Symphony No. 3 in C major = Symphonie Nr. 3 C-dur, op. 52, and: En Saga, op. 9, and: Symphonie Nr. 1 e-moll = Symphony No. 1 in E minor, op. 39 (review)

Throughout the twentieth century Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) has been the best known symbol of Finland and arguably the most performed composer from any of the Nordic countries. It was, therefore, a significant moment in Finnish culture when the Jean Sibelius Werke (hereinafter, JSW) began in 1996. The Sibelius discography is long and vast; and over the past twenty years the Swedish record company BIS has been releasing the complete works of the composer, including all his juvenilia, unpublished compositions, and alternate versions of pieces (such as the Fifth Symphony and the Violin Concerto). Such a healthy state of affairs might lead one to believe that the music is readily accessible. Yet nothing could be further from the truth: a not insignificant percentage of Sibelius's oeuvre has been either out of print or virtually unattainable. Further, performances were plagued by an enormous number of inconsistencies and errors between the score and orchestral parts. In short, given Sibelius's stature, both within Finland and on the international concert stage, the appearance of such a scholarly edition was long overdue.

Given the towering status Sibelius had throughout twentieth-century Finnish musical life, it is perhaps surprising that the first critical and scholarly assessment of the composer took place as late as 1965—the first of Erik Tawaststjerna's three-volume Jean Sibelius (Helsinki: Otava, 1965-88; English trans. by Robert Layton, Berkeley: University of California Press; London: Faber, 1976-97). The essential challenge was that a significant portion of the unpublished materials was held by the Sibelius family, who granted limited access to scholars. Two incidents during the 1980s significantly advanced Sibelius scholarship and set the stage for the commencement of the JSW in the 1990s. The first took place when the Sibelius heirs donated all the composer's extant manuscripts to Helsinki University. One condition of the donation was that the literally thousands of folios, which included completed scores and sketches, be inventoried. The outcome was The Jean Sibelius Musical Manuscripts at Helsinki University Library: A Complete Catalogue (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1991), authored by the Finnish musicologist Kari Kilpeläinen. The second important advance was a 154-page register of The Works of Jean Sibelius (Helsinki: Sibelius-Seura/Sibelius-Samfundet, 1987), by the...