Deep in the woods of Finland, among the trees and fauna, an ancient presence presides. Tapio, the forest spirit, is the embodiment of the woodland, its essence personified. The Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, even refers to the forest itself as “Tapiola” — the realm of Tapio.

Composer Jean Sibelius was deeply inspired by the mythologies and characters of the Kalevala, incorporating them into several of his works. In 1926, he composed the symphonic tone poem Tapiola, a musical portrayal of Tapio and the spirit of Finland’s wilds. It was Sibelius’s last major orchestral work, even though he would live for another three decades.

Sibelius prefaced the score with the following epigraph:

Widespread they stand, the Northland’s dusky forests,
Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams;
Within them dwells the Forest’s mighty god,
And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.

This atmospheric stanza sets the poetic tone for the work, a single continuous movement of organic develop­ment not unlike the forests of Finland. Although Sibelius composed Tapiola with his trademark fluidity, there is a structural arc to the work: a quiet, mysterious opening section that introduces the initial motives; a “development” section that evokes restless wildlife and storm-like surges; and a coda whose climax eerily dissolves into stillness, like a shadow retreating into the trees. Part of Sibelius’s ingenuity is the way in which a few musical “cells” create something akin to a force of nature — a whisper that swells into a ravaging storm before impassively returning to silence.

In the spirit of the score’s epigraph, Tapiola opens with a mysterious and brooding atmosphere, rooted in the minor mode. As a motivic fragment materializes, it is passed around the orchestra, played alternately by strings and winds, with sporadic hints of a storm brewing in the distance. Monolithic background chords provide both stability and stillness underneath the restless and repetitive motion of the thematic material. The background sonorities soon rise to the foreground as the initial motive fades away. Other wisps of melody are soon introduced, which organically flow in and out of the piece, and cover wide-ranging moods: bittersweet, unnerving, longing, sprightly.

The all-encompassing nature of the forest seems encapsulated by this interplay of background and foreground, the balance of organic transformation and grounded support, and the flow of transient ideas across broad timescales. By the time Tapiola concludes, there is a lingering sense that the woodlands of Finland are both ancient and wide­spread, encompassing an endless variety of terrain and atmosphere — from wet peatlands to dry pine heaths; vast silver birch suffused with light, their slender trunks casting long shadows over the moss and soil; and rocky ridges punctu­ated by glacial erratics and jack pine roots.

After Tapiola was published in 1926, Sibelius effectively ended his career as a composer. He began writing an eighth symphony, but only fragments exist — the rest were lost or destroyed. While it is unknown why Sibelius stopped writing music for the last 30 years of his life, it is difficult to imagine a more appropriate end to his catalog than Tapiola. Through­out his life, Finland embraced Sibelius for crafting a distinctive musical “voice” for the country founded on Finnish folklore, landscape, and language. At a time when modernism was in fashion across Europe — and Finland was establishing its cultural and political autonomy separate from long-held Russian influence — Sibelius’s nurturing of Finland’s musical identity was invaluable.

Although Sibelius’s career ended with Tapiola, the work stands as both a fitting conclusion to a singular musical voice and a testament to the living, breathing forests that make up the soul of Finland.

— Kevin Whitman

Kevin Whitman is The Cleveland Orchestra’s marketing operations manager.