15 APRIL WEDNESDAY SERIES 14 Helsinki Music Centre at 19
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15 APRIL WEDNESDAY SERIES 14 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 Hannu Lintu, conductor Soile Isokoski, soprano Minna Leinonen: Scatterings, fp (Yle commission) 16 min Jean Sibelius, orch. Colin Matthews 12 min Orchestration premiere, Yle commission Kaiutar, Op. 72 No. 4 Illalle, Op. 17 No. 6 Våren flyktar hastigt, Op. 13 No. 4 Men min fågel märks dock icke, Op. 36 No. 2 Var det en dröm, Op. 37 No. 4 INTERVAL 20 min Wilhelm Stenhammar: Symphony No. 2 in G Minor, 45 min Op. 34 I Allegro energico II Andante III Scherzo (Allegro, ma non troppo presto) IV Sostenuto – Allegro vivace Interval at about 19.35. The concert ends at about 21.00. 1 MINNA LEINONEN combinations of noises and musical sounds, and micro-intervals. She is at (1977–): SCATTERINGS present working for a higher degree at the Sibelius Academy, looking into Timbres have always meant a lot to ways of expanding the range of violin Minna Leinonen. While still in junior techniques, and has tested them with school, she fell in love with the sounds trusted colleagues before incorporat- produced by Orff instruments such as ing some of them in Scatterings. There the xylophone, used in her school mu- is, however, always a risk in using such sic lessons, and her study of Orff ped- techniques with a large orchestra. Will agogy at the Tampere Conservatory the result sound just as the composer and work as a teacher at the Central thought it would? Helsinki Music Institute contributed greatly to her journey towards musical maturity. Just recently, she has been try- JEAN SIBELIUS ing to create an impression of vertical, (1865–1957), “absolute time” in addition to horizontal time: contrapuntal events, musical cur- ORCHESTRATION rents as some element rises from the COLIN MATTHEWS depths to the surface. In Scatterings (1946–): SONGS she achieves this three-dimensional ef- fect by sprinkling the players round the Jean Sibelius was one of the most orig- hall: in addition to the orchestra on the inal song composers of the late 19th platform, she has four smaller groups of and early 20th centuries. Some of his soloists placed round the listeners. texts are in Swedish, others in Finnish The bells of Roihuvuori Church ac- (both national languages in Finland), company Minna Leinonen every day and his later songs display elements of as she composes, and they became symbolism and depth psychology. one of the many melodic motifs for Kaiutar (The Echo Nymph, 1914), a set- Scatterings. The descending, “pouring” ting of words by Larin-Kyösti, is one of woodwinds at the beginning were in- Sibelius’s finest lyrical songs in Finnish. spired by a flock of geese as it slowly It seems constantly to hark back to the came to land. Towards the end, a motif world of Finland’s archaic poetry – that she calls “a mother’s embrace” emerges: of the national epic, the Kalevala – in the sound she hums to soothe her little telling of a nymph who roams the for- baby. At one point the texture was in- ests and marshes in search of her lost spired by the sound of a big box of toys beloved. The result is an exquisite mini- being emptied onto the floor. epic rich in instrumental potential. The players in Scatterings are all re- Illalle (To Ilta, 1898) was Sibelius’s quired to produce noises by unconven- first setting of a Finnish text, and he tional means: crackles, taps and hiss- paid a lot of attention to the sonority es, for example. Leinonen also uses of the words. Ilta usually means “even- 2 ing”, but it was also the name of the into flower, only to wither again as a woman to whom the poet A.V. Forsman mere memory. (Koskimies) was engaged, and the lov- Colin Matthews is an English com- er’s eager anticipation at sundown poser known for both works of his own abounds in metaphors. The melod- and transcriptions, in the latter genre ic crescendo arising from the excited following along the path mapped out tremolo accompaniment traces a firm by Deryck Cooke in their reconstruc- dramatic arch. tion of Mahler’s Symphony no. 10. In The Classical-Romantic tone of the particular he has won high acclaim for first of the seven Runeberg songs, Op. his 2007 orchestration of such works as 13 is palpable. The man-woman set-up the Debussy Piano Preludes. of Våren flykter hastigt (Spring is fly- Matthews was commissioned to or- ing) produces music typically associat- chestrate five Sibelius songs for an ed with a young man. The woman la- ensemble such as would have been ments the speed with which the spring familiar to their composer. But the in- of life is flying past, but the man urges struments may be assigned unconven- her to grasp the moment and to store tional roles. Matthews has not radically up beautiful memories to look back on altered the piano part, but he com- in old age. Sibelius begins the song in ments rather than