FRIDAY SERIES 5 Hannu Lintu, Conductor Michelle Deyoung, Mezzo-Soprano Helsinki Music Centre Choir, Female Singers, Coach Tapan
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11.11 FRIDAY SERIES 5 Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00 Hannu Lintu, conductor Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano Helsinki Music Centre Choir, female singers, coach Tapani Länsiö Cantores Minores, coach Hannu Norjanen Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3 in D Minor for alto, 99 min women’s choir, boys’ choir and orchestra I Kräftig, entschieden II Tempo di Minuetto (Sehr mässig) III Comodo (Scherzando, Ohne Hast) Touko Lundell, post horn IV Sehr langsam – Misterioso (alto, orchestra) V Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck VI Langsam – Ruhevoll – Empfunden. 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. Tenth anniversary of late-night chamber music Christoffer Sundqvist, clarinet Emma Vähälä, violin Reeta Maalismaa, violin Olli Kilpiö, viola 1 Mikko Ivars, cello Johannes Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 36 min I Allegro II Adagio III Andantino IV Con moto Five students at the Sibelius Academy will be playing with the orchestra tonight under the training scheme between the Sibelius Academy and the FRSO. They are: Kaia Voitka, I violin, Olivia Holladay, II violin, Valerie Albrecht, viola, Anna Westerlund, cello, and Pauli Pappinen, double bass. The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (HPO), the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO) and the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki launched an Orchestra Academy based at the Helsinki Music Centre in autumn 2015. Its aim is to raise the standard of training for orchestral players, and to make the training even more international and in line with practical working life. The scheme is an opportunity for players, conductors and composers to work with an orchestra under the guidance of professional musicians. There will be no interval. The concert ends at about 20:50, the late-night chamber music at about 21:45. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and online at yle.fi/rso. 2 MAHLER’S THIRD – AN APOTHEOSIS OF ELEMENTAL FORCES The second, third and fourth sympho- idealistic composer and an aesthetic nies by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) are perfectionist. known as his Wunderhorn Symphonies, With its six movements and vocal ep- for they tie in with the settings he isodes, the third symphony differs rad- made from the late 1880s onwards of ically from the normal symphonic for- texts from a collection of folk poetry mat. It is in two main sections. One is called Des Knaben Wunderhorn. He used the first movement alone, running to themes from the songs in his sympho- nearly 900 bars and lasting over half nies, and in their vocal sections. Clear, an hour, and the remaining five consti- and sometimes direct links exist be- tute the second. The outermost move- tween the Wunderhorn Symphonies. The ments are the weightiest, and the last third originally had seven movements, three are performed without a break. but Mahler eventually made the last one, the song Das himmlische Leben, From nature’s awaking to an the closing movement of the fourth apotheosis of all creation symphony. During his lifetime, Mahler was bet- One reason for the unusually big first ter known as a conductor than as a movement is probably its construction. composer, and his symphonies were It is, perhaps, most commonly regard- often not performed until years after ed as being in a giant sonata form, he had completed them. The third was with an introduction, exposition, de- first heard in summer 1902, at Krefeld velopment and recapitulation, but the in Germany. At the time, it enjoyed an constant metamorphosis of the mate- enthusiastic reception, but opinions rial somewhat confuses the issue. The subsequently varied. movement begins with a mighty state- Nowadays the third is one of the ment on the eight French horns that Mahler symphonies less often per- nevertheless quickly subsides into a formed. The reasons for this are, how- somewhat gloomy march; march mo- ever, practical rather than artistic. The tifs will continue to occupy a focal role. very length poses certain restrictions. Contrasting with this is some light- The symphony also requires a large er, more spring-like music with a vio- orchestra (including quadruple wood- lin solo. The dormant moods of winter winds and eight French horns), an alto are dispelled as nature awakes, but not soloist, a boys’ and a women’s choir, without a struggle. yet the vocal sections are quite short The next two movements are lighter and only in the fourth and fifth move- in construction. The second, swinging ments. This may seem uneconomical, along at Minuet tempo, has a contrast- but it reflects the artist ethos of an ing, magical episode. The third move- 3 ment serves as a Scherzo and seems at HANNU LINTU first to echo the lighter mood of the second. It is, however, more changea- Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio ble, passing through a greater expres- Symphony Orchestra since August sive range, at times robust and earthy. 