24.5. WEDNESDAY SERIES 16 Music Centre at 19.00

Hannu Lintu, conductor Jan Lisiecki,

Aarre Merikanto: Pan 12 min

W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E Flat, KV 271 32 min “Jeunehomme” I Allegro II Andantino III Rondo – Menuetto

INTERVAL 20 min

1 Richard Strauss: Alpine Symphony, Op. 64 47 min 1. Night 2. Sunrise 3. The Ascent 4. Entry into the Forest 5. Wandering by the Brook 6. At the Waterfall 7. Apparition 8. On Flowering Meadows 9. On the Alpine Pasture 10. Through Thickets and Undergrowth on the Wrong Path 11. On the Glacier 12. Dangerous Moments 13. On the Summit 14. Vision 15. Mists Rise 16. The Sun Gradually Becomes Obscured 17. Elegy 18. Calm Before the Storm 19. Thunder and Tempest, Descent 20. Sunset 21. Quiet Settles 22. Night

In partnership with the Finnish Horn Club

Interval at about 20. The ends at about 21.25. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and online at yle.fi/rso. The first half of the concert will be shown in the programme “The FRSO at the Helsinki Music Centre” on Yle Teema on June 4, and the second half on June 11.

2 AN UNAPPRECIATED the slightly coarse and lustful Pan, the god of shepherds and flocks, chasing GENIUS the shy and chaste nymph Syrinx. And when, in a panic, Syrinx hides from His addiction to morphine in the 1930s him by turning into a hollow reed, Pan and especially during WW2 may be one makes a pipe of reeds that occupies a of the reasons why the music com- significant role in the composition. The posed at that time by Aarre Merikanto chase is frenzied, but Pan is forced to gives the impression of being some- abandon it, as reflected in a dejected how artistically drained. Yet compared cello solo. A piccolo trills in malicious with those of other contemporary glee in the epilogue, just as if Syrinx is Finnish composers, the works of his lat- jeering at Pan from the reeds. er period are powerful and distinctive. His problem was simply that the music of the best years in the 1920s was ex- A YOUNG MAN’S cellent even by international standards CONCERTO and very much “on the pulse of the times”, but it failed abysmally to strike up an echo. People at the time failed had as- to appreciate his early output, with the tounded the world as a precocious result that he was, as it were, only ac- young musician who could, what is cepted when he had ceased being out more, compose as well as the very of the ordinary. All in all, the works best adults. At the age of 12, he had of Aarre Merikanto in the 1920s rank already penned a highly accomplished among the most unique achievements three-act opera, La finta semplice. Yet in Finnish . his truly innovative streak and origi- Pan is one of the two early orches- nality would not be revealed until lat- tral poems by Aarre Merikanto (the er. The final proof of maturity was his other is Lemminkäinen, 1916). He was ninth piano concerto, known as the already writing the first version at the Jeunehomme (Young Man) and com- end of the decade, but revised it af- pleted in Salzburg in January 1777, just ter it received poor reviews; it had at before his 21st birthday least been given a public performance. Outwardly, the Jeunehomme is still The ultimate version was the third a traditional concerto in three move- and dates from 1924. As was his habit, ments, but inwardly it violates the un- Merikanto burnt the two earlier manu- written laws of the time when it was scripts – much to the regret of Finnish born. The piano’s entry within the first musicology. few bars, without any introduction, Pan is an ethereal, impressionis- was almost a travesty in its day. As tic piece that rises like mist out of si- was Mozart’s trick of letting the solo- lence. It does not have a specific script, ist come in “too early” at many other though it may well evoke images of points in the music. Nor do the solois-