imitates, and details wistful mood, but by the end it is al- of the instrumentation afford new per- most coquettish. spectives on the songs. In Op. 36 of 1899–1900, Sibelius par- allels a poem by Runeberg (Finland’s na- tional poet) with the romantic visions WILHELM of J.J. Wecksell and Gustav Fröding. STENHAMMAR In Men min fågel märks dock icke (But my bird is long in homing), the feel- (1871–1927): ings awakened by the coming of spring SYMPHONY NO. 2 and the growing disenchantment as they fail to be fulfilled echo the Nordic For a composer, Wilhelm Stenhammar soulscape. A sense of longing accom- had a good start in life. His father was panies the many birds twitched by the the composer and architect Per Ulrik poet as they return in spring. Stenhammar and his mother Countess Op. 37 (1904) is possibly Sibelius’s Louise Rudenschöld. After studying most operatic set of songs. The poems first in Stockholm and later Berlin, he reflect the idealism and sentiments of made his breakthrough as a pianist and the 19th century, to which Sibelius gives composer with his first Piano Concerto full rein in Var det en dröm (Was it a in 1893. dream?). The poet, J.J. Wecksell, bravely His first Symphony was premiered recalls his lost love and the song, origi- in 1903, but after hearing the second nally composed for the delicate-voiced Symphony by Jean Sibelius, he with- Ida Ekman, taxes the singer to the full. drew it with a view to revising it. While Once more, a dream bursts fleetingly 3 holidaying in Italy in 1911, he sketched a HANNU LINTU new Symphony, that in G Minor, Op. 34, at the Villa Borghese in Rome. His aim Hannu Lintu took over as Chief was a work Scandinavian in character Conductor of the Finnish Radio but avoiding the nationalist pitfalls of Symphony Orchestra in August 2013. the National-Romantics. Formerly Artistic Director of the The first movement begins with Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and a unison theme marked by features Chief Conductor of the Helsingborg of both a folk song and archaic vocal Symphony Orchestra, he has also polyphony. Stenhammar deliberate- been Principal Guest Conductor of the ly distances these and subjects them RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in to energetic and flexible sonata-form Dublin. He works regularly with the treatment. The use of church modes Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and was instead of the major-minor tonality of Artistic Director of its Summer Sounds the Romantic era is another charac- festival in 2005. teristic feature. Beneath the apparent In addition to conducting the lead- determination and orchestral polish of ing Finnish orchestras, Maestro Lintu the opening movement it is possible to has made guest appearances with detect a poetic yearning. the Radio Orchestras in Berlin, Paris, The tragic undercurrent becomes Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Amsterdam and more marked in the slow move- Madrid, with a number of orchestras ment, reminiscent of a funeral march. in North and South America (such Stenhammar said the movement was as the Cleveland, Toronto, Houston, inspired by Aeschylus’s Prometheus, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and but the music is more in the nature St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, and of intimate compassion than of great the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the drama. The Scherzo again has a folk- Hollywood Bowl), in Asia (Seoul, Tokyo, dance beat and manly humour. Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong) and The finale begins with a slow, stern Australia (the Sydney and Melbourne introduction (Sostenuto) that presents Symphony Orchestras and others). the themes for the following fugue During the 2012/2013 season he made and related episodes. A polyphonic his debut with such orchestras as the masterpiece, the fugue epically draws London Philharmonic, the Minnesota together the various features of the Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony: its fiery energy, brisk hu- Symphony, and this season he takes up mour and gentle lyricism. The stream- re-invitations to conduct the Stockholm lined construction and elegant han- and Gothenburg Symphonies, the dling of the orchestra throughout the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Symphony speak of a composer with a (DSO), the Toronto Symphony and oth- sovereign command of his art. er orchestras. Hannu Lintu studied the piano and Programme notes by Antti Häyrynen cello first at the Turku Conservatory translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo 4 in his native Finland and later the Together with pianist Marita Viitasalo Sibelius Academy, where he also at- she has recorded works by many tended the conducting class taught Finnish and Scandinavian compos- by Jorma Panula, Atso Almila, Eri Klas ers, Schubert, Schumann and Richard and Ilja Musin.