Marjatta.

About Marjatta

Marjatta was a projected three-movement oratorio for soloists, choir, and orchestra that occupied the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius from 27 June to late-October 1905, at which point he abandoned the project. The libretto, a collaboration with the Finnish author Jalmari Finne, freely adapted the story of Kiesus's miraculous birth to Marjatta from Runo L of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. Although Sibelius initially worked on the oratorio with alacrity, he soon soured on the project, perhaps finding Finne's text an unwelcome constraint on his "absolute music". Sibelius never again attempted an oratorio, making it one of the few major genres of classical music in which he did not produce a viable work.