Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams;
Within them dwells the Forest's mighty God,
And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.
These lines are affixed to the first page of Sibelius' tone poem Tapiola, a piece that is mysterious in many ways and stands as Sibelius' last completed major work. You might be expecting me to say that Sibelius died soon after its composition, but this is not the case. Sibelius wrote Tapiola in 1926, but did not pass away until 1957. Over the course of Sibelius' final 30 years, he wrote almost no music, a creative silence that has never been properly explained. There are many theories about this silence, but the answer to why Sibelius stopped composing might never be found. So, we have this final major piece, Tapiola, written at the very height of the composer's powers. Tapiola, a piece of around 15–20 minutes in duration, is concentrated Sibelius at its very best. It is a piece full of mystery, atmosphere, and most of all, the immense and overwhelming power of nature. Tapiola directly translates to "The Realm of Tapio," Tapio being the forest spirit that is prominent in the Finnish national epic myth, the Kalevala. Throughout this piece, Sibelius uses an incredible economy of ideas to create something wholly unique. There is not a single composer who sounds like Sibelius, and furthermore, no piece of Sibelius' that sounds like this one, save maybe for the 7th symphony, written just before Tapiola. It is a piece absolutely at odds with modern life, with the speed and energy of a city, with the short, attention-grabbing dopamine hits of social media, and even with our modern understanding of nature. As the writer Jay Goodwin says, "Like all art, music is chiefly a humanistic pursuit, meant to provide us with a window to our world. In this piece, however, there is the hair-raising sense that the paradigm has been reversed and that we are the ones being watched. There is the sense that the music is listening to us." I would only change one word in that quote: during Tapiola, I think we have the sense that nature is listening to us, because this music is, essentially, nature. I can't wait to talk you through this wonderfully enigmatic work. Join us!