FRIDAY SERIES 4 Thomas Adès, Conductor Christianne Stotijn
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26.10. FRIDAY SERIES 4 Helsinki Music Centre at 19:00 Thomas Adès, conductor Christianne Stotijn, mezzo-soprano Mark Stone, baritone György Kurtág: Ligatura – Message-Hommage 3 min à Frances-Marie Uitti (The Answered Unanswered Question), Op. 31b Jean Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela, Op. 22/3 8 min Sanna Niemikunnas, cor anglais Jean Sibelius: Tapiola, Op. 112 18 min INTERVAL 20 min Thomas Adès: Totentanz 35 min 1 The LATE-NIGHT CHAMBER MUSIC will begin in the main Concert Hall after an interval of about 10 minutes. Those attending are asked to take (unnumbered) seats in the stalls. Kyeong Ham, oboe József Hárs, French horn Jouko Laivuori, harpsichord Thomas Adès: Sonata da caccia Op. 11 14 min 1. Gravement 2. Gayëment 3. Naïvement 4. Galament Interval at about 19.40. The concert will end at about 20.45, the late-night chamber music at about 21:15. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and Yle Areena. A recording of the concert will be shown in the programme “RSO Musiikkitalossa” (The FRSO at the Helsinki Music Centre) on Yle Teema on 11.11. and 18.11. with a repeat on Yle TV 1 on 17.11. and 24.11. 2 GYÖRGY KURTÁG Kurtág. In the latter, the violins and cel- los play at the same time, but so that (b. 1926): LIGATURA – their bar lines do not coincide. In the fi- MESSAGE-HOMMAGE nal bars, a celesta joins in, rounding off À FRANCES-MARIE this enigmatic, introverted and at times UITTI (THE ANSWERED almost stagnant miniature lasting only a few minutes. UNANSWERED QUESTION), OP. 31B JEAN SIBELIUS György Kurtág is a Hungarian com- (1865–1957): THE SWAN poser now living in France. He wrote Ligatura – Message-Hommage à Frances- OF TUONELA Marie Uitti (The Answered Unanswered Question) in 1989 for Frances-Marie According to the ancient Finnish tra- Uitti. This American cellist, 70 this year, dition and worldview, Tuonela is the has done much to develop new per- abode of the dead. It is known in other formance techniques, one of the best- languages by names such as Hades or known being playing with two bows, The Underworld, and is mentioned in one on top of and the other beneath the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala. the strings; this means the cellist can In order to reach it, the deceased have play on all four strings simultaneously. to cross the black Tuonela river along It was this idea that prompted György which glides a mythical swan. The swan Kurtág to write his piece. The cello part was a sacred bird in the ancient beliefs can be played either on one cello with of the whole Baltic region, and taboo. two bows, or on two cellos. Anyone who killed it was doomed to The term “ligatura” refers to a sign or die. ‘slur’ used in early musical notation to The orchestral suite Lemminkäinen, link consecutive notes, and there are Four Legends from the Kalevala by Jean many such slurs in Kurtág’s piece. The Sibelius was fairly well received when words “ligatura”, “message” and “hom- first performed in April 1896, but torn mage” are familiar from many of his to shreds by the influential critic Karl works. Flodin when a revised version was heard The Answered Unanswered Question the following year. Disheartened by the alludes to the short orchestral The crushing review, Sibelius forbade the Unanswered Question of 1908 by performance of two of the movements Charles Ives. Whereas in the piece by for years to come. The only movements Ives, the questions are asked many he spared were The Swan of Tuonela and times by a trumpet and answered by the closing Lemminkäinen’s Return, and flutes, in Kurtág’s, slow, simple cello (or the former soon found its way into the two-cello) chords are answered by two repertoire of celebrated conductors. violins. The contrast between questions The Swan of Tuonela draws on music and answers is, however, less marked in that was originally intended by Sibelius 3 as the overture for an opera that never temporal, and some pages in the score really materialised. It was his first great seem to look ahead to the music of masterpiece and a prime musical exam- Ligeti in the 1960s. ple of Finnish symbolism. Sibelius de- The key to Tapiola is organic meta- nied being influenced by Wagner, but morphosis. The strings are divided in the exquisite string timbres are inevita- the most varied of ways, and the webs bly evocative of Lohengrin and its swan of sound and the textures seem to grow motif, and the beautiful cor anglais solo as if from within, as new voices gradual- may well call to mind the cor anglais ly appear