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Pohjola's Daughter (Finnish title: Pohjolan tytär; literal English translation as The Daughter of the North; subtitled symphonic fantasia), Op. 49, is a single-movement tone poem for orchestra written in 1906 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The piece, which premiered on 29 December 1906 in Saint Petersburg with Sibelius conducting, stands as the composer's second attempt to set to music Runo VIII of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. (Sibelius' ill-fated opera The Building of the Boat, abandoned in 1895, was the first.) In the story, the hero Väinämöinen spots the beautiful maiden of the Northland (Pohjola), perched on a rainbow and spinning a golden cloth. He declares his affections for her, but she cunningly refuses to depart with any suitor who cannot conjure a boat from her distaff. To the maiden's amusement, Väinämöinen's magic proves insufficient; humbled, he continues his journey, alone.

Structurally, Pohjola's Daughter is in sonata form, with a musical subject depicting each character: for Väinämöinen, a boastful brass fanfare, while for the daughter of Pohjola, an ethereal harp and playful woodwinds. And yet, Sibelius began the composition process with the goddess Luonnotar in mind, before altering the program (and music) to reflect Väinämöinen's courtship (the thematically-distinct Luonnotar, Op. 70, arrived in 1913). The title Pohjola's Daughter was the choice of publisher Robert Lienau, who rejected both Sibelius' initial suggestion, Väinämöinen, and subsequent counterproposal, L'aventure d'un héros. The tone poem marks an important "turning point" in the evolution of Sibelius' style, a struggle perhaps reflected in the "tension" between the Romanticism of Väinämöinen's theme and the Impressionism of the maiden's. A typical performance of the piece lasts about 13 minutes.

Naming the new piece
Having settled on the events of Runo VIII as a program for the new tone poem, Sibelius wrote in the summer of 1906 to update Lienau; Sibelius supplied Lienau with a programmatic explanation in prose, but neglected to provide a title. Lienau wrote back on 4 July, noting that he would transform Sibelius' prose into verse and proposing a title that would center on the story's female lead ("I am also in favour of giving the work a specific title. Doesn't the daughter of Pojala [sic] have a name? Perhaps we could us that".). Sibelius, who considered Lienau's title too similar to that of an 1898 Finnish language opera by Oskar Merikanto, Pohjan neiti (Maiden of the North), wrangled with Lienau for several months, initially proposing the title Vainämoinen, a title that would have fit neatly with Sibelius' earlier depictions of other Kalevala heroes, Kullervo (an 1892 choral symphony, Kullervo, Op. 7) and Lemminkäinen (an 1895 collection of tone poems, the Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22). Lienau, however, was unenthusiastic, viewing Vainämoinen as potentially unappealing to a Central European audience unfamiliar with Finnish mythology and lacking a marketable feminine allure. Sibelius countered with L'aventure d'un héros (The Adventure of a Hero), a title that betrays Sibelius' enthusiasm for Richard Strauss' 1898 tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life).

Orchestration
Pohjola's Daughter is one of Sibelius's most colorful scores, as he utilizes a number of instruments uncommon for his work. It includes the following instruments:


 * Woodwinds: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets (in B♭), bass clarinet (in B♭), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon
 * Brass: 4 horns (in F), 2 trumpets (in B♭), 2 cornets (in B♭), 3 trombones, tuba
 * Percussion: timpani
 * Strings: violins, violas, cellos, double basses, harp

Structure
Needs for Pohjola's Daughter:


 * 1) Opening cello solo (4 measures; m.1–5)


 * 1) Väinämöinen's theme (trombones two m. before marker C; continue 2 measures in or until key change)


 * 1) Daughter's theme (solo oboe and solo flute before marker D... first three measures after key change)


 * 1) Daughter's teasing laughter and Väinämöinen's angry retort (flute and oboe at E; retort is cello, b.clar, bassoon, and bass... probably don't need them all... maybe just the cello?)

Discography
The following sortable table includes commercially available recordings of Pohjola's Daughter. (Updated: May 2020)


 * Paavo Järvi
 * Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
 * 1996
 * Stockholm Concert Hall
 * 49:23
 * 17:08
 * 9:49
 * 15:54
 * 6:32
 * Virgin Classics (VC-5-45213-2)

