11 FEBRUARY THURSDAY SERIES 6 Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00
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11 FEBRUARY THURSDAY SERIES 6 Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00 Mikko Franck, conductor Alina Pogostkina, violin Einojuhani Rautavaara: Angels and Visitations 20 min Sergei Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D, Op. 19 20 min I Andantino (– Andante assai) II Scherzo (Vivacissimo) III Moderato (– Allegro moderato – Moderato – Più tranquillo) INTERVAL 20 min Claude Debussy: Images 36 min I Gigues II Ibéria III Rondes de printemps Interval at about 20.00. The concert ends at about 21.05. Broadcast live on Yle Teema, Yle Radio 1 and online at yle.fi/rso. 1 EINOJUHANI SERGEI PROKOFIEV RAUTAVAARA (1891–1953): VIOLIN (1928–): ANGELS AND CONCERTO NO. 1 VISITATIONS This Violin Concerto is dominated by a transparent soundscape of enchanting Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote Angels clarity against which the violin etches and Visitations at a time when he was soaring, floating melodies. In honing beginning to create a free synthesis of the solo part Prokofiev was assisted his music so far. His early Neoclassical by the Polish violinist Pawel Kochanski style was followed by dodecaphony in Russia at the time; only shortly be- and a few serial experiments from the fore this, Kochanski had acted as con- 1950s onwards, and atonality at the sultant to Karol Szymanowski over his end of the next decade. In the course first Violin Concerto (1916). The radi- of the synthesis hatched in the 1970s ant violin parts of the two works do he created music often Neoromantic have something in common, despite in spirit yet sometimes relying on high- being very different in other respects: ly-advanced constructions such as row Szymanowski’s is sensuously poetic technique and symmetry. The variety while Prokofiev’s, though full of feeling, of his resources is also reflected at sur- is classically clear-cut. face level, in the soft fullness of pure Though cast in the standard three triads as much as harsh dissonances, movements, the Prokofiev Concerto clusters and aleatory. breaks with tradition in that it has slow Angels and Visitations could be de- outer movements framing a quick one scribed as a modern variation on the in the middle. The lyrical charge is pres- symphonic poem, but without any ent from the very first moment of the clearly-defined programme. It is some- opening theme. The music becomes thing in the nature of a poem about more active in the second theme and beauty and horror telling an abstract development, but the opening theme story by means of stark contrasts. In returns in the recapitulation, so fragile Rautavaara’s own words, “It is a set of and defenceless that Prokofiev did not variations in which the theme is con- wish to shatter the mood by repeating trast, polarity, the logic of antithesis”. the second theme. At the opposite extremes are rippling, The middle movement is an ethere- Palestrina-like string textures evoca- al Scherzo, sharp-featured and radiant, tive of Sibelius’s sixth symphony and and the violin is here at its most virtu- violent brass outbursts, like the excla- osic. It also makes rich use of such spe- mations in Rilke’s poem “…ein jeder cial effects as flageolet notes, spiccato Engel is schrecklich…”. With its shifting and sul ponticello (playing on the violin moods and orchestral textures, Angels bridge). A diaphanous movement, it and Visitations is one of Rautavaara’s does not totally reject the enchanted most colourful works. 2 mood of the first but it does introduce middle movement, Ibéria, is particularly a sharper, modernistic edge. popular. Each of the three movements The closing movement returns to the is connected with a different country: more tranquil tempo of the first and England, Spain and France. swift-flowing melody, but now in more Gigues begins in delicate, impression- full-bodied, earthier vein. It works up istic mood, from which emerges a wist- to its biggest climax against passion- ful oboe d’amore melody, not a genu- ate and at times virtuosic figures on ine folk tune but an adaptation of one. the violin, but as if at the stroke of a The second main theme is the liveli- magic wand, the music ends in a fairy- er and edgier English “Keel Row” folk tale-like shimmer embroidered by the dance already hinted at by the flute in Concerto’s opening theme. the introductory bars. Debussy weaves his two themes together and lets the music build up to a climax before re- CLAUDE DEBUSSY turning to the oboe d’amore theme (1862–1918): IMAGES and the opening mood. The middle Ibéria is in three sec- tions, thus constituting a sort of “trip- Debussy’s plans for a new orches- tych within a triptych”. It shows that, tral work, Images, proved laborious to like Ravel, Debussy had a knack for ab- put into practice and he kept coming sorbing things Spanish, and the com- back to them between 