Importance
Although the Seventh apparently first existed in embryonic form in D major, it eventually attained the home key of C major. There was a time when composing in C was considered fruitless — it had "nothing more to offer." But in response to the Seventh, the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams said that only Sibelius could make C major sound completely fresh. Peter Franklin, writing of the Seventh in the Segerstam/Chandos cycle of Sibelius symphonies, calls the dramatic conclusion "the grandest celebration of C major there ever was."
Sibelius lived for 33 years after finishing the Seventh, but it was one of the last works he composed. He did complete one more important orchestral work, his symphonic poem Tapiola. However, despite much evidence of work on an Eighth symphony, it is believed that Sibelius burned whatever he had written. He left the Seventh to stand as his final statement on symphonic form.
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius)
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“The importance of its hat to a form becomes
More definite. The sweeping brim of the hat
Makes of the form Most Merciful Capitan,
If the observer says so....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“Think of the importance of Friendship in the education of men.... It will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)