Marc Minkowski, Conductor Marita Solberg Soprano Gabriel Suovanen, Baritone Tapiola Chamber Choir, Coach Hannu Norjanen Franz Schubert: Symphony No
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Marc Minkowski, conductor Marita Solberg soprano Gabriel Suovanen, baritone Tapiola Chamber Choir, coach Hannu Norjanen Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 3 in D Major D. 200 24 min I Adagio maestoso – Allegro con brio II Allegretto III Menuetto (Vivace) IV Presto vivace INTERVAL 15 min Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48 40 min I Introitus (Requiem aeternam – Kyrie eleison) (choir) II Offertorium (Domine Jesu Christe) (baritone and choir) III Sanctus (choir) IV Pie Jesu (soprano) V Agnus Dei (choir) VI Libera me (baritone and choir) VII In Paradisum (choir) LATE-NIGHT CHAMBER MUSIC: Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in C Minor 25 min I Allegro energico e con fuoco II Andante espressivo III Scherzo (Molto allegro quasi presto) IV Finaali (Allegro appassionato) Hannu Vasara, violin Tuija Rantamäki, cello Jouko Laivuori, piano Interval at about 7.30 pm. Th e concert ends at about 8.30 pm. Broadcast live on YLE Radio 1 and the Internet (www.yle.fi /rso). Th e late-night chamber music will not be broadcast live but can be heard on YLE Radio 1 on February 28. 1 Franz Schubert (1797–1828): Symphony No. 3 in D Major D200 (1815) For decades, music scholars have wondered of the post-Eroica period – did Schubert’s con- how on earth Schubert managed to compose cept of the symphony begin to alter. Beethoven at such a speed. Th ough only 31 when he died, was, of course, a challenge to the whole of that he left behind more than a thousand compo- generation. sitions – above all songs but also symphonies, Th e mind of the 18-year-old composer of the sonatas and large-scale chamber works. Any- Symphony No. 3 was not, however, yet troubled thing he did not fi nish immediately tended to by such concerns. He wrote the symphony be- get put aside as he was already looking ahead to tween May 24 and July 19, 1815, though on- his next project. ly just over a week was spent actively compos- Schubert is known to have sat down to write ing. Th e thematic relationship between the slow a symphony at least thirteen times. Only seven Introduction and the Allegro con brio is never- were ever actually completed: the others never theless sophisticated in construction. Th e Alle- got beyond the sketch stage or were doomed to gretto sounds so uncontrived that it might well remain Unfi nished, as in the case of No. 8 in B be reduced to banality were it not for Schu- Minor. Th e fi rst three extant symphonies refl ect bert’s sovereign gift for melody. (A friend of the infl uence of Mozart, Haydn and their now his, Eduard von Bauernfeld, went so far as to forgotten contemporaries. Schubert had played express his concern that Schubert’s melodies such repertoire night after night as a violinist were “too Austrian”.) Th e robust backbeats in in the Convict School orchestra and knew it in- the Minuet have a Beethoven Scherzo-like feel side out. Not until he came into contact with to them, whereas the bubbling buff o character Beethoven – and to be precise the Beethoven of the Finale calls to mind Rossini. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Requiem, Op. 48 (1893) Th e name of Fauré often pops up in the his- bussy and Ravel, Fauré appears to be a roman- tory of French music as something of an émi- tic safely entrenched in major-minor tonali- nence grise: as a teacher of composition, as a re- ty, yet he cannot be called conservative. While searcher assisting a young colleague, as one of Ambroise Th omas was head of the Conserva- the founding members of the Société Nationale toire, Fauré was denied a post as a teacher there de Musique and as head of the Paris Conserva- precisely because his style was felt to be too rev- toire. Th e compositions by him that fi rst spring olutionary. Th is is, perhaps, not readily notice- to mind are his solo songs and his much-loved able to modern ears, which will certainly ap- Requiem, but not to the exclusion of his many preciate his wonderful gift of melody (as one chamber works. Fauré was past middle age be- might expect of a fi rst-class song writer), but fore he won much recognition. Th ere was also a bold harmony is really what lies at the heart of certain tragedy attached to his having so many his distinctive idiom. He still builds his harmo- occupations: from the time he reached adult- nies on triads, but the unorthodox way in which hood onwards he could dedicate himself to com- he combines them already extends beyond the position only during the summer holidays, and borders of the musical world of Rameau. On by the time he retired from his other profession- the other hand, Fauré’s radical freshness is cou- al duties at a considerably advanced age, he had pled with a rare awareness of tradition, com- virtually lost both his health and his hearing. plete with the structures of Renaissance vocal Viewed via the next generation, above all De- polyphony. 