Kalevi Kiviniemi (1958-2024) plays "Mournful Music, Op. 111b (1931)" by Jean Sibelius

Kalevi Kiviniemi (30.6.1958–3.4.2024) plays "Mournful Music, Op 111" by Jean Sibelius, on the historic Walcker Organ at the Winterthur Stadtkirche, Switzerland. Organ was built by the famous German organ builder E. F. Walcker, in 1887–1888. It has mechanical tracker action with Barker lever on the manuals, stop action is pneumatic. Organ was restored by Orgelbau Kuhn, Männedorf, Switzerland, in 1980–1984.

Mournful Music ("Surusoitto" in Finnish) is the last instrumental piece Sibelius wrote. This piece contains elements of the unfinished 8th Symphony, which Sibelius burned in the fireplace of his home Ainola. When composer Joonas Kokkonen asked Aino Sibelius about the origins of this work, she confirmed that there was a connection with the symphony.

Mournful Music was written in just two days, for the funeral of the Sibelius' friend, painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, which explains why Sibelius borrowed the style and material from the burned 8th symphony. Here we have in our hands the only remaining document of that staggering work. Dissonances follow one after the other, and the archaic world seems more brutal than in the more demanding sound world of the 4th Symphony.

Jean Sibelius and Akseli Gallen-Kallela were good friends. Sibelius' relationship to the organ is given a new dimension by the knowledge that he spent many hours in his friend's heremitage in Ruovesi improvising on the 8-stop Böttcher organ that Gallen-Kallela had bought at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. The final theme of Sibelius' 2nd Symphony, among other works, was born in the front of the fireplace in Gallen-Kallela's home.

Mournful Music received its premiere at the funeral of Akseli Gallen-Kallela in St. John's Church in Helsinki on the 19th of March, 1931. Sibelius was a pall-bearer for his friend's casket, as was C. E. Mannerheim, Marshall of Finland.

Text: Kalevi Kiviniemi (translation: Kathy Weidenfeller).
Audio, photography & editing: Mika Koivusalo 2004/2025.