2013, Hannu Lintu previously held the As one of his themes Mahler uses that positions of Artistic Director and Chief of the Wunderhorn song Ablösung im Conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Sommer he had composed some years Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor before. At one arresting point in the with the RTÉ National Symphony Trio, a pastoral idyll, a flugelhorn is Orchestra and Artistic Director of the heard, bearing images of a far-away Helsingborg Symphony and Turku post horn. Philharmonic orchestras. Man – or rather woman – enters the Highlights of Lintu’s 2016/17 sea- scene in the fourth movement in the son include appearances with the form of an alto soloist. The text is a Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, fragment from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Radio- Zarathustra, here impressive in its sim- Symphonieorchester Wien, Luzerner plicity. From there the music glides Sinfonieorchester and Orquesta into a world of childlike naivety herald- Sinfónica de Galicia, and in North ed by the boys’ choir with imitations of America with the St Louis Symphony bells. The text of Es sungen drei Engel and the Toronto Symphony, Baltimore einen süssen Gesang is again from the Symphony and Detroit Symphony or- Wunderhorn collection and sung by the chestras. Recent engagements have women’s choir, the alto and momentar- included the The Cleveland and ily the boy’s choir. Gulbenkian orchestras, the Orchestre The closing movement is once de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestra again purely orchestral. It is the first Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, and of Mahler’s great symphonic Adagios the BBC Scottish Symphony, Iceland and its position at the end of the work Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic marks a break with symphonic tradi- orchestras. In 2015 he conducted tion. Its long, long lines are marked by a complete cycle of Sibelius’ sym- reverence and profound meditation phonies in Tokyo with the Finnish but also great passion, as if to under- Radio Symphony Orchestra and the line the human element, with all its New Japan Philharmonic, and toured generic emotions. The final build-up Austria in January 2016 with violinist nevertheless transcends all human pro- Leila Josefowicz and the Finnish Radio portions as a mighty apotheosis of na- Symphony Orchestra. ture, humanity and all creation. Lintu returns to Savonlinna Opera Festival in July 2017 to conduct Aulis Programme note by Kimmo Korhonen Sallinen’s Kullervo, and in May 2017 he translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo conducts Sibelius’ Kullervo in a special project with Finnish National Opera and 4 Ballet with director and choreographer MICHELLE DEYOUNG Tero Saarinen. Previous productions with Finnish National Opera have in- Michelle DeYoung is one of the most cluded Parsifal, Carmen, Sallinen’s King exciting mezzo-sopranos of her gen- Lear, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in eration. She appears frequently with spring 2016. Lintu has also worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras, Tampere Opera and Estonian National including the New York, Vienna and Opera. Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Boston Hannu Lintu has made several and Chicago Symphonies and the re-cordings for Ondine, Naxos, Avie and Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra. Hyperion. His recording of Prokofiev Finnish audiences may remember Piano Concertos with Olli Mustonen Michelle DeYoung, famous for her many and the Finnish Radio Symphony Wagner roles, from her performance as Orchestra was released in September Brangäne with the FRSO at the 2012 2016, while other recent releases in- Helsinki Festival. She has sung the parts clude recordings of Mahler’s Symphony of Fricka, Sieglinde and Waltraute in No. 1, a selection of works by Magnus the Ring cycle, Kundry in Parsifal and Lindberg, and Messiaen’s Turangalîla Venus in Tannhäuser. Her repertoire is Symphony with Angela Hewitt and not, however, confined solely to Wagner, Valerie Hartmann-Claverie. Lintu has and also includes such roles as Princess received several accolades for his re- Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlos and Herodias cordings, including a 2011 Grammy in Strauss’s Salome. Regularly invited to nomination for Best Opera CD plus sing at the New York Metropolitan, La Gramophone Award nominations for Scala, Milan, the Bayreuth Festival and his recordings of Enescu’s Symphony the Berlin State Opera, she has also given No.2 with the Tampere Philharmonic recitals at such prestigious venues as the Orchestra and the Violin Concertos Wigmore Hall in London, the Edinburgh of Sibelius and Thomas Adès with Festival and Alice Tully Hall, New York. Augustin Hadelich and the Royal Michelle DeYoung can be heard on Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. two recordings of Mahler’s Symphony Hannu Lintu studied cello and piano No. 3, the first with the San Francisco at the Sibelius Academy, where he later Symphony Orchestra under Michael studied conducting with Jorma Panula.