Skogsrået op. 15 – Improvisation/Vårsång [op. 16] – Vårsång op. 16

It was a minor sensation when in 1996 the conductor Osmo Vänskä recorded a completely unknown, more than 20-minute-long orchestral work by the young Jean Sibelius in Lahti: "Skogsrået" (The Forest Nymph) had suddenly re-emerged. But this was no mere rediscovery, since in his later years, Sibelius had graciously agreed that his early work could be performed in a radically abridged form. He thus left his score in a rather confusing condition. "Vårsång" (Spring Song), the second work in this volume of the Complete Edition, has two (or even three?) early versions, which makes for a most complicated source examination. Tuija Wicklund thus faced a mountain of problems in preparing the edition.

The editor's meticulous work ultimately yielded three complete orchestral scores from the years 1894/95, thus from a period in which no one can claim that such pieces are "early works." By this time, Sibelius had already made a name for himself in Finland with his first masterpieces "Kullervo" (1892), "En saga" (first version, 1892), the "Karelia Suite" (1893) and "Rakastava" (1894).