16 OCTOBER THURSDAY SERIES 3 Helsinki Music Centre at 19
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16 OCTOBER THURSDAY SERIES 3 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 Hannu Lintu, conductor Laura Hynninen, harp Richard Strauss: Don Juan, Op. 20 17 min Alberto Ginastera: Harp Concerto, Op. 25 23 min I Allegro giusto II Molto moderato III Liberamente capriccioso – Vivace INTERVAL 20 min Jean Sibelius: Lemminkäinen Suite, 45 min Four Legends for Orchestra, Op. 22 I Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island II The Swan of Tuonela Sanna Niemikunnas, English horn III Lemminkäinen in Tuonela IV Lemminkäinen’s Return Interval at about 19.55. The concert ends at about 21.10. 1 RICHARD STRAUSS selves to development; they have both romantic and classical traits. The young (1864–1949) DON JUAN Strauss further had a gift for moulding the character of his themes. The orches- The story of Don Juan is an ancient tration abounds in magnificent details, Spanish legend. The first known literary and the scoring is virtuosic. Strauss has version is El burlador de Sevilla y convida- a fine feel for the inherent nature of do de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and his instruments and instrumental sec- the Stone Guest), published by a play- tions, combining them to produce vo- wright called Tirso de Molina in around luptuously resonant textures. In form, 1630. Since then, the theme has been a Don Juan is a loosely-constructed sonata popular one both in literature and oth- with an exposition followed by two dif- er arts – with Mozart (Don Giovanni), ferent developments with extra inserts, Molière, Byron, Pushkin and Dumas the and a strongly varied recapitulation. The Elder, for example. Strauss did not, how- leading character is first portrayed with ever, base his tone poem on any of their a mercurial, sizzling theme. About half variants, taking instead an unfinished way through, he begins to be shown in play in verse by Nikolaus Lenau (1802– a different light with a new horn theme 1850). that is bursting with heroism and dis- Lenau’s Don Juan differs to some ex- sipation, and excitingly ironic slant. The tent from the mainstream variants; love scenes emerge almost unnoticed the dinner scene with the stone guest, from the thematic material, and tucked for example, and the Don’s death are in towards the end is a carnival scene. handled in a completely different way. Lenau’s play has virtually nothing like Lenau sought to fill in the psychologi- this, and in this sense Strauss took liber- cal background and mind-set of the no- ties with his model. torious womaniser, delving deeper than had previously been the custom in lit- erature. Strauss’s Don Juan is a brilliant, multi-coloured and nothing short of ra- ALBERTO GINASTERA diant portrait of the title character. The (1916–1983): hero’s short, sharp demise in the final HARP CONCERTO bars easily goes in one ear and out the other, so that all remains is an image of Alberto Ginastera, who was born in seduction and love-making on an indus- Buenos Aires and spent most of his trial scale and unbridled debauchery. working life there, is undoubtedly the As a musical portrait, Don Juan is second-best-known Argentinean com- nothing short of dazzling, especially poser. His father was Catalan and his considering the composer’s age when mother Italian, but he looked upon him- he painted it. The themes are both self as Argentinean from a very ear- handsome, hedonistic subjects as such ly age. He lived and worked in Buenos and objects that readily lend them- Aires from 1947, having graduated 2 from the Conservatory there in 1938, pedals. Naturally the performing tech- held many teaching posts, and in 1961 nique differs greatly from that of a con- founded the Torcuato di Tella, an insti- cert harp. Ginastera does not seek to in- tution that became the leading Latin corporate special folk-harp techniques American training centre for compos- in his concert-harp repertoire, but many ers. The political unrest in the country details of his concerto indicate his fa- of his birth forced him to move to the miliarity with them. It is as if he were United States in 1968 and two years lat- borrowing them “in spirit” but not in er to Europe, and he spent the last years concrete terms. The three movements of his life in Geneva. of the Harpo Concerto are performed The Latin side of Ginastera is manifest without a break, but they clearly differ above all in striking rhythms and his ex- in character. Framing a meditative slow tensive use of percussion instruments, movement are two quick, and in plac- but the softer side of South American es very dramatic movements marked folklore also struck up an echo in him. by dance rhythms. The solo harp dom- Some parts of his slow movements are inates the soundscape completely in like semi-improvised lullabies or folk the middle movement, particularly. The songs expressing