3 tic passages and cadenzas fit into the though he had made the first sketch- accustomed mould. Today’s listeners es for it as long ago as 1899, but he are not bothered about such things, did not, it is assumed, really set to however, because our ears are used to work on it until 1914–1915. He conduct- accepting whatever comes, and we are ed the premiere at a concert by the no longer familiar with the conventions Dresden Hofkapelle in October 1915. and codes of the 18th century. The con- Lasting about 50 minutes, it is the last certo does, after all, still begin with a of his big symphonic compositions. It quick movement, follow it with a beau- requires a mammoth of 125 tiful, dreamy slow one and end with a players, including 20 horns (four of lively finale. In Mozart’s day, the solo- them Wagner tubas and some of them ists in concertos also took far more lib- off-stage), but it can be performed by erties and improvised more than they a smaller ensemble. Its dynamic scale do nowadays, and their instrument, a is so wide that for its first ever test CD fortepiano, was softer than a modern in 1979, the Polydor record company concert grand. chose precisely the Alpine Symphony. So who was the “young man”? Did The Alpine Symphony is a program- he even exist? In 1773, Mozart met a matic work in a single movement. It French pianist in Vienna by the name is nothing like a symphony in the con- of Louise Victoire Jenamy (“Jenamy” ventional sense of the word. Rather, pronounced in somewhat the same it is a homogeneous tone poem tell- way as “jeunehomme”) and was appar- ing something in the nature of a sto- ently bowled over by her playing. He ry. The original draft bore the title Der was just writing the concerto when she Antichrist, after the essay of the same broke her journey in Salzburg, where name published by Nietzsche in 1888. they met again. When Mozart moved “I shall call my Alpine Symphony Der on the following year to spend some Antichrist, since it represents moral pu- time in , he once again met up rification through one’s own strength, with Jenamy. We do not know wheth- liberation through work, worship of er or not he admired only her playing… eternal, magnificent nature,” Strauss Not until later did he call his concerto wrote. He no doubt soon realised that Jeunehomme, so we cannot know what Nietzsche tends to be interpreted in was passing through his mind; he was, a very haphazard way, and maybe for after all, a young man! fear of being misunderstood, he delet- ed the challenging title. The 23 sections of the Alpine Symphony are performed without a ASCENT AND DESCENT break. It begins at sunrise and does not end until the following night. The trek starts in the early hours of the morn- Richard Strauss first mentioned the ing in darkness created by the low in- Alpine Symphony in his diary in 1911, struments, until the sun begins to rise

4 in clear, majestic splendour. The entry HANNU LINTU into the forest casts shadows that are left behind as the wanderer ascends. A brief walk beside a brook leads to a Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio waterfall, but this again is only a fairly Symphony Orchestra since August little one. An “apparition” (Erscheinung) 2013, Hannu Lintu previously held awaits the wanderer here, before he the positions of Artistic Director and passes through flowering meadows to Chief Conductor of the Tampere an Alpine pasture with tinkling cow- Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal bells. He then takes the wrong path Guest Conductor with the RTÉ National and gets caught up in thickets and un- Symphony Orchestra and Artistic dergrowth. As he nears the summit, Director of the Helsingborg Symphony he nevertheless runs into danger on a and Philharmonic . glacier. Roaring trombones at last an- Highlights of Lintu’s 2016/17 sea- nounce his arrival at the top and a ten- son include appearances with the der oboe melody gives him a chance to Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, rest for a moment and get his breath Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Radio- back. The view is so amazing that he Symphonieorchester Wien, Luzerner could happily sit for a while and ad- Sinfonieorchester and Orquesta mire it, but mists arise and gradual- Sinfónica de Galicia, and in North ly obscure the sun, enveloping him in America with the St Louis Symphony an elegiac mood. A storm is building and the Toronto Symphony, Baltimore up, however, preceded by an ominous Symphony and Detroit Symphony calm. Great gusts of wind accompany a orchestras. Recent engagements storm that whips the intrepid wander- have included the The Cleveland and er. Just before sunset, the storm nev- Gulbenkian orchestras, the Orchestre ertheless abates. The wanderer’s heart de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestra has presumably been cleansed, since Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, and the epilogue, winged along by an or- the BBC Scottish Symphony, Iceland gan, speaks of profound peace of mind. Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic Night falls again. orchestras. In 2015 he conducted The ascent to the mountain top is a complete cycle of Sibelius’ sym- naturally symbolic: man rising above phonies in with the Finnish life’s trivialities. For the orchestra, per- Radio Symphony Orchestra and the forming the Alpine Symphony is literally New Japan Philharmonic, and toured akin to climbing a mountain in the ef- Austria in January 2016 with violinist fort it involves. This applies especially Leila Josefowicz and the Finnish Radio to the solo horn – the wanderer whose Symphony Orchestra. path is strewn with dangers. Lintu returns to Savonlinna Opera Festival in July 2017 to conduct Aulis Programme notes by Osmo Tapio Sallinen’s , and in May 2017 he Räihälä translated (abridged) by Susan conducts Sibelius’ Kullervo in a special Sinisalo

