Concert Programme
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20.1. Temppeliaukio Church at 15:00 Meta4 Aleksei Lybimov, fortepiano Olga Pashchenko, fortepiano Finnish Baroque Orchestra Joseph Martin Kraus: Olympie, overture VB 33 7 min Jan Ladislav Dussek: Concerto for Two Pianos 34 min I Allegro moderato II Larghetto sostenuto III Allegro moderato INTERVAL 15 min Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D 33 min I Adagio molto – Allegro con brio II Larghetto III Scherzo (Allegro) IV Allegro molto The soloists will be playing a copy of a Clementi fortepiano from 1799 (made by Chris Maene, Belgium) and a copy of a Walter fortepiano from 1800 (made by Paul McNulty, Czech Republic). Interval at about 15:45. The concert will end at about 16:40. A recording of the concert will be broadcast on Yle Radio 1 on 22.1. 1 JOSEPH MARTIN quick main section is in sombre, dra- matic mood into which the more lyr- KRAUS (1756–1792): ical second theme introduces a ray of OLYMPIE, OVERTURE light. At the end, the music returns to the mournful mood of the opening, un- The fine works composed by Joseph derlining the play’s basic tragic under- Martin Kraus in the space of his brief current. life well earn him a place among the Olympie was premiered at the composing elite of Sweden’s Gustavian Dramaten Theatre in Stockholm in era beginning in 1772. Over the past January 1792, only just over two months few decades, “the Swedish Mozart” has before King Gustav III was assassinated. come to be more widely recognised as Shortly before, Kraus had produced a one of the most original composers setting of Bellman’s poem Öfver Mozarts of his day. His music often abounds in död (On Mozart’s Death), and his own Sturm und Drang spirit; it has certain days were by then sorely numbered. affinities with the music of Haydn com- He died of tuberculosis in December of posed in the early 1770s, but it may well that year. also have been influenced by the years Kraus spent in Göttingen, studying and consorting with young writers favour- JAN LADISLAV ing pre-Romantic trends. Kraus mainly DUSSEK (1760–1812): composed operas and symphonies, but he experimented with many other for- CONCERTO FOR TWO mats, too. PIANOS One of Kraus’s Swedish partners was Johan Henric Kellgren, a poet who had Jan Ladislav Dussek dedicated his studied at the Turku Academy and Concerto for Two Pianos in B-flat who supplied the texts for a number Major, Op. 63 to the French statesman of Kraus’s compositions. One of these Talleyrand but actually composed it for was his adaptation of Voltaire’s trag- the Prussian Prince Louis Ferdinand edy Olympie (1761), for which Kraus known to be an excellent pianist. Dussek composed an overture, a march, four and Louis Ferdinand were the soloists in interludes and an epilogue. The trag- the first performance, with a string quar- edy is set in ancient Ephesus and tells tet, in Rudolstadt on October 9, 1806. of the ill-fated love between Olympie, The following day, Louis Ferdinand led daughter of Alexander the Great, and the Prussian army against the French at Cassandre, the king of Macedon. Saalfeld – and fell on the battle field. The overture has become one of The Dussek concerto adheres to the Kraus’s most popular pieces. It begins in customary three movement format, ex- the manner of a French Baroque over- cept that it has no cadenza. The open- ture with a slow introduction with sigh- ing movement flows along without any ing motifs and dotted rhythms. The great drama, though the modulating 2 twists in the development naturally pro- symphony, which is full of positive en- vide some spice. The two pianos do not ergy. Many see this as proof that no di- really engage in dialogue with thematic rect connection exists between a com- motifs of their own and instead merge poser’s life and works, while others claim as one to produce a full-bodied ‘super- that, in keeping with his titanic attitude, piano’. All in all, the pianos give the mu- Beethoven used music as a means of sic greater substance after the orches- rising above his personal agony. tral exposition, and the singing second The first movement of the sympho- theme adds a beautiful, romantic, mi- ny already shows signs of the heroic nor-key sheen. composer of the Eroica. It begins with The mood of the slow movement is a slow introduction that is longer and serene and well-balanced and acquires meatier than that of the first sympho- a novel romantic gilding when the pian- ny (and that at its climax already casts os join in with lyrical, poetic comments. a prophetic gaze far away to the ninth The concerto ends with a rondo built symphony). The quick section that fol- round a light and lively theme twice in- lows grows into one of the