INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA CONCERT Hannu Lintu, Conductor
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6.12. INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA CONCERT Helsinki Music Centre at 15:00 Hannu Lintu, conductor Johanna Rusanen-Kartano, soprano Ville Rusanen, baritone Helsinki Music Centre Choir, coach Jani Sivén Joonas Kokkonen: Requiem 38 min Requiem aeternam (Andante) Kyrie eleison (Allegro) Tractus (Andante) Domine Jesu Christe (Moderato) Hostias et preces (Allegretto) Sanctus et Benedictus (Allegro moderato) Agnus Dei (Moderato) In Paradisum (Andante) Lux aeterna (Adagio) INTERVAL 20 min Sebastian Hilli: Snap Music, fp (Yle commission) 15 min Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 in C, Op. 52 30 min Allegro moderato Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto Moderato – Allegro con tanto Interval at about 15:40. The concert will end at about 17:00. Broadcast live on Yle Areena and Yle Teema. 1 JOONAS KOKKONEN: Musically, the Requiem incorporates themes from The Last Temptations, but REQUIEM its reliance on core motifs is above all symphonic. The Requiem was to be Joonas Kokkonen (1921–1996) end- Kokkonen’s last great composition, for ed all his works with the dedication he never finished the fifth symphony S.D.G.L.D. (Soli Deo Gloria, Laus Deo – he drafted in the 1980s. Glory to God alone, Praise be to God). Kokkonen’s Requiem is a work of In some way, even his abstract instru- mostly moderate tempos and con- mental works therefore have a spiritual trasts. The opening Requiem aeterna element. For his religious ones he expresses a serene but weary longing turned to the universal texts in Latin for eternal rest, introduces the soloists and a motif technique derived from in- (the soprano as bringer of perpetual strumental music. light) and builds up to a Hallelujah cli- His opera The Last Temptations of max. 1975 may be regarded as Kokkonen’s The Kyrie’s pleas for mercy are made greatest opus. It tells of the revivalist in a restless Allegro, but the major-key Finnish preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen outburst at the end indicates an under- and its musical themes radiated on lying optimism. The Tractus ignores the into his later works. This applies espe- threats of Dies irae but in seeking re- cially to his Requiem of 1981. Kokkonen lease from the chains of our sins also originally intended to compose an “ec- reminds us of the error of our ways. The umenical mass” embracing various fac- dissonant shouts from the orchestra ets of the Christian faith, but instead it remind us that reflection on the error became a Requiem in memoriam Maija of our ways is in our own hands. Kokkonen of 1981 following the long Domine Jesu Christe is a vision of illness and finally death of his wife. This Christ the Redeemer in which the so- possibly explains the Requiem’s open loists itemise pleas expressed by the expression of emotion and the stylis- choir. Closely linked with this are the tic freedom that began with the opera. sacrifices and prayers offered up by Structurally, Kokkonen’s Requiem for the choir with light, dancing steps in soprano and baritone, choir and or- the Hostias. As far as our souls are con- chestra differs slightly from its his- cerned, we are now over the worst: in torical models. The Second Vatican the Sanctus and Benedictus we can now Council of 1962–1965 removed the Dies relax and praise the Lord, even though irae sequence proclaiming the Last the soprano is taxed to extremes in Judgement from the Catholic Requiem reaching up to the heights. It remains Mass, as did Kokkonen in his Requiem. for the baritone to convince us that Instead, he replaced it with a more “Blessed is he that cometh in the name peaceable Tractus, which also has his- of the Lord” in the Benedictus. All then torical antecedents. join together in “Hosanna”. 2 In the Agnus Dei the Lamb of God The focus in Hilli’s output was in- takes away the sins of the world with itially on chamber music, in which he an innocence and insubstantiality at concentrated on sonorities and perfor- which the choir, soloists and orchestra mance techniques, and on contrasts join in wonder. In Paradisum was orig- between energetic textures and quiet, inally part of the funeral service and delicate moods. His approach to sub- used by Gabriel Fauré in his Requiem jects and styles is fresh, but he “has a of 1888. For Kokkonen, it is a personal very personal aesthetic that is under- hymn accompanying his beloved to the lying all of his music, and he possess- gates of heaven. es the technical knowledge and imag- The Requiem ends with Lux aeterna, a ination to realise what he is driven to movement bathed in E-major sunlight create,” as the Jury of the Gaudeamus and birdsong and the hope of perpet- Award reported. ual light