# Arioso (Sibelius)

"Arioso", Op. 3, is an art song for vocal soloist (typically soprano) and accompaniment written in 1911 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who appears to have worked simultaneously on two versions of the song: one with strings and the other with piano. The piece, which is a setting of the Swedish-language poem Flickans årstider ("The Maiden's Seasons") by Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Sibelius's favorite poet, premiered on 18 September 1913 in Helsinki with the Finnish soprano Ida Ekman as soloist, accompanied by her husband, Karl Ekman [fi], on piano. The next year in Turku on 30 March, the version of the piece for string orchestra was first performed, again with Ekman as soloist; her husband this time conducted the Turku Orchestral Society.
Sibelius infamously gave "Arioso" an artificially low opus number to avoid a contractual dispute with his publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel. (Sibelius had sold both versions of "Arioso" to the Helsinki-based publisher A. Apostols Musikhandel [fi], who then tried to sell the rights to Breitkopf & Härtel. When Breitkopf & Härtel protested, Sibelius fibbed, claiming that the song was an older piece that dated to 1890.) Apostle never published the version for strings, and in 1917 his holdings transferred to R. E. Westerlund oy [fi], who subsequently issued the first edition of this version in 1951.

## Music

| Original Swedish | English translation |
| Flickan gick en vintermorgon i den rimbeströdda lunden, såg en vissnad ros och talte: "Sörj ej, sörj ej, arma blomma, att din sköna tid förflutit! Du har levat, du har njutit, du har ägt din vår och glädje, innan vinterns köld dig nådde. Värre öde har mitt hjärta, har på en gång vår och vinter: gossens öga är dess vårdag, och min moders är dess vinter". | One winter morning the girl walked in the frost-strewn grove, saw a withered rose and said: "Do not lament, poor flower, that your happy time is over! You have lived, you have delighted, you have possessed your joyous spring, before the winter cold reached you. My heart suffers a worse fate, it holds spring and winter at once: my lover's eyes are its spring day, my mother's are its winter". |

## Reception

The British musicologist Robert Layton describes "Arioso" as possessing "the grave air of melancholy that distinguishes the elegiac Grieg, and much the same intentness and conviction ... there is a touching directness of utterance about this music and more than a hint of the wide-ranging vocal writing" that Sibelius would master subsequently with the tone poem Luonnotar (Op. 70, 1913). The Sibelius biographer Andrew Barnett, too emphasizes the relation to the Norwegian master: ""Arioso" is a very fine song, with a vein of Nordic melancholy and string textures that have often been compared to Grieg".

## Discography

The Swedish conductor and composer Ture Rangström and the Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra, joined by the Finnish soprano Aulikki Rautawaara, made the world premiere studio recording of "Arioso" in 1942 for Telefunken. The table below lists this and other commercially available recordings of the version with string orchestra:
| No. | Soloist | Conductor | Orchestra | Rec. | Time | Recording venue | Label |
| 1 | Aulikki Rautawaara | Ture Rangström | Stockholm Concert Society Orchestra | 1942 | 4:02 | ? | Telestar |
| 2 | Kirsten Flagstad (2) | Øivin Fjeldstad | London Symphony Orchestra | 1958 | 4:06 | Kingsway Hall | Decca |
| 3 | MariAnne Häggander [sv] | Jorma Panula | Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra | 1984 | 3:48 | Gothenburg Concert Hall | BIS |
| 4 | Karita Mattila (2) | Sakari Oramo | City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra | 2001 | 4:24 | Symphony Hall, Birmingham | Warner Classics |
| 5 | Soile Isokoski | Leif Segerstam | Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra | 2005 | 4:38 | Finlandia Hall | Ondine |
The version of "Arioso" for piano accompaniment received its first studio recording in 1981, when the Finnish baritone Tom Krause and the American pianist Irwin Gage recorded it for Decca. Predating this, however, is a 1954 radio performance by the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the Norwegian pianist Waldemar Alme [no], which Simax Classics [no] released in 1996. The table below includes these and other commercially available recordings:
| No. | Soloist | Pianist | Rec. | Time | Recording venue | Label |
| 1 | Kirsten Flagstad (1) | Waldemar Alme [no] | 1954 | 5:03 | NRK Studios | Simax Classics [no] |
| 2 | Tom Krause | Irwin Gage | 1981 | 4:13 | Kingsway Hall | Decca |
| 3 | Ritva Auvinen [fi] | Gustav Djupsjöbacka [fi] | 1988 | 3:26 | Martinas Culture Hall [fi] | Ondine |
| 4 | Anne Sofie von Otter | Bengt Forsberg | 1989 | 4:06 | Danderyd Grammar School | BIS |
| 5 | Karita Mattila (1) | Ilmo Ranta [fi] | 1995 | 4:44 | Järvenpää Hall [fi] | Ondine |
| 6 | Essi Luttinen [fi] | Kristian Attila [fi] | 2006 | 4:04 | Mäntyharju Church [fi] | Taidekeskus Salmela [fi] |