Complete Works (JSW)

The present volume of the Sibelius Complete Edition contains seven orchestral works, five of which Jean Sibelius originally composed as stage music but later separated from the incidental-music connection to be performed as individual compositions in concerts. The tone poem Finlandia Op. 26 originates from the “Music for the Press Celebration Days” (JS 137, 1899). Valse triste and Scen med tranorna (“Scene with the Cranes,” Op. 44 Nos. 1 and 2) were composed for the 1903 premiere of Arvid Järnefelt’s play Kuolema (“Death,” incidental music JS 113); Canzonetta and Valse romantique (Op. 62a and 62b) were additions to a 1911 stage production of Kuolema. The two waltzes under the opus number 96, Valse lyrique (Op. 96a) and Valse chevaleresque (Op. 96c), are orchestral versions of works also known as compositions for piano.

Of the works only Scen med tranorna remained unpublished during Sibelius’s lifetime. It was also probably intended to be published – the autograph score is preserved under Breitkopf & Härtel tenure in the Sächsisches Staatsarchiv in Leipzig – but the first edition of the score and the parts were not printed until 1973. This print was made from a scribal copy by an unknown copyist, and the edition of Scen med tranorna based on Sibelius’s autograph is available for the first time in the present volume.

This volume forms the basis for the new practical Urtext-edition of the most frequently played and best known work by Sibelius: the tone poem Finlandia.