weightiest terspersed with sharper episodes, the opening movements of any symphony first with an almost march-like tread composed up till then. The subsidiary and the second with dramatic runs. theme is not a singing, lighter element in the traditional manner, being a vig- orous march. The development is also unusually energetic. LUDWIG VAN The slow second movement, calm and easy-going though not without some BEETHOVEN darker shades in places, provides the an- (1770–1827): ticipated contrast to the forthright first. SYMPHONY NO. 2 IN D In spirit, it is gently Mozartian. For the first time in the history of the symphony, Beethoven called the Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his sec- third movement, marked by striking ond symphony, Op. 36, in 1801–1802, contrasts, a Scherzo, though the corre- at a time when he was suffering from sponding movement in the first sym- depression caused by his encroaching phony is already very much in the na- deafness. In October 1802, he poured ture of a Scherzo despite being titled out his anguish in the famous letter a Minuet. Thanks to Beethoven, the he wrote (but never sent) to his broth- Scherzo became established as an in- ers Carl and Johann that later became trinsic element of the 19th-century known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. symphony, thereby making it a weighti- In it he makes a heart-rending assess- er genre than before. ment of his very existence and even In the finale, Beethoven really opens debates suicide. His anguish did not, the floodgates. The defiant, capricious however, find its way into his second main theme leads the way for a move- 3 ment that is both boisterous and capti- tival 2008–2011 and it has been a quar- vating yet has a touch of humour evoc- tet-in-residence at the Kuhmo Chamber ative of Haydn. It forges ahead through Music Festival since 2008. sharp twists and surprises right up to The quartet has released three al- the final climax, in which the whole or- bums on the Hänssler Classic label. That chestra gets swept along in the flood. of Haydn Quartets, Op. 55, 1–3 (2009) won an Echo Klassik award in 2010 and Programme notes by Kimmo that of Shostakovich’s Quartets 3, 4 and Korhonen translated (abridged) by 7 (2012) the Yle Record of the Year and Susan Sinisalo the Emma Classical Album of the Year awards. The most recent Meta4 disc is of Bartók’s Quartets 1 & 5 (2014). Meta4 has also released a disc of chamber mu- sic by Kaija Saariaho (Ondine, 2013) and an LP of Sibelius’s Voces Intimae String META4 Quartet (Berliner Meister Schallplatten, 2013). Formed in 2001, Meta4 is one of Finland’s most renowned string quar- tets. Its international career was set in motion in Moscow in 2004, when it won ALEKSEI LYBIMOV the first prize and the special prize for the best performance of a Shostakovich Aleksei Lybimov entered the Moscow work in the Dmitri Shostakovich Central Music School in 1963 and was Quartet Competition. In 2007, it went one of the last pupils of the legendary on to win the Joseph Haydn Chamber Heinrich Neuhaus. From the late 1960s Music Competition in Vienna and the onwards he gave the Soviet premieres of Finland Prize of the Finnish Ministry of works by many composers, among them Education and Culture in recognition of John Cage, Terry Riley, Stockhausen, its international breakthrough. Meta4 Boulez, Webern and Ligeti. He has also was selected as a BBC New Generation performed works by recent composers Artist for 2008–2010, and in 2013 the from his home and neighbouring coun- Jenny and Antti Wihuri Fund awarded it tries, such as Schnittke, Gubaidulina, a special prize in recognition of its work. Silvestrov and Pärt. Meta4 has an active world-wide con- Because of his performances of con- cert schedule that has in recent years temporary Western music, Lybimov was taken in such venues as the Vienna banned from travelling for many years. Konzerthaus, the Wigmore Hall in During that time, he studied the au- London, the Auditorio Nacional in thentic performance of Baroque mu- Madrid and the Stockholm Konserthus. sic and, with Tatiana Grindenko, estab- At home in Finland it was Artistic lished the Moscow Chamber Academy Director of the Oulunsalo Soi music fes- specialising in the Baroque. From 1979 4 to 1982 he abandoned the modern pi- Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, ano and concentrated on studying the the United States and elsewhere. She harpsichord and fortepiano. has been Artist in Residence at the From the 1980s onwards, as the politi- Beethoven House in Bonn since 2014 cal climate relaxed, Lybimov was able to and was Artist in Residence of the Early build up an impressive international ca- Music Festival Utrecht in 2014 and 2016.