Layton notes

 * "an unqualified masterpiece"
 * "It is the most ambitious and highly organized of Sibelius's essays in this form that he had attempted up to this time. As an example of programmatic art its achievement is fully commensurate with the finest of the Strauss epic tone-poems like Don Juan or Till Eulenspiegel, while as pure music it represents a degree of cohesion and integration even greater than Strauss's."
 * "To make an end of his wooing, she sets him a number of impossible tasks"
 * "Whatever the origins of its inspiration, no Sibelius work more completely fulfils both programmatic expectations and purely symphonic needs. The unity of the material strikes the listener most forcibly."
 * "But what we take as a vivid evocation of the spinning-wheel and the rainbow, could just as easily have been intended as the bird soaring above the oceans on its long quest in Luonnotar, which tells of the creation of the world as related in the first Runo of the Kalevala. There is a powerful brass theme which evokes Väinämöinen's sledge on its homeward journey. It is suddenly silenced by the vision of the beautiful maid of Pohjola and returns in the development section where he labours to perform the impossible tasks she has set him. All these could just as easily represent the energies unleashed when the the firmament was created."
 * "The cello theme which sets the mood of the saga, the cor anglais theme that grows out of it, are related in an organic way that is paralleled only in the symphonies. Yet the cello theme 'speaks' and intones, as it were, in much the same way as a narrator or runic singer in the Kalevala.
 * "The symphonic poems that Sibelius wrote during the present century are among his very greatest works and, incidentally, among the greatest essays in the form. To each of them he brings a completely fresh approach; no two are alike in their treatment of the programmatic content or in their musical design. Pohjola's Daughter is on the face of it the most 'representational' of them ... None of his tone poems seems more meticulously programmatic: the sounds of the maiden of the North seated on a rainbow at her spinning-wheel could hardly be more vivid, as are Väinämöinen's struggles with his impossible tasks. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that he refers to it in his letters to Carpelan and his new publisher, Robert Lienau as Luonnotar.
 * "Indeed, in all of the Legends Sibelius evokes atmosphere rather than portrays narrative; only two of his tone-poems, Pohjola's Daughter and Luonnotar are, like Don Juan or Till Eulenspiegel, in any way representational."

Hurwitz notes

 * "Sibelius took a break from writing symphonic poems in the early 1900s, working instead on the first two symphonies and the Violin Concerto. When he returned to the medium in 1906, he produced one of the most celebrated masterpieces in the genre."
 * "Pohjola isn't a person, but a place. The suffix la in Finnish defines a location, meaning 'the place of'. Hence Sibelius's home, Ainola, is named for his wife Aino ... We're stuck with the title Pohjola's Daughter because Sibelius's publisher decided to call it that, and the English name is a literal translation from the German, not the original Finnish."
 * "This work offers an object lesson in what music can and cannot describe, and just how intelligent Sibelius was in understanding the possibilities inherent in his material. The original story from the Kalevala ... is quite different from what the music actually does."
 * EXPOSITION: "Introduction at 0:06: cello recitative evoking folk singers beginning their storytelling ... First subject at 1:20: woodwinds in dialog under rolling timpani, gradually increasing in tempo ... Motion music at 2:06: a cross-hatched string ostinato, which could very easily represent both the motion of Väinämöinen's sledge and the maiden's spinning wheel ... The grand arrival and boastful character of Väinämöinen (big chorale in the brass). DEVELOPMENT I at 3:42: Whit a genuinely funny downward chromatic scale in the bass, the music slips off its B-flat pedal, yawns, and says, 'I'm not impressed'. Tinkling harp and sweet woodwinds perfectly capture the maiden's feminine allure. Mysterious string tremolos and harp glissandos give the impression of magical events taking place. At 5:39, Väinämöinen attempts to claim his prize, only to be met with woodwind laughter, beneath which he voices his frustration. DEVELOPMENT II at 5:59: Beginning just as did the first development section, the music suggests more magical happening on a much grander scale, with plenty of bustling activity and a renewed sense of determination. The moment of catastrophe is extremely graphic, and this time the laughter (at 8:18) is even louder, and might just as well represent Väinämöinen's howls of pain. Total chaos ensues, leading to a huge climax and a general pause. RECAPITULATION at 8:47: The entire first subject reappears now in the quick tempo of the ensuing motion music, which is rescored to give its main tunes largely to the horns and trumpets. The sense of the passage might well be described as 'Let me get the hell out of here as fast as possible!' Väinämöinen's corale, bolder and more full of bravado than previously, tears itself to pieces in a dissonant climax similar to the one in the Fourth Symphony's Finale. Gradually, calm returns as the music recedes into the distance, closing softly and sadly in a tone of surprising seriousness given all of the high-spirited and often humorous preceding activity".
 * "Notice the difference between what the music does and what the story says. In the story there are three tasks, but in the tone poem Sibelius requires only two to give a firm impression of the 'magical things happening and not turning out as expected'. The Kalevala says that Väinämöinen succeeds in his first two challenges; Sibelius has them end similarly (in laughter), because music alone cannot express specific details such as 'OK, you did what I asked, but I'm not ready to join you and have one further task that you must complete if you want to win me over'. Finally, although most of the themes in this piece are Kalevala tunes, there is no obvious equivalent to the multiple 'Help me stop the bleeding' verses, for the same reason just described. Music simply can't do that. Rather, Sibelius offers an eloquent portrait of the hero enraged, disappointed, and ultimately resigned. Pohjola's Daughter is thus not so much a narrative as it is a character sketch of Väinämöinen. You can hear his eagerness and his pride, listen to the maiden scoff at this vanity and remain unimpressed by his magical talents, and then witness his ultimate humiliation. All of these are things that music can express, and all have their basis in the original tale. So Pohjola's Daughter is not a literal musical illustration of the Kalevala episode in question; it is an independent, unified work inspired by it".

