2 NOVEMBER FRIDAY SERIES 5 Helsinki Music Centre at 7 Pm
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2 NOVEMBER FRIDAY SERIES 5 Helsinki Music Centre at 7 pm Hannu Lintu, conductor Benjamin Schmid, violin Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 in A Minor, Op.63 37 min I Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio II Allegro molto vivace III Il tempo largo IV Allegro INTERVAL 20 min György Ligeti: Violin Concerto 30 min I Praeludium II Aria – Hoquetus – Chorale III Intermezzo IV Passacaglia V Appassionato Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 in C Major, Op.52 30 min I Allegro moderato II Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto III Moderato – Allegro (ma non tanto) Interval at about 8.00 pm. The concert proper ends at about 9.00 pm. THE LATE-NIGHT CHAMBER-MUSIC concert will follow in the Concert Hall after an interval of about 10 minutes. Those attending are asked to take (unnumbered) seats in the stalls. 1 Jean Sibelius: String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 56, “Voces Intimae” 31 min I Andante – Allegro molto moderato II Vivace III Adagio di molto IV Allegretto (ma pesante) V Allegro New Helsinki Quartet: Petri Aarnio, violin Taija Angervo, violin Ilari Angervo, viola Joel Laakso, cello Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and the Internet (yle.fi/rso) and shown on Yle Teema on 12 January 2013. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOUR MOBILE PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF! Photographing, video and sound recording are prohibited during the concert. 2 JEAN SIBELIUS and importance before finally “giving in” and vanishing, lost in sorrow, into (1865–1957): the deepest recesses of the mind. Yet SYMPHONY NO. 4 the symphony as a whole makes an ex- tremely balanced, classical impression Jean Sibelius put the finishing touches that is, if anything, underlined by the to his Symphony No. 4 in A Minor only absence of big, romantic gestures. a couple of days before it was due to be performed at the Helsinki University Hall on 3 April 1911. Composing it had proved both difficult and laborious; his GYÖRGY LIGETI diaries tell of a gargantuan struggle (1923–2006): to realise his vision. The fourth is the most serious of the Sibelius sympho- VIOLIN CONCERTO nies, the most introverted and deep- delving. There are virtually no signs of The son of a Jewish family in the the attempts to woo and please the lis- Hungarian region of what is now tener familiar from many of his other Romania, György Ligeti is undoubted- works. This does not, of course, mean ly one of the best-known composers that it lacks incomparable beauty, for of the latter half of the 20th century. there are moments of fleeting, vision- His music is a heterogeneous mixture like ideas that soar to heavenly heights. of ideas plucked from many quarters, But this beauty is of an introspective from the Renaissance to the present nature and the message is aphoristic, day, Romanian folk music to the mu- so that the “narrative” unfolds only af- sic of the Congo Pygmies and West ter considerable searching. The audien- African drumming, from pre-Classical ce at the time must indeed have been composers to Stockhausen and Boulez, bewildered, as indeed have subsequent and from archaic folklore to fractal generations, for the symphony’s inner- mathematics. most essence is not readily revealed. Tonight’s audience may well ask what By “innermost essence” I mean the Ligeti’s Violin Concerto is doing in the symphony’s classic quality. The form company of Sibelius’s Symphonies 3 & of each movement has its own unique 4. The most obvious answer is that all features: the first strong compression three works caused their composers by “telescopic” means, the second a vi- more than the usual headache. olent, lasting shift in mood from light In Ligeti’s case, it all began with the to heavy or fairylike to demonic, the Horn Trio of 1982, which had been pre- third aphoristic purring with the only ceded by a long period of silence. At theme not presented until the end, its rehearsal Saschko Gawriloff, an ac- and the fourth a span that is in every quaintance from Ligeti’s Darmstadt sense unusual and in which the various days, cautiously enquired whether elements vie with one another in size Ligeti might be prepared to compose 3 him a violin concerto. Many years were, JEAN SIBELIUS however, to pass before the work was forthcoming, and even then, the final (1865–1957): version was nothing like the first. The SYMPHONY NO. 3 concerto was premiered in June 1993. Naturally the soloist was Gawriloff, and Sibelius coined one of his subsequent- Pierre Boulez conducted the Ensemble ly “classic” expressions in describing intercontemporain. his third symphony as “the crystallis- The BBC’s Stephen Johnson descri- ation of chaos”. Erik Tawaststjerna in- bed the concerto as “a kind of cornu- terpreted this as meaning the crys- copia of effects and techniques, a wild tallisation of the idea of the classical collage of atmospheres and colours”. symphony from the relative chaos of In this respect it is typical late Ligeti: Late