Kyllikki (Sibelius)

Kyllikki, Op. 41, is a three-movement suite for piano written in September 1904 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Although the title is taken from the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, Sibelius denied that the piece was programmatic in nature.

History

In September 1904 found Sibelius beset by dual distractions. First, he worried that he was beginning to go deaf. Moreover, construction on Sibelius's new home in Järvenpää was nearing completion and the family was preparing to move in at the end of the month. Nevertheless, Sibelius was in a good mood and experienced a creative surge: he had begun work two major projects, the Third Symphony and the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande for a production at the Swedish Theatre of Maurice Maeterlinck's 1893 play. Moreover, around 22 September he finished work on a three-movement piano piece called Kyllikki.

Structure and music

The work consists of three movements:
Musically, Robert Layton argues that Kyllikki "speaks much the same harmonic language as the Second Symphony and the Violin Concerto". The Sibelius biographer Andrew Barnett, too, emphasizes the suite's "Kalevala romanticism"—indeed, the "end of a stylistic" in the composer's output for piano.

Reception

Layton, however, dismisses Kyllikki as "on the whole ... an unsuccessful piece with few attractions ... the actual paint writing is, by the exhalted standards Sibelius himself set elsewhere, limited in resource".

Discography

The American pianist David Rubenstein made the world premiere studio recording of Kyllikki in 1971 for the Musical Heritage Society. The table below lists this and other commercially available recordings:

	Pianist	Time		Recording venue	Label
1		11:44			Musical Heritage Society
2		10:20			Toshiba
3		12:24	1977	Eaton's Auditorium	Sony Classical
4		10:59	1979	, Nacka	BIS
5		11:49			Melodiya
6		12:09	1993	St George's Church, Brandon Hill	Olympia
7		11:41	1994		Finlandia
8		12:09	1995		Ondine
9		11:01	1995		Naxos
10		12:26	1999	St Martin's Church, East Woodhay	Naxos
11		11:00	1999	YLE M2 Studio, Helsinki	Finlandia
12			2003	Tokyo Bunka Kaikan	Exton
13		11:30	2004	Studio Spidam, Passavant, Doubs	Syrius
14		11:52	2004	Bach Recording, Copenhagen	Classico
15		10:26	2007		BIS
16		11:38	2014	Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building	Quartz
17		11:01	2015	, Helsinki	Sony Classical
18			2016	Teldex Studio, Berlin	Sony Classical