Study On The Thematic Development Of Jean Sibelius’ Tone-Poem Tapiola

The great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius was an important representative of the nationalist music and late Romantic music.Tapiola was completed in 1926 as the last of Sibelius’ orchestral composition,which embodies the characteristics of Sibelius’ creation.Inspired by the Finnish epic Kalevala,about Tapio and his forest,the work is shrouded in a mysterious and gloomy Nordic atmosphere.For thematic development,Tapiola is characterized by the emergence of several new themes and melodies from one single theme prototype,mainly indicating transformation and developing variation,not only does it generate different new themes,it also generates non-thematic paragraphs,and even the archetype of the theme itself,which develops from a single motive that can be divided into three materials: the long note(material Ⅰ),the surrounding triplet(material Ⅱ),and the ascending triplet(material Ⅲ).Transformation is based on the theme prototype’ s complete melodic line,which is outlined by material Ⅰ and the reflections of material Ⅲ,change the melodic details or tonal by expansion or contraction of time values,interception,sequence or decoration,the result is in contrast with the theme prototype but has a more intuitive relationship of origin.Developing variation takes the material Ⅲ as the inherent material,combines the variable material of the material Ⅱ,and remolds or recombines them by interception and reflection.The result is obviously in contrast with the theme prototype,but it has a implicit origin relationship.Both of them provide close material and logical relations between the new themes and the non-thematic paragraphs of Tapiola,which effectively guarantees the unity of the work.The theme development of Tapiola embodies the variation principle,which has the structural characteristics of variation form and rotation form,while the simultaneous embodiment of the sonata principle makes it have the structural characteristics of sonata form.