1905 and 1912. poser Manuel de Falla paid tribute to Progress was slow due to other pro- the authentic feel of Debussy’s Spanish jects, above all the opera La chute de stylisation. The opening panel brings la maison Usher (The Fall of the House to life the colourful, vivacious bustle of Usher). Based on the story by Edgar of the streets and alleyways, to which Allan Poe, it never got completed. The the sensual, nocturnal middle section first of the Images to be written was makes a breathtakingly beautiful con- Ibéria, in 1905–1908, then Rondes de trast. This leads straight into the third printemps (1905–1909), and last of all panel, which swells from its waking Gigues (1909–1912). Not long before, morning mood to a cheerful buzz. Said Debussy had composed two suites for Debussy: “It sounds like music that has piano called Images (1905, 1907), but not been written down – the whole they have no musical connection with feeling of rising, of people and nature the work for orchestra. waking. There is a watermelon vendor The orchestral Images were original- and children whistling – I see them all ly to have been a three-movement set, clearly!” And so does the listener. but the set is not homogeneous in the In Rondes de printemps, as in sever- same way as the almost symphonic La al other works, Debussy weaves in the mer. The Images movements were pre- children’s song Nous n’irons plus au bois miered separately, and they are still of- (We’ll go to the woods no more). His ten performed as individual pieces; the orchestral technique is here at its most 3 refined, packed with poetry, light and er recordings include works by Debussy shade, the lyrical rustle of spring. and Tchaikovsky, and the operas Aleksis Kivi, The House of the Sun and Rasputin Programme notes by Kimmo Korhonen by Einojuhani Rautavaara. He has also translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo co-written a book Conversations and Writings (in Finnish) with Einojuhani Rautavaara. MIKKO FRANCK ALINA POGOSTKINA Mikko Franck took over as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in September 2015, pre- Alina Pogostkina made her inter- vious appointments having included national breakthrough on winning that of Artistic Director of the Finnish the Jean Sibelius Violin Competition National Opera and the National in 2005, having studied at Berlin’s Orchestra of Belgium. He has guest Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler conducted numerous other orchestras, with Antje Weithaas. She has made among them the Berlin, New York, Los solo appearances with the Los Angeles Angeles and London Philharmonics Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Chicago and San Francisco Orchestre National de France, Oslo Symphonies. and Stockholm Philharmonics, NHK Having studied the violin at the Symphony and other orchestras. This Sibelius Academy in his native Finland, season she makes her debut with the in New York and Israel, Mikko Franck Philharmonia in London under Vladimir began taking lessons in conducting, Ashkenazy and will play at the Arts first privately with Jorma Panula and Square festival of the St. Petersburg later at the Sibelius Academy. At the Philharmonic. She can also be heard at Finnish National Opera he has con- the international Heidelberger Frühling ducted Wagner’s Parsifal, Janáček’s The and Aix-en-Provence festivals. Markopoulos Case, Aulis Sallinen’s The In chamber repertoire, Alina Pogost- Red Line, Puccini’s La bohème and kina has in recent times focused par- Verdi’s Rigoletto. His guest conducting ticularly on music for piano trio, which engagements have included the Berlin she performs with cellist Andreas Staatsoper, the Royal Swedish Opera Brantelid and pianists Shai Wosner and in Stockholm, Covent Garden and the Ihle Hadland. Other chamber music New York Metropolitan. partners have included Steven Isserlis, The disc of Sibelius’s En Saga and Pekka Kuusisto, Yuri Bashmet, Gidon Lemminkäinen Suite with the Swedish Kremer and Joshua Bell. Radio Symphony Orchestra won Mikko Alina Pogostkina has recorded wide- Franck a Diapason d’Or award and a ly for radio and television. She has a Grammy nomination in 2001. His oth- passion for contemporary music and 4 has recorded all the works for violin Another of the orchestra’s tasks is to re- by Pēteris Vasks. She plays the 1717 cord all Finnish orchestral music for the ‘Sasserno’ violin of Antonio Stradivari Yle archive. During the 2015/2016 sea- on loan to her from the Nippon Music son it will premiere six Finnish works Foundation. commissioned by Yle. The programme will also include Piano Concertos by Beethoven and Prokofiev, Symphonies by Schumann and Brahms, and Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah. Among its guest artists will be pianists Murray Perahia, Nelson Freire and András Schiff, conductors David Zinman, Tugan Sokhiev and Manfred Honeck, soprano Karita Mattila and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.