as Water Drops or Raindrops), JS 216, is a chamber piece for violin and cello pizzicato written by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (then called Janne) when he was a schoolboy. Sibelius's biographer, Erik Furuhjelm, made a copy of Water Droplets. ![]()
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