Symphony No. 2 (Madetoja)

Symphony No. 2
by Leevi Madetoja
The composer, c. 1920s
Key	E-flat major
Catalogue	Op. 35
Composed	1916 (1916)–18
Dedication	Anna Madetoja (Leevi's mother)
Duration	Approx. 42 minutes
Movements	4 (I & II linked; III & IV linked)
Premiere
Date	17 December 1918 (1918-12-17)
Location	Helsinki, Finland
Conductor	Robert Kajanus
Performers	Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

The Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 35, is a four-movement orchestral composition by the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, who wrote the piece from 1916–18 immediately following the success of his First Symphony (1916). Composed during the Finnish Civil War, the Second stands as "the most significant musical document" of the conflict and finds its composer, "deeply scarred by the experience", reflecting upon national tragedy and personal loss (his brother, Yjrö, and close friend, Toivo Kuula, both perished during the hostilities). Accordingly, Madetoja's Second is the longest and most dramatic of his three essays in the form and, perhaps for this reason, is the most popular of the set.

Robert Kajanus and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra premiered the work in Helsinki, Finland on 17 December 1918. The critics received the premiere enthusiastically and, thus, the new piece firmly established Madetoja as the vanguard of Finnish music. In 1934, Madetoja (retroactively) dedicated the symphony to his late mother.

As the year 1918 arrived, the embers of the First World War ignited into civil war (27 January – 15 May 1918) between Tsarist Russia and the Grand Duchy of Finland, which sought independence. Madetoja was still at work on his new symphony—a composition in which he had decided to contemplate Finland's fate in the wake of world war and a revolution in Russia—when the Finnish Civil War brought personal tragedy. On 9 April, Red Guards captured Yrjö Madetoja, Leevi's only surviving sibling, in Viipuri, where he was executed along with other officials. It fell to Leevi to break the news to the family:

I received a telegram from Viipuri yesterday that made my blood run cold: "Yjrö fell on the 13th day of April" was the message in all its terrible brevity. This unforeseen, shocking news fills us with unutterable grief. Death, that cruel companion of war and persecution, has not therefore spared us either; it has come to visit us, to snatch one of us as its victim. Oh when will we see the day when the forces of hatred vanish from the world and the good spirits of peace can return to heal the wounds inflicted by suffering and misery?