and rest. Rather than trage- dy and finality, Kokkonen’s Requiem reminds us of the fullness of life, of SEBASTIAN HILLI: memories of our loved ones and the SNAP MUSIC hope of salvation. The piece was inspired by the English Antti Häyrynen ‘snap’ – a word that can be translated into Finnish in close on 90 ways. The musical material, gestures and charac- SEBASTIAN HILLI ters evolved from this, right down to the details. Sebastian Hilli (b. 1990) studied with Veli-Matti Puumala at the Sibelius “And then I just snapped.” Academy, in Vienna with Michael Jarrell, In terms of dramatic structure and emo- and in masterclasses with Jukka Tiensuu, tion, the salient element of the piece Jouni Kaipainen, Hans Abrahamsen, is “snapping”, i.e. psychological loss of Simon Steen-Andersen, Philippe control. A series of events in which fee- Manoury and others. His Reachings lings gradually swell to chaotic mental (2014) for orchestra won first prize in proportions finally culminates in loss of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award control. What happens when the sense in 2015 and in the ‘Composers under of control vanishes and all that remains 30 category’ at the 64th International is a dizzy emptiness? Rostrum of Composers in Palermo, gh the underlying idea is a psycho- Italy in 2017. In September 2018, Hilli logical, long-term process and onward won the Gaudeamus Award in Utrecht, drive, there are also episodes based the Netherlands. In 2017, the Helsinki on the idea of ‘snaps’ in the sense of Philharmonic Orchestra premiered ‘shots’ or ‘takes’. These are manifest as Affekt for choir and orchestra, his lar- types of textures made up of shortish, gest work to date. flashing gestures/snaps, producing sometimes abrupt musical cuts. 3 My aim in my handling of the or- Instead of the declamatory themes chestra was to make wide-ranging use of the Romantic era, Sibelius began of its potential. Its sonorities vary from taking his symphonic architectural rich and expansive to small and deli- principles in a more organic direction. cate; there are both dense, multilevel A process necessitating an abundance textures on the full orchestra and com- of time, wine and cigars, it produced ments by individual instruments and an original, multidimensional sympho- groups or solos. The orchestra also trav- ny that pointed far ahead to his late els a path of its own, the instrumenta- works. tion expressing the background emo- The very opening indicates what lies tional process – feelings that gradually ahead: out of a rhythmic, ostinato-like grow from, say, light to heavy, from motif on the cellos and basses, twisting control to the lack thereof, and from and turning around C major, a cheerful emptiness to chaos. march branches off along a new track. The wistful second theme sets a new Sebastian Hilli course into uncharted territory, and from then onwards more and more im- pulses emerge from the rhythmic mo- JEAN SIBELIUS: tifs. At the end, an unexpected pizzica- SYMPHONY NO. 3 IN C, to episode leads to a fervent hymn-like melody that gives the orchestra’s clos- OP. 52 ing comment a solid solemnity. The folk song-like melody of the sec- After composing his second symphony, ond movement seems at first to swing Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) deliberately along in the manner of an old court tried to get away from the National- dance. The key is a distant G-sharp mi- Romantic idiom. One sign of this was nor and the main theme is examined his move from Helsinki to Ainola, his from very different angles; for this rea- house in Järvenpää, because the com- son, the structure of the movement motion and intrigues of the Finnish is to some extent open. The concept capital were, he said, killing all the song of tempo is also fluid, and Sibelius in him. Only in the forest or in a me- seemed to hear it slower than he tropolis could he nurture his creativity. marked it. Around the middle of the According to Sibelius, he finished movement, time relaxes its pace in the his third symphony in London in 1907. dusky summer night to the meditative More important than the physical dis- strains of a cello. tancing was the spiritual: on the sur- The finale is the most Sibelian of the face, the symphony is almost classi- symphony’s three movements and, in cal in the spirit of Haydn, and as one its telescopic construction, looks ahead French critic wrote at the time, only to the fifth and even the seventh sym- God nowadays writes in C major. Its phonies. It seems to rely on “the crys- rhythms seem to draw on a very free tallisation of thought from chaos,” as conception of folk music and a modern Sibelius put it. approach to thematic development. 4 The scherzo-like beginning presents Hannu Lintu studied the piano and brief flashes of melody and rhythmic cello at the Sibelius Academy before fragments.