2 Fauré seems to have been moved to compose aby of death. But that’s the way I perceive death: his Requiem by the recent death of his father. as a happy release, an aspiration of the bliss that (A Requiem is a mass for a deceased person in lies ahead rather than a grievous passage. As to the Roman Catholic Church.) It is not, howev- my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively er, a memorial proper: Fauré later said he had sought to escape from what is thought right composed it “just for fun”. In the fi rst version and proper, after all the years of accompanying of 1888 it is scored for a very small – and unu- burial services on the organ! I am sick of it all. sual – ensemble: violas, cellos, organ, harp and I wanted to write something diff erent.” He al- timpani! Not for another decade, at his publish- so gave the text an unorthodox twist, deliber- er’s suggestion, did he arrange an orchestral ver- ately omitting the Dies irae and Tuba mirum in sion. Even then it was still not a great hit. Only which composers of Requiems have traditionally since the 1950s has Fauré’s Requiem been pop- painted dramatic horror pictures and instead in- ular with the public at large, but its comfort- serted an immensely beautiful Piae Jesu aria and ing, lyrical character has subsequently made it the consoling fi nal In Paradisum. Fauré’s Requi- possibly the best-loved Requiem of the present em has in fact been described as a mass for the day and age. deceased without the last judgement. Fauré himself described his Requiem as fol- lows: “People have said my Requiem does not ex- Lotta Emanuelsson (abridged) press the terror of death; someone called it a lull- Marc Minkowski Marc Minkowski is one of the principal guest such French masters as Berlioz, Bizet, Chaus- conductors at the Paris Opera. Having fi rst son, Fauré and Lili Boulanger. He has a close re- studied the bassoon, he began his conducting lationship with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra studies at an early age under Charles Bruck in and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orches- the United States. At the age of 20 he founded tra. Other orchestras conducted by him have in- Les Musiciens du Louvre specialising in French cluded the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Baroque music and regularly appearing on the RSO, the French National Orchestra, the Los leading opera stages in France and the rest of Angeles Philharmonic, the European Chamber Europe. He also performs music by Monteverdi, Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Handel, Gluck, Mozart and Off enbach. Dresden Staatskapelle. Rising quickly in his career, Minkowski con- In autumn 2009 Minkowski opened the fi rst ducted works by Handel, Rameau and others season of the Paris Opera under the direction in Zurich and Mozart’s Idomeneo in Paris in of Nicolas Joel with Gounod’s opera Mireille. 1996. Die Entführung aus dem Serail followed In January 2010 he resumed Idomeneo at the with the Mozarteum Orchestra in 1997, when Salzburg Festival and in May this year he will he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival. conduct a new production of Don Quixote at Minkowski conducts a lot of French music, La Monnaie in Brussels. and in recent years has turned more and more In 2004 Marc Minkowski was named Cheva- to symphonic repertoire. In addition to Haydn, lier du Mérite by the French President Jacques Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms he conducts Chirac. He is also an Offi cer des Arts et Lettres. 3 Marita Solberg Norwegian soprano Marita Solberg, now one sisi. One of her most highly-acclaimed roles of Scandinavia’s leading singers, studied at the has been Solveig in Grieg’s Peer Gynt, which National College of Operatic Art and the State she has sung with the Berlin Philharmonic. Academy of Music in Oslo. She has worked with During the 2008/09 season she sang Micaëla numerous celebrated orchestras and conduc- in Carmen at the Norwegian National Opera tors, among them Minkowski, Plasson, Honeck, and Mahler’s Second Symphony under Zubin Herreweghe and Weil. A regular visitor at festi- Mehta. In summer 2009 she made her debut vals in Europe and the United States, she sang as Cleopatra in Handel’s Julius Caesar at the at the Stuttgart State Opera 2006-08 and her Beaune Festival in France. tours have taken her to, among others, the In addition to numerous concert appear- Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro Real in Madrid ances, Solberg’s engagements for the present and the Komische Oper Berlin.