Among the pieces that at one point held, but later lost, a place on Sibelius's opus list are numerous large-scale works from the 1880s and 1890s, including his only opera, three cantatas, a melodrama, and several multi-movement compositions for chamber ensembles. This is because Sibelius curated the collection according to his ever-changing assessment of his oeuvre (highly self-critical, he became especially ambivalent later in life towards his early period), promoting works to or demoting them from the catalogue and filling the resulting vacancies without a strict regard for compositional chronology. When ordered numerically, Sibelius's opus list is an imperfect indicator of his stylistic maturation over time. 27 works for choir, spanning seven opus numbers.

117 works for solo instrument (115 for piano, two for organ), spanning 20 opus numbers.

35 chamber works, spanning 13 opus numbers.

77 orchestral works, spanning 59 opus numbers.

Among the 115 active numbers, however, are many collections disaggregating these multi-work numbers reveals that-counting conservatively–about 342 compositions comprise the list: Sibelius's final opus list dates to 1952 and ranges from Opp. 1 to 116, albeit with Op. 107 unassigned and Op. 117 holding ambiguous status. Navigating Sibelius's oeuvre Ĭhoral works (8%) Works with and without opus While his orchestral works meant the most to him, Sibelius refused to dismiss his miniatures (piano pieces, songs, a cappella choral works) as insignificant rather, he thought these pieces 'represented his innermost self' and 'believed in their future'. Today, Sibelius is remembered principally as a composer for orchestra (particularly celebrated are his symphonies, tone poems, and lone concerto), although he produced viable works in all major genres of classical music. This thirty-year creative drought-commonly referred to as the 'Silence of Järvenpää', in reference to the sub-region of Helsinki in which the composer, his wife Aino, and their daughters resided-occurred at the height of his international and domestic celebrity. Īfter 1926's Tapiola, Sibelius completed no new works of significance, although he infamously labored until the late-1930s or the early-1940s on his Eighth Symphony, which he never completed and probably destroyed c. A second inspiration was the natural world, especially birds for example, he described the call of the crane as 'the Leitmotiv of my life'. Frequently, Sibelius found inspiration in the ancient metre and myths of Finland's national epic, the Kalevala. Over this period, his style evolved 'along two parallel lines: from the national to the universal on the one hand, and from the Romantic to the Classical on the other'. However, the 1890s to the 1920s represent the key decades of Sibelius's production. This began around 1875 with a short miniature for violin and cello called Water Droplets ( Vattendroppar), and ended a few months before his death at age 91 with the orchestration of two earlier songs, Come Away, Death ( Kom nu hit, död) and Kullervo's Lament ( Kullervon valitus).

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) wrote over 550 original works during his eight-decade artistic career. Sibelius at the time of his final masterpiece, Tapiola (1926)

Sibelius strings quartet