6 DECEMBER INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA CONCERT Helsinki Music Centre at 15
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6 DECEMBER INDEPENDENCE DAY GALA CONCERT Helsinki Music Centre at 15 Hannu Lintu, conductor Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano Aulis Sallinen: Symphony No. 8, Op. 81 20 min Autumnal Fragments Jean Sibelius: Songs. Fp of the orchestrations 18 min by Aulis Sallinen (Yle commission) Jägargossen, Op. 13:7 Hennes budskap, Op. 90:2 De bägge rosorna, Op. 88:2 Sippan, Op. 88:4 Men min fågel märks dock icke Op. 36:2 Kyssens hopp, Op. 13:2 Under strandens granar, Op. 13:1 INTERVAL 20 min Sebastian Fagerlund: Stonework 15 min Jean Sibelius: Tapiola, Op. 112 18 min Jean Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26 8 min Interval at about 16.00. The concert ends at about 17.20. Broadcast live on Yle Teema and online at yle.fi/rso. 1 AULIS SALLINEN motif” in the symphony’s closing sec- tion is in turn derived from the name (1935–): SYMPHONY of the commissioner, the Amsterdam NO. 8 AUTUMNAL Concertgebouw Orchestra. FRAGMENTS Until half way, the music of the eighth symphony is mostly free and experimental, but the options dwin- While composing his operas, Aulis dle as the work proceeds. When the Sallinen was quietly developing as a themes and “blocks” reappear, relations symphonist. Now with eight sympho- between them become strained, and nies under his belt, he has taken a liberal by the time the symphony reaches its attitude to the genre while yet remain- climax, it has entered the very heart ing aware of the demands of motivic of darkness. Even the tinkling bells are development and discipline. He com- buried beneath the gloomy strings and pleted his eighth symphony, Autumnal timpani. Darkness covers the earth. Fragments, in 2001. Having composed an opera (King Lear, 1999) and a sym- Antti Häyrynen phony (his 7th, 1996) inspired by ex- ternal stimuli, he felt the need to write JEAN SIBELIUS some music that was purely instru- (1865–1957): SONGS. mental, to forget the rest of the world and concentrate solely on the music, as ORCHESTRATIONS BY he wrote in February 2001. AULIS SALLINEN The symphony combines two con- trasting elements: one that is frag- The poetry of Johan Ludvig Runeberg mentary and sketchy, and one that (1804–1877) meant much to Jean maintains a symphonic discipline and Sibelius. For it shows the Finns in a ro- coherence. There is also a third, au- mantic, primordial light, in a state of tumnal, element prompted by both the innocence in which man exists in har- composer’s age and the symphony’s mony with nature and its rhythms and completion in October 2001. Indeed, understands its language. the symphony is just as topical to- Sibelius himself orchestrated many day, as the shadowof the events of 11 of his songs and approved of the or- September 2001 is just as deep now, in chestral transcriptions and key chang- late autumn 2015. es made by others. Written into the Though cast in a single movement, piano parts of many of the songs are the symphony falls into two sections: a orchestral effects, such as the arpeggi- deep-breathing slow one and a playful os that begin Jägargossen (The Young scherzo. One of the melodic elements Huntsman); these Aulis Sallinen has is the “Theme of the Dead” that always assigned to wind instruments. Rugged appears in connection with death in textures accompany the huntsman as the opera Kullervo. The tinkling “bell he sets his sights on black grouse, wil- 2 low grouse and hazel grouse and re- tion (Andantino, ad libitum). The harp grets his failure to catch something punctuates the song as would a teller even more precious – a sweetheart of of tales, and the yearning for long, light his own. summer days causes the orchestra to The message borne by the North burst into flower. But the second verse Wind in Hennes budskap (Her Message) reverts to pessimism and loneliness. is icy, as flute, clarinet and strings trace Kyssens hopp (The Kiss’s Hope, frosty flowers round the voice. The Runeberg) represents the romantic melody seems almost to stagger to its dreams of the young Sibelius, painting culmination (Ve mig, edsförgätna), to an a picture in pastel shades of a kiss the awareness of old age, of broken prom- singer does not wish to risne away with ises and lost love. wild strawberries or spring water. The The Op. 88 “Flower Songs” were com- harp, solo and divided strings capture posed in 1917 for the dwindling vo- the erotic vibes of the piece. cal resources of Ida Ekman, an untir- Runeberg’s Under strandens granar ing champion of Sibelius’s music. The (Under the Fir Trees) is like an epic bal- poems by Franz Michael Franzén and lad, a folktale