Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39 - III. Scherzo: Allegro

i am trying to get around to a fair number of composers before giving any one composer a second entry, otherwise i would do something else by schubert, whose birthday it happens to be today.

instead, though, i'm going to a composer that alex ross in his famous book "the rest is noise" described as more or less an isolated incidence of development in 20th century music. sibelius wrote music that was highly nationalistic, but like grieg, is not given quite enough credit for the musical loyalties he kept, which were called oldfashioned by the serialist and ultramodern schools developing in germany (there were actually articles published calling him "the worst composer in the world). i think most of us now can agree that this was pretty wide of the mark and that sibelius had some pretty unique, not at all backwards sounds.

sibelius wrote this symphony in 1898 when he was 33, with some revisions the subsequent year.

this is ashkenazy and philharmonia. there is a better video of bernstein with sappy slow bernstein tempi, but unfortunately the videos are not divided by movements so the movement starts in the middle of video 3 and ends halfway into video 4, if you are interested in looking it up.
this scherzo is, in form, as most are: a brisk 3/4. the recurrent tattoo of quarter notes is brought in emphatically  (and somewhat unusually) by the timpani, which comes back and brings it sharply back down to the ground every time it looks as if the other instruments will fly away with it. the motif gets shortened as instruments interrupt each other mid-sentence, giving the feeling of acceleration through instrumental compression, even though the rhythm and tempo remain the same.
slow section is somewhat rhapsodic, starts at 1:56 with the horns putting a sudden brake on the galloping scherzo with a big diminished chord which sounds totally out of nowhere, but manages to relax into a warm set of chords, later with solo winds adding a countermelody. then oboes come in with a pastoral little answer, but before you know it a rude awakening by trombones and tuba and bunch of swirling descending scales in winds and strings lead us back into the scherzo, which is a straight ride to the end.

listen to the other movements, which are actually from just about every aspect more intense and interesting. there is a high chance i'll do at least one of them sometime later. this movement is fun, though.