A tone poem for soprano and orchestra by Jean Sibelius, Op. 70, first performed 10 September 1913. It sets Runo I of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic compiled from Finnic oral pagan mythology, in which the spirit Luonnotar descends from the air, is impregnated by the sea, and gives birth to the world. The publisher's own programme note describes it as Sibelius's last tone poem drawn directly from the Kalevala, with the composer himself choosing the text, offering not a narrated plot but a series of impressions amounting to a Finnish account of the world's creation.
Facts
Production
Release Year Primary Artist / Composer Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterThe Kalevala's creation myth and the spirit Luonnotar: the publisher's own catalogue programme note names this outright, and Sibelius himself chose the text. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Finnish directly: "a series of impressions amounting to a Finnish account of the world's creation."
Depicts
The publisher's own catalogue programme note names the Kalevala's creation myth, drawn from Finnic pagan oral tradition, outright as this tone poem's subject; Luonnotar, the spirit who creates the world in the text Sibelius himself chose, does not yet exist as a separately modelled figure in the atlas, so the claim is carried on the tradition itself.
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