in which a water sprite Runeberg use flowers as metaphors entices a boy and then his mother into for the early Romantic awareness of the watery depths. Sibelius’s piano ac- nature. In De bägge rosorna (The Two companiment, with its trills and trem- Roses), to words by Franzén, the rose olos, is like the miniature score of an is the personification of beauty from orchestral work. Sallinen makes use of whom even the sky borrows colours. this, beginning with French horns that, Sibelius’s melody is apprehensive- with the strings, tower like mighty fir ly melancholy and Sallinen’s choice of trees by the lake. The song has some- strings to express it emphasises the thing of the horror romanticism and transitory nature of beauty. mysticism (harp) of Schubert’s Erlkönig. Sippan (The Primrose, Runeberg) Carl Snoilsky was a Swedish noble- shivers in the chilly early spring, but man, diplomat and director of the Sallinen also captures the song’s light- Royal Library. His poem Dold förening ly flirting tones. The beauty of the (Hidden Connection) demonstrates primrose fades, says the song, when the underwater network of a water plucked, but nothing can cool the ar- lily. It is a phenomenon also taken up dour of the narrator. by Kaija Saariaho in her string quar- Men min fågel märks dock icke (But tet Nymphea, but Sibelius uses it to my Bird is Nowhere to be Seen) once create an amorous vignette. Sallinen’s again describes the child of nature in orchestra ripples lightly and the sing- love, watching out for signs of spring. er shows how beauty is born of hidden The swan, goldeneye, lark and curlew motivic connections. have already arrived, but not my bird. The flocks of migrating birds inevita- Antti Häyrynen bly keep the woodwinds busy as they prepare the way with a short introduc- 3 SEBASTIAN day and distant worlds. Stone is often thought of as a dead substance, but FAGERLUND (1972–): in the music of Fagerlund it lives and STONEWORK pulses and generates seamless conti- nuity. Sebastian Fagerlund has rapidly be- Fagerlund alternates, overlaps and come a front-line contemporary mixes his motifs into a convoluted Finnish composer of international re- shape that finally builds up to a wild, nown. He studied with Erkki Jokinen at fortissimo climax. In the last bars the the Sibelius Academy, receiving his di- music dissolves into a void, as if to ploma in composition in 2004. remind us that geological history is Stonework (2015) was commissioned much, much longer than the story of jointly by the Bergen and Tampere mankind. Philharmonic Orchestras to mark the 250th anniversary of the Norwegian Antti Häyrynen orchestra and it was premiered in Bergen with Edward Gardner conduct- ing on November 26. It was first heard in Finland in Tampere on November 27, JEAN SIBELIUS: with Santtu-Matias Rouvali conduct- TAPIOLA ing, and on the same day in Sweden during the Bergen Philharmonic’s tour to Gothenburg. Jean Sibelius was not only a great sym- Stonework is above all a feast for phonist; he was just as ambitious and a large virtuoso orchestra. Its title prolific as a composer of tone poems. has made its mark on the music. But Comparison of the one-movement sev- while works referring to stone usual- enth symphony, Op. 105 (1924) and ly concentrate on pounding percus- Tapiola, Op. 112 (1926) shows just how sions and monolithic orchestral slabs, similar these projects were. Fagerlund does not so much measure Tapiola can be said to have ended a the strength of his stone, its weight period in his output that began with and permanence. Rather, his orchestra the fifth symphony and was charac- sows the seeds of a myriad hues and terised by music that grew out of lit- features evocative silence just as much tle cells into big processes. Tapiola was as to thunder. to be Sibelius’s last work for orchestra, The opening, with robust yet war- though this was not his intention. bling wind figures serves as a reminder The three-note motif heard at the be- that stone is actually quite a malleable ginning may be evocative of rune-sing- material. Its irregular rhythms suggest ing, but it was not a primitive nature the dynamic role of stone in cultur- credo. Tapiola has also been hailed only al and military history. The Stone Age too lightly as representing present-day was a period in ancient history, but in ecological thinking, but it is not so Stonework it is also part of the present much postmodernist as modernistic. 4 All seem to agree that its motif tech- Finlandia was first heard as part of nique is “organic”, i.e. the music seems a pageant or series of tableaux de- to grow naturally out of the themes voted to Finland’s history and held in and the broader entities evolved from Helsinki in 1899.