The Dryad (Sibelius)

The Dryad, Op. 45/1, is a tone poem for orchestra written in 1910 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. He completed it between skiing trips. He conducted the first performance in Kristiania, Norway, on 8 October 1910, together with the premiere of In memoriam. He arranged it for piano in 1910. The piece has been regarded as one of the composer's "shortest and most original orchestral works", as an "impressionist miniature", proceeding from fragments to a "dance-like theme".

Instrumentation

The Dryad is scored for the following instruments, organized by family :

1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, and 2 bassoons
4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba
Bass drum, snare drum, castanets, and tambourine
Violins, violas, cellos, and double basses

Structure

\relative c' \new Staff \with

Discography

The Finnish conductor Nils-Eric Fougstedt and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra made the world premiere studio recording of The Dryad in 1959 for the . The table below lists this and other commercially available recordings:

	Conductor	Ensemble		Time	Recording venue	Label
1		Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra	1959	?	?
2		Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra	1975	6:01	Liverpool Philharmonic Hall	EMI Classics
3		Royal Scottish National Orchestra	1977	5:44	Glasgow City Halls	Chandos
4		Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra	1985	5:41	Gothenburg Concert Hall	BIS
5		Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra	1991	5:43	Mosfilm Studios	Brilliant Classics
6			2002	6:02		Finlandia
7		Lahti Symphony Orchestra	2000	5:07	Sibelius Hall	BIS
8		New Zealand Symphony Orchestra	2007	5:46	Michael Fowler Centre	Naxos

In addition, the Finnish pianist Erik T. Tawaststjerna made the world premiere studio recording of Sibelius's piano transcription of The Dryad in 1987 for BIS. The table below includes this and other commercially available recordings:

	Pianist		Time	Recording venue	Label
1		1987	5:45	Danderyd Grammar School	BIS
2		2007	5:10		BIS