Sibelius arrived in Vienna in the autumn of 1890 to begin his studies with Robert Fuchs and with Karl Goldmark, who encouraged him to study Mozart’s clarinet writing. In 1891 he was working on an Octet including clarinet, which had turned into a Septet for flute, clarinet and strings by September 1892. At the end of 1892 he had produced the first version of his orchestral tone poem En Saga, and Sibelius told one of his biographers that En Saga ‘had as its basis for flute, clarinet, and strings begun in Vienna.’ Sibelius was careful to cover his tracks, and no sketches have been discovered for either this or the equally mysterious Ballet Scene No. 2 (written just before En Saga). Even so, there’s plenty of evidence that En Saga did have an earlier incarnation as a chamber work – first as an octet, then as a septet – and the 1892 version of the orchestral score has been used to reverse engineer a fascinating reconstruction of Sibelius’s original conception for seven instruments.

© Nigel Simeone 2015