The four-movement Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43, is the most performed of Sibelius’s symphonies. It impresses with its versatility, sweeping drama and heroic drive combined with a subtle romantic sensibility.
Written in 1902, it was premiered on March 8th, 1902 under the composer’s baton. After three sell-out performances Sibelius made some revisions and the revised version was given its first performance by Armas Järnefelt on November 10th, 1903 in Stockholm. Despite some conflicting reviews, it was received with enthusiasm. The critic Carl Flodin described the work as an absolute masterpiece, one of the few symphonic creations of our time that point in the same direction as the symphonies of Beethoven. Many point out the patriotic pathos especially in the heroic first and fourth movements, populary dubbing it the Symphony of Independence. But Sibelius himself explicitly denied the presence of programmaticism, claiming that his symphonies were pure absolute music. In a 1943 letter he wrote: My second symphony is a confession of the soul.
The composer probably conceived one of the themes for its last movement as early as 1899. It is certainly known that its first drafts were created in February 1901 in a mountain villa near Rapallo (Italy), where he was secluding himself to create.
Dramaturgically, the work is built on a three-tone motif. The initial pastoral character gradually passes into heroic pathos; in the first movement the thematic motifs interweave, only at the climax does the main theme resound fully. The second movement is philosophically immersive, the two themes and their metamorphoses evoking life’s complex primordial dilemmas of life and death. According to some scholars, Sibelius wrote it under the influence of Dante’s Divine Comedy; the first theme was inspired by the image of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the second – designated “Christus” – symbolizes death as well as the resurrection that awaits his native Finland; and according to his wife, Aino Sibelius, the second theme is in memory of her sister, Eli Järnefelt, who committed suicide. Classic in form, the scherzo is lively and tense, the trio contrasting, sounding enlightened. The transition from the third to the fourth movement is built on the basic motif. Thematic lines from the second movement also emerge, but the sense of reflection and sanctity gives way to the general heroic character exalted in the symphony’s finale.