in the harmonies. Tempos are monologue in Act III of Tristan and superimposed, and the sense of tonali- Isolde. ty becomes blurred, creating a magical atmosphere. JEAN SIBELIUS (1865–1957): TAPIOLA, THOMAS ADÈS OP. 112 (b. 1971): TOTENTANZ The American conductor Walter War, famine and plague made Death a Damrosch commissioned Jean Sibelius familiar figure in late-medieval Europe. to write Tapiola in early 1926, and it was The Black Death that raged in the 14th premiered in New York in December of century was particularly lethal and sent that year. In Finnish mythology, Tapiola millions upon millions of people – pos- is the realm of the forest god Tapio. sibly half the population of Europe – to At the publisher’s request, Sibelius at- their grave in a mere few years. tached to the score a four-line verse The emotions experienced at that as a guide for non-Finnish listeners. time were captured in the dance-of- Although this is not programme music death paintings popular in the 15th in the way that, for example, the Alpine century, images of a skeleton-like Death Symphony by Richard Strauss is, the lis- enticing folk to join in a procession-like tener has no difficulty entering into dance. The invitation was taken up by the mysterious moods of the age-old Pope and King just as much as by the Finnish forests. humblest members of society. All were The nucleus running right through equal in the face of Death. Tapiola is a two-bar motif heard right One of the most famous dance-of- at the beginning. This generates count- death works is the one painted by the less subtle variations as the work pro- German Bernt Notke in the 1460s for ceeds, but the emphasis is mainly on the Gothic St. Mary’s Church in Lübeck. moods and timbres. Tapiola represents This nearly 30-metre canvas was re- a new kind of musical drama that, with placed in the early 18th century by a its slowly transforming textures looks copy that was destroyed during an air ahead to the modern webs of sound. raid in spring 1942. A smaller reproduc- The impression is spatial rather than tion made by Notke’s studio in the 15th 4 century has, however, been preserved call. The mezzo-soprano’s replies range and is in St Nicholas’ Church in Tallinn. in mood from lyrical to virtually hysteri- Beneath Notke’s Dance of Death was cal as the nobles grapple with their fate. an anonymous text which Thomas The music acquires a new tone and Adès took as the starting point for the tempo drops to half when Death his impressive Totentanz (2013). He addresses the Monk. During their duet, dedicated his work to the memory of it builds up to a whirling waltz. Next Witold Lutosławski the composer and is the turn of the Knight and, in quick conducted its premiere at the Proms in succession, various bourgeois figures London in summer 2013. Its reception (Mayor, Doctor, Usurer and Merchant), has been unanimously favourable and culminating in a wild orchestral inter- it is already regarded as one of its com- lude, one of the most frenzied mo- poser’s greatest works. ments in the whole work. From Notke’s Dance of Death, Adès In the final section, the Parish Clerk chose fifteen characters and composed ushers in the lower estates. Death is texts describing them in dialogues be- now easier to accept, and the Peasant tween Death (baritone) and others is even relieved at the thought of rest- (mezzo-soprano). In keeping with the ing in sweet repose after a life of labour dance-of- death painting tradition, and toil. Death also begins to relent a Adès’s Totentanz begins with the high- little, and he even expresses a note of est ranks of society and works down- melancholy sympathy for the Maiden. wards. Its vocal approach gives it a can- The last to join in the dance is a tata-like character, but the handling of Child, a tender babe who cannot yet the characters has operatic features. walk but nevertheless must dance. The Totentanz varies considerably in its duet for Death and the Child is a sort of styles and modes of expression. It has Mahlerish “Kindertotenlied”, and Death both Late-Romantic extravagance and seems to be really sorry for what he is a Modernist edginess. In their varying about to do. But do it he must, and to intensity, Adès’s melodies may call to the beat of a funeral march the music mind Berg, and the dazzlingly rich or- plods heavily along into the darkness of chestral texture enhances the mood the night. with its at times surrealistically distort- ed colours. The percussion section is Programme notes by Kimmo Korhonen unusually large and compels the char- translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo acters to join in the dance.