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- Sibelius, Jean
Duration: 23 minutes
Description: Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) composed his incidental music for William Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1925 for a production at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. The complete score, written for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, comprises more than thirty individual numbers and was first performed in Copenhagen in March 1926 under conductor Johan Hye-Knudsen. Sibelius subsequently returned to the score and in 1927 arranged selections into an overture and two orchestral suites for concert performance. Suite No. 1, Op. 109, No. 2 consists of nine movements drawn from throughout Shakespeare’s play: The Oak Tree, Humoreske, Caliban’s Song, The Harvesters, Canon, Scene, Introduction—Lullaby, Interlude—Ariel’s Song, and The Tempest. The movements evoke characters and episodes from the drama, including the spirit Ariel, the monstrous Caliban, Prospero’s magic, and the violent storm that sets the story in motion. Sibelius often reshaped and combined material from the original incidental music rather than simply transferring it unchanged, allowing the suite to function independently from the stage production. Written near the end of Sibelius’s active compositional career, at approximately the same time as the tone poem Tapiola, The Tempest was among his final major works and remains one of his most substantial contributions to music for the theater. Instrumentation: 3(all d. Picc).2.2+ECl+BCl.2: 4.3.3.1: Timp.Perc(4-5): Hp: Str (9.8.7.6.5 in set). Reprint edition.