Romanticism. One thing is cer- a bold, inventive and clever combinati- tain: the third symphony is far more on of diverse elements. The first move- classical than the first two, yet at the ment is a prelude (Praeludium). It relies same time it is also (especially the fi- on string flageolet notes that are not nale) the most modern of the three. often used because in order to produ- The crystallisation is manifest at seve- ce them, the strings have to be re-tu- ral levels. ned. The second movement combines The first movement is the most clas- a melody played on the violin’s lowest sical. It has parallels in the clear-cut string (G), the late-medieval “hoquetus” opening Allegros of Haydn, Mozart technique of Guillaume de Machaut, and the young Beethoven, but it dif- and one of the most unusual chorales fers from theirs in its key relationships. ever to be composed. Ocarinas even Towards the end, the nature of the mu- have a hand in it! The third movement sic changes, when the bucolic merry- begins as if it meant to be slow, but the making gives way to pantheistic piety. basic tempo soon turns out to be su- The slow movement is a charming per-fast and seems to suck the music idyll, and one of the most beautiful in into a black hole, as it were. Following all Sibelius. In structure it is vaguely this is a passacaglia on the simplest of reminiscent of a set of variations, but themes that builds up to a radiant cli- most important is the recurring pre- max. In the finale, Ligeti further draws sentation of the delightful theme in on such sources as Indonesian music different lights. This is interrupted only and the fourth symphony by Dmitri by brief, impassioned comments from Shostakovich. the cellos. The third movement combi- nes features of a scherzo and a finale. It begins by tripping lightly along, with motifs popping up in all directions. The “finale” theme emerges almost imper- ceptibly and does not, initially, seem to be a theme at all, just some sort of 4 accompanying or counter figure. Until Orchestra. He also works regularly with at last, in comes the “crystallisation”, a the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and was hymn-like, singing and truly classical Artistic Director of its Summer Sounds melody. Towards the end Sibelius fo- festival in 2005. Discs by Hannu Lintu cuses the full spotlight on this noble have been released on the Ondine, hymn before bringing the symphony Alba, Naxos, Ricordi, Claves, Hyperion to a close in a stylistically appropriate, and Danacord labels. Major forthco- elegant manner. ming projects include recordings of the complete Mozart Piano Concertos Abridged programme notes with Angela Hewitt and the comple- by Jouni Kaipainen te Enescu Symphonies. Mr. Lintu will also be recording extensively with the FRSO. In addition to conducting the leading HANNU LINTU Finnish orchestras, Maestro Lintu has made guest appearances with Chief Conductor Designate of the the Radio Orchestras in Berlin, Paris, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Amsterdam and for a term beginning in 2013, and for Madrid, with a number of orchest- the year leading up to this its Principal ras in North and South America (such Guest Conductor, Hannu Lintu will as the Toronto, Houston, Baltimore, be continuing his fruitful collaborati- Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis on with the Finnish Radio Symphony Symphony Orchestras, and the Los Orchestra for many years to come. Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Hannu Lintu studied in the Sibelius Bowl), in Asia (Tokyo and Kuala Academy’s conducting class taught by Lumpur) and Australia (the Sydney and Jorma Panula, Eri Klas and Ilja Musin. Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and He has further been tutored by, among others). Forthcoming engagements others, Myung Whun Chung at the for the 2012/2013 season include ap- Music Academy Siena. Winner of the pearances with the Sydney Symphony Nordic Conducting Competition in Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, Bergen in 1994, he graduated from the the Minnesota Orchestra, the NDR Sibelius Academy in spring 1996. Symphony Orchestra and many of the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor BBC orchestras. of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra until spring 2013, Hannu Lintu is also Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in BENJAMIN SCHMID Dublin. Previously he had held the po- sitions of Chief Conductor of the Turku Probably one of the most versatile of Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic today’s violinists, Benjamin Schmid was Director of the Helsingborg Symphony born in Vienna and grew up in Salzburg. 5 His solo appearances have char- THE FINNISH RADIO med audiences at concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Amsterdam SYMPHONY Concertgebouw and many other or- ORCHESTRA chestras, and he is particularly famed for the extraordinarily broad range of The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra his repertoire and his distinctive musi- (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish cal style.