Aspects of modality and modulation in Sibelius’s music

Abstract

This paper discusses how, in some of Sibelius’s works, modal features appear to
be connected to tonal progressions from one key to another, or sometimes might be
understood as giving impulse to or articulating the shifting of keys. All of the
examples discussed are from works Sibelius completed between 1906 and 1926.
Even if the background and context of Sibelius’s trial lecture of 1896, as well as the
complicated issue of Sibelius and modality surely require further examination, it
appears that the arguments presented in the 1896 lecture might be understood as a
forecast of the composer’s stylistic direction. Rather than being an analysis of the
stylistic features in his music in the 1890s, they were perhaps an anticipation of his
future orientation and of impulses which would have a lasting influence on his
music right through to his final masterworks.