Johnson notes

 * "1893, Sibelius had planned to write an opera, The Building of the Boat, based on cantos VIII and XVI from the Kalevala. Although he abandoned this scheme and turned to other sections of the the legends for his Lemminkäinen Suite, the original idea still tempted his fancy. By 1906, the tone poem Pohjola's Daughter, opus 49, was ready, and he conducted it at a Siloti concert in St. Petersburg on December 29. It was dedicated to Robert Kajanus".
 * "His own outline of the libretto for The Building of the Boat follows: Scene 1: Väinö, who is as young as possible without offending a Finn, is resting on the shore during his journey. It is evening. They sky is getting red. The Queen of the Moon is seen knitting and singing on a cloud. Väinö falls fiercely in love and asks her to be his own. The Queen promises to agree if Väinö will sing a boat together out of the splinters of her spindle. Scene 2: It is bright day. Väinö is constructing the boat by singing. Sampsa Pellervoinen (silent) gives hims the wood. Väinö is missing three words. Scene 3: Runo XVI, lines 148-370. Väinö goes to Tuonela to seek the words. The end is changed to that when Väinö is half awake, the Goddess of Tuonela says those three missing words. Scene 4: We see the surface of a great lake. The sky is black. Väinö is sailing in his new boat and expressing the fire of his love in song. The sky is getting red. The Queen of the Moon, knitting and singing on a cloud, descends slowly so that Väinö, who is standing in the bow of the boat, is able to embrace her as the curtain falls".
 * "Sibelius estimated that Erkko would not have to write more than one hundred lines, the rest to be taken directly from runos VIII and XVI of the legends. 'This subject overpowers me so that I cannot get any peace', he confessed. Around his seventieth birthday, Sibelius recalled that the fate of the opera was sealed when the producer, Kaarlo Bergbom, pronounced it 'too lyrical'. In all events, Sibelius never lost interest in the subject. It provided the inspiration for his tone poem Pohjola's Daughter, opus 49, which appeared in 1906".
 * "Flodin felt that a program for Pohjola's Daughter could not be determined with any accuracy. Such enthusiastic writers of programmatic analysis as Gray, Newman, and Ringbom do not agree with this, but concur in providing their readers with 'the names and numbers of all the players'. For those who like to engage in this harmless though futile game, a brief glance t the composer's own outline for the plot of The Building of the Boat may provide some new ideas".
 * "The St. Petersburg critics were interested in the new tone poem and pronounced it a highly successful attempt to treat the Kalevala as Wagner had treated the Teutonic legends. In fact, some professed to find in it the strong influence of Wagner; others attributed the brilliant instrumental coloring to Rimsky-Korsakov. When Armas Järnefelt conducted it a few months later in Stockholm, some Swedish critics detected shades of Tchaikovsky. Whatever the individual merits of these observations may be, the consensus opinion was that in Pohjola's Daughter Sibelius had produced a magnificent piece of orchestration".
 * The Third Symphony premiered on 26 September 1907 in Helsinki with Sibelius conducting; also on the program were Pohjola's Daughter and the suite from Belshazzar's Feast.
 * The Oceanides premiered on 4 June 1914 in CT with Sibelius conducting; also on the program were Pohjola's Daughter, excerpts from the King Christian II Suite, The Swan of Tuonela, Finlandia, and Valse trist.

Gray notes

 * "'Pohjola's Daughter' belongs more definitely to the category of 'programme' music than any of Sibelius's other works. In order to understand and appreciate 'En Saga', 'Lemminkäinen', or 'The Swan of Tuolena', nothing more is strictly needed that the titles, if even those, but here the musical development is to some extent conditioned by the poem".
 * "For example, the semiquaver figure met with a the outset, which constitutes the leitmotiv of the whole work, is clearly descriptive of the motion of the spinning wheel, and various other passages can be definitely identified with literary or pictorial suggestions in the programme, such as the appearance of the maiden on the rainbow and her mockery of the hero. At the same time the music is not unintelligible apart from the programme, as is that of so many symphonic poems".
 * "As this would suggest, the chief interest of the work is colouristic. From the dark, sombre harmonies of the opening to the brilliant, glittering texture of the 'rainbow' music, the whole gamut of the tonal spectrum is traversed from end to end. This work, in fact, probably represents the farthest point to which Sibelius attains in respect of sumptuousness of colour and elaboration of texture. Thenceforward one notes a constantly growing tendency in the direction of economy of orchestral means and simplicity of style".