5 project with Finnish National Opera and JAN LISIECKI Ballet with director and choreographer Tero Saarinen. Previous productions with Finnish National Opera have in- Just 22, Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki cluded Parsifal, Carmen, Sallinen’s King has won acclaim for his extraordinary Lear, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in interpretive maturity, distinctive sound, spring 2016. Lintu has also worked with and poetic sensibility. The New York Tampere Opera and Estonian National Times has called him “a pianist who Opera. makes every note count”. Lisiecki’s in- Hannu Lintu has made several re-cor- sightful interpretations, refined tech- dings for , Naxos, Avie and nique, and natural affinity for art give Hyperion. His recording of Prokofiev him a musical voice that belies his age. Piano Concertos with Olli Mustonen Born in 1995, Jan Lisiecki began pi- and the Finnish Radio Symphony ano lessons at the age of five, and Orchestra was released in September made his concerto debut four years 2016, while other recent releases inclu- later. Confirming his status among de recordings of Mahler’s Symphony the most imaginative and poetic pi- No. 1, a selection of works by Magnus anists of his generation, Deutsche Lindberg, and Messiaen’s Turangalîla Grammophon signed an exclusive con- Symphony with Angela Hewitt and tract with Jan in 2011, when he was just Valerie Hartmann-Claverie. Lintu has 15 years old. His fourth for the received several accolades for his re- label presents Chopin’s seldom per- cordings, including a 2011 Grammy formed works for piano and orchestra nomination for Best Opera CD plus with NDR Orchester Gramophone Award nominations for and Krzysztof Urbański. Recent high- his recordings of Enescu’s Symphony lights include his 2013 performance No.2 with the Tampere Philharmonic with and Orchestra Orchestra and the Violin Concertos Mozart, his BBC Proms debut with Sir of Sibelius and Thomas Adès with at , Augustin Hadelich and the Royal and engagements with the New York Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Hannu Lintu studied cello and piano Orchestra as well as subscription de- at the , where he later buts with the and studied conducting with . Symphony Orchestra. He participated in masterclasses with His 2016 debut in the main auditori- Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia um at New York’s with Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and took the was met first prize at the Nordic Conducting with rave reviews, the New York Times Competition in Bergen in 1994. noted that it was an “uncommonly sensitive performance”. Highlights of the current season include a perfor- mance in the opening festival of the

6 new Elbphilharmonie in , as Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and well as with the Sächsische . Staatskapelle Dresden and the In addition to the great Classical- Philharmonic Orchestra and Valery Romantic masterpieces, the latest con- Gergiev. In the next season, Jan will per- temporary music is a major item in the form with Boston Symphony Orchestra repertoire of the FRSO, which each year and Symphony Orchestra premieres a number of Yle commis- under the baton of Michael Tilson sions. Another of the orchestra’s tasks is Thomas. to record all Finnish orchestral music for In 2013, Jan received the Leonard the Yle archive. Bernstein Award at Schleswig-Holstein During the 2016/2017 season the Music Festival and was also named as FRSO will premiere five Finnish works Gramophone magazine’s Young Artist commissioned by Yle and feature such of the Year. He has cultivated relation- pioneers of Finnish Modernism as Väinö ships with prominent conductors in- Raitio and Uuno Klami. The programme cluding Sir Antonio Pappano, Yannick will also include orchestral works by Nézet-Séguin, , and Stravinsky, symphonies by Mahler and Pinchas Zukerman. Bruckner, Haydn’s The Seasons oratorio and concertos by contemporary com- posers. Among its guest artists will be soprano Karita Mattila and mezzo-so- THE FINNISH prano Michelle DeYoung, conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Teodor Currentzis RADIO SYMPHONY and Gustavo Gimeno, and pianist Daniil ORCHESTRA Trifonov. The FRSO has recorded works by Mahler, Ligeti, Sibelius, Hakola, The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish Kokkonen and others, and the debut Broadcasting Company (Yle). Its mis- disc of the opera Aslak Hetta by Armas sion is to produce and promote Finnish Launis. Its discs have reaped some pres- musical culture and its Chief Conductor tigious distinctions, such as the BBC as of autumn 2013 has been Hannu Music Magazine Award, the Académie Lintu. The FRSO has two Honorary Charles Cros Award and a MIDEM Conductors: Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Classical Award. The disc of Sibelius’s Sakari Oramo. Lemminkäinen and Pohjola’s Daughter The Radio Orchestra of ten players was Gramophone magazine’s Critic’s founded in 1927 grew to symphony or- Choice in December 2015 and brought chestra strength in the 1960s. Hannu the FRSO and Hannu Lintu a Finnish Lintu was preceded as Chief Conductor Emma award in the Classical Album cat- by Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt, egory. Music by Sibelius, Prokofiev and Paavo Berglund, , Leif Fagerlund will be among the repertoire

7 recorded during the 2016/2017 season. The FRSO regularly tours to all parts of the world. During the 2016/2017 season its schedule will include a tour in , taking in concerts conduct- ed by Hannu Lintu in Suomussalmi, Kajaani, Mikkeli and Kuopio. The home channel of the FRSO is Yle Radio 1, which broadcasts all its con- certs, usually live, both in Finland and abroad. Its concerts can also be heard and watched with excellent live stream quality on the FRSO website (www.yle.fi/ rso), and the majority of them are tele- vised live on the Yle Teema channel.

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