Symphony No. 7 (Sibelius)

Symphony No. 7
(in one movement)
by Jean Sibelius
Sibelius in 1918, the year in which he first conceived of the work which became the Seventh Symphony
Key	C major
Catalogue	Op. 105
Composed	1924 (1924)

The Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105, was the final published symphony of the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius. Completed in 1924, the Seventh is notable for being a one-movement symphony, in contrast to the standard symphonic formula of four movements. It has been described as "completely original in form, subtle in its handling of tempi, individual in its treatment of key and wholly organic in growth" and "Sibelius's most remarkable compositional achievement".

After Sibelius finished its composition on March 2, 1924, the work was premiered in on March 24 as Fantasia sinfonica No. 1, a "symphonic fantasy". The composer was apparently undecided on what name to give the piece, and only granted it status as a symphony after some deliberation. For its publication on 25 February 1925, the score was titled "Symphony No. 7 (in one movement)".

The concept of a continuous, single-movement symphony was one Sibelius only reached after a long process of experimentation. His Third Symphony, dating from 1907, contained three movements, an earlier fourth movement having been fused into the third. The final result was successful enough for Sibelius to use the same idea in his Fifth Symphony, completed in 1915. Although his first mention of the Seventh occurred in December 1918, the source for its material has been traced back to around 1914, the time when he was working on the Fifth.

In 1918 Sibelius had described his plans for this symphony as involving "joy of life and vitality with appassionato sections". The symphony would have three movements, the last being a "Hellenic rondo". Surviving sketches from the early 1920s show that the composer was working on a work of four, not three, movements. The overall key seems to have been G minor, while the second movement, an adagio in C major, provided much of the material for the themes that eventually made up the Symphony. The first surviving draft of a single-movement symphony dates from 1923, suggesting that Sibelius may have made the decision to dispense with a multi-movement work at this time. Through the summer of 1923 the composer produced several further drafts, at least one of which is in a performable state: however the ending of the symphony was not yet fully worked out.