Music—Einar Englund: Out of the Shadows

The Finnish CD label, Ondine, has recently brought to conclu­sion the first recorded traversal of Einar Englund’s seven symphonies, and the budget Naxos label has issued a magnificent recording of Englund’s Second and Fifth Symphonies, along with his First Piano Concerto. The now-available evidence reveals a major 20th-century symphonist (1916-1999) who was left in the shadows. Why was Englund ignored, and why is his work emerging only now? There are several intriguing reasons. The title of Englund’s autobiography, In the Shadow of Sibelius, gives one of them. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), the bright­est star of the nationalist Romantic Movement in Scandinavia, so domi­nated the musical galaxy with his seven symphonies and many tone poems that lesser lights were hardly visible. For Finland, Sibelius created the same problem that existed in the German world after Beethoven. What was one supposed to do after that?

More of the same would simply not do because it could not be done as well, as the epigones of Sibelius discovered to their regret. Also, the world had sub­stantially changed with the onslaught of World War II. Until Englund burst forth with his First Symphony in 1946, no one in Finland knew quite how to extend the symphonic form post-Sibelius. Englund had endured four years of World War II as a combatant, barely escaping with his life. He con­veyed his, and his country’s, experience in what is conventionally called a neo­classical musical language, but one that speaks with a ferocity and dissonant edge that is far from the nature idylls and frosty mountain peaks of Finnish Romantic nationalism. Thus, his First Symphony became known as the “War Symphony.” Not only did it speak to what Finland had endured in its heroic response to the brutal assault from the Soviet Union in 1939, but it gave a new, yet still tonal, vocabulary to the war generation in which it could continue to speak. Here was a work, quickly fol­lowed by an even finer Symphony No. 2, that did not sound like Sibelius but that magnificently succeeded on its own grounds. The vivid contrast of Englund’s music to Sibelius’s brought him to immediate prominence.

Ironically, that celebrity is another reason for Englund’s obscurity. By the late 1950s, the twelve-tone avant-garde spawned by Arnold Schoenberg had swept through Scandinavia with a vengeance, leaving Englund as practically the only prominent composer not embracing it. With masterful understatement, he called systematized atonality “wearying” and chose silence over compromise. “In the light of my strict musical education,” he said, “The new trends were like a mockery of the composer as a serious artist. As a result, there was nothing left for me to do but bide my time, waiting for a more propitious moment.”

The wait was almost 15 years, punctuated by only one major and several minor works. The ten years preceding his Third Symphony in 1971 were of complete compositional silence. A hia­tus of that length can end almost any reputation, especially when the avant garde is in charge of reputations. To remove any doubt that his silence was just a reactionary indictment of the avant garde, Englund continued to defend the values he cherished through his position as a music critic and as a professor at the Helsinki Academy.

When the grip of the twelve-note disciples loosened, an unrepentant Englund came roaring back with a defiant, bold Third Symphony. He went on to produce the main body of his symphonic work in the last two decades of his life. He also composed a number of concertos for piano, clarinet, and violin; incidental music; and chamber and choral works. Throughout, he stuck to the same basic language he had developed before his protracted silence. Englund’s music remained tonal and his forms traditional, attributes which usually mean music that is easily accessible.

Englund’s works, however, possess a toughness and integrity that demand a great deal of attention before they yield their considerable treasures. His message is not an easy one, no more than were the experiences he endured, which included, besides the war, the loss of two children and his first wife. His music can be tumultuous, searing, and occasionally caustic but often very reflective in a touching, nostalgic way. His lyricism is most often latent; he does not wear beautiful melodies on his sleeve. There is a lively sense of propulsion generated by rhythmic vivacity and a tonal architecture that, no matter how storm-tossed the dissonances, always points to the homeport. His musical themes can at first appear unremarkable, but they prove to be very durable and, on repeated acquaintance, unforgettable. Englund was a master craftsman in this respect. As he said, “I play through my material hundreds of times to test it for its fatigue point. Only if the musical idea retains its original freshness despite wear is it worth keeping.” To my surprise, some of Englund’s themes that more or less passed me by the first few times I now cannot get out of my mind.

The musical influences on Englund are obvious. In an interview in 1963, he named Stravinsky and Barnik as the two composers who had influ­enced him most, but there are others just as apparent. Shortly after the war, Englund made a trip to Russia where he was exposed to the works of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. It is espe­cially the former who can be heard in many of the symphonies, especially the martial “war” works, such as Nos. 1 and 5. The opening slow movement of the Fourth Symphony, written “to the memory of a great composer” (probably Shostakovich), comes close to the finest, most heart-rending slow movements in Shostakovich’s symphonies. In my first encounter with his Symphony No. 2, subtitled Blackbird for its flute theme, I wrote down “Malcolm Arnold, Harald Saeverud (in the wind writing), Jean Sibelius, and Bohuslav Martinu” as a few of the influences that suggested themselves.

While Englund’s respectful nods in Sibelius’s direction are well noted, few critics have remarked on what seems a clear influence from the great Danish composer, Carl Nielsen. Englund makes prominent use of brass and timpani in much the same threatening way that Nielsen employed it, especially in Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, Inextinguishable. For instance, in Englund’s Fifth, the shrieking woodwinds attempt to flee the pounding timpani and brass that threaten to crush the life out of them. The forces of life are never so triumphant in Englund’s music as they are, say, at the end of Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony. However, the conclusion to his Third Symphony comes close in its exuber­ance, as does the finale of No. 1, which Englund described as “the joyous shout of a young man who survived the war.” Also in temperament, Englund’s music is closer to Nielsen’s in the sense that it is a reflection not so much of the forces of nature as of human experience and man’s reaction to the forces of antilife. Despite all this, Englund’s music does not sound derivative. He is in charge of these influences, not subservient to them.

A good place to start an exploration of Englund’s work is with the new budget Naxos CD. It contains my two favorite symphonies, Nos. 2 and 4, along with the sprightly, percussive First Piano Concerto. The perfor­mances by the Turku Philharmonic, under Jorma Panula, are marvelous. In these works one hears Englund’s pre­occupation with time and memory. In the “Tempus Fugit” movement of the Fourth, there is an intriguing tick-tock ostinato figure. This is not the only work in which Englund replicates the sound of clocks. One might then proceed to Ondine’s release of the Cello Concerto, coupled with the Sixth Sym­phony, for an example of Englund’s more reflective side. The very finely wrought Cello Concerto is strangely reminiscent of Samuel Barber’s music. Englund’s piece is deeply ruminative, with a veiled poignancy and touching lyricism. One has the sense of listening in on something private. The Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, which plays throughout most of the Ondine cycle, under Eri Klas, is superb, as is cellist Jan-Erik Gustafsson.

The text from Heraclitus that Englund uses in the choral portions of his Sixth Symphony says that “the road up and down one and the same.” Time and its ravages may be one of Englund’s concerns, but it does not panic him. He observes its grim work­ings with stoicism and a certain detachment, which accounts for the classical balance and clarity of his music. I doubt if the whole body of his work will be included in the classics of the 20th century, but I believe several works will endure. Englund’s own test was to see if they would wear well, and they do, whether the road is going up or down.