a dreamy longing transition from the ethereal sounds of for far-away lands. The Harp Concerto the end of the slow movement to the (1965) is an excellent example of this. jubilant finale is brilliant to say the least. The harp differs so greatly from other At the very end, the final furore is not instruments in terms of technique, ex- a sound one might generally expect to pression, and so to say its approach to hear in a harp concerto. music that it has traditionally posed a major challenge for composers. This also applies to many of the ‘great mas- ters’! And since composers do not know JEAN SIBELIUS how to write for the harp, players find (1865–1957): themselves constantly having to edit their music, sometimes with a heavy LEMMINKÄINEN SUITE, hand. The truly idiomatic harp pieces FOUR LEGENDS FOR are often ones composed by harp play- ORCHESTRA ers. The Impressionists loved the sound of the harp, which explains why most Despite his relatively late start to a com- decent harp music is by French compos- posing career, Jean Sibelius quickly es- ers. Ginastera’s Harp Concerto stands in tablished a position unique in Finnish a league all of its own, being a techni- music. He had few competitors, and cally faultless and charming addition to following the premiere of Kullervo in the repertoire for that instrument. 1892, all eyes became focused on him Latin America is also the home of as Finland’s musical hope. a parallel tradition that has grown up In 1891, the Finnish Literature Society around the smaller folk harp without announced a competition designed to 3 produce the first Finnish opera. Sibelius, HANNU LINTU who was at that time in thrall to Wagner, Hannu Lintu took over as Chief naturally jumped at the opportunity Conductor of the Finnish Radio and began work on a full-length opera Symphony Orchestra in August 2013. inspired by his German idol in symbol- Formerly Artistic Director of the ist-nationalist spirit. To get himself in Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and the mood, he set off for Bayreuth and Chief Conductor of the Helsingborg Munich, where it gradually dawned on Symphony Orchestra, he has also been him that he was not an opera composer Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ but a symphonist. National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. The opera was abandoned. Sibelius He works regularly with the Avanti! was nevertheless able to use some of the Chamber Orchestra and was Artistic sketches in a suite for orchestra about Director of its Summer Sounds festival Lemminkäinen, one of the characters in in 2005. the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala. In addition to conducting the lead- The soundscape he had envisaged for ing Finnish orchestras, Maestro Lintu the opera in the spirit of Lohengrin in has made guest appearances with time became the figurehead of Finnish the Radio Orchestras in Berlin, Paris, symbolism and a world-wide hit when Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Amsterdam and it ended up as the slow movement if Madrid, with a number of orchestras in the Lemminkäinen Suite: The Swan North and South America (such as the of Tuonela. The suite could in fact be Toronto, Houston, Baltimore, Cincinnati, called a symphony, the first movement Pittsburgh and St. Louis Symphony being a character portrait of the wanton Orchestras, and the Los Angeles Lemminkäinen with his thirst for adven- Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl), ture making merry with the maidens on in Asia (Seoul, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and the island. After the sublimely beautiful Hong Kong) and Australia (the Sydney cor anglais solo in The Swan of Tuonela, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras Lemminkäinen in Tuonela is a little cliché- and others). During the 2012/2013 sea- like, calling to mind the action and hor- son he made his debut with such or- ror scenes of the symphonic poems by chestras as the London Philharmonic, Liszt. Despite making an impact evoc- the Minnesota Orchestra and the ative of Tchaikovsky, the imagery and BBC Scottish Symphony, and this sea- strategy are not particularly original. By son he takes up re-invitations to con- contrast, Lemminkäinen’s Return, grow- duct the Stockholm and Gothenburg ing out of a little motif into foaming Symphonies, the Deutsches Symphonie- rapids and a surging river is a fine early Orchester Berlin (DSO), the Toronto example of Sibelius’s symphonic art and Symphony and other orchestras. looks ahead to the mighty ending of Hannu Lintu studied the piano and the fifth symphony. cello first at the Turku Conservatory in his native Finland and later the Jouni Kaipainen (abridged) Sibelius Academy, where he also at- Translation Susan Sinisalo 4 tended the conducting class taught Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein by Jorma Panula, Atso Almila, Eri Klas Music Festival.