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THURSDAY SERIES 9 Hannu Lintu, Conductor Jaan Ots, Assistant Conductor Kornilios Michailidis, Assistant Conductor Christoffe

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THURSDAY SERIES 9 Hannu Lintu, Conductor Jaan Ots, Assistant Conductor Kornilios Michailidis, Assistant Conductor Christoffe 21.4. THURSDAY SERIES 9 Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00 Hannu Lintu, conductor Jaan Ots, assistant conductor Kornilios Michailidis, assistant conductor Christoffer Sundqvist, clarinet Emil Holmström, piano Helsinki Music Centre Choir, coach. Tapani Länsiö Osmo Tapio Räihälä: Myriad, Yle commission) 20 min W. A. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto 30 min I Allegro II Adagio III Rondo (Allegro) INTERVAL 20 min Charles Ives: Symphony No. 4 31 min I Prelude (Maestoso) II Comedy: Allegretto III Fugue (Andante moderato con moto) IV Finale: Very slowly – Largo maestoso Interval at about 20.00. The concert ends at about 21.00. Broadcast live on Yle Teema, Yle Radio 1 and online at yle.fi/rso. 1 OSMO TAPIO RÄIHÄLÄ would not be interested by an invitation from the FRSO? Osmo Tapio Räihälä is something of an It was clear from the very outset anomaly in the Finnish composer fra- that I would write the text myself. I had ternity. He came to composing via rock enough – well, a myriad – musical ide- and has not passed through the con- as at least but no paramount idea for ventional conservatory system, though a text. I didn’t know what I wanted the he did study composition privately with choir to sing. I rejected a host of topics. Harri Vuori for a few years. The musi- It is often the case that artistic knots cal premises and material in his earli- suddenly unravel so that totally dispa- est compositions differed considerably rate ideas and characters converge from from one work to the next, but he has different directions, et voilà, they just now gradually settled for free tonality. click together as a collage. The emphasis in his output is on orches- It was thus that I found the idea for tral music, concertos, chamber and solo Myriad. If anyone asks what the text is repertoire, and he has written only a few about, I blandly reply that it’s about the vocal works. world we live in. This world is ugly and beautiful, disorganised, incredibly mul- Kimmo Korhonen (abridged) ti-layered and pluralistic; we don’t know what is genuine and what is fake; we demonstrate for and against; we hate OSMO TAPIO RÄIHÄLÄ and we love; acts of terrorism are com- (b. 1964): MYRIAD mitted and we watch the news, and all the time we have a helluva need to Scored for symphony orchestra and comment and be present. We exist only choir, Myriad literally draws on a myri- if we prove it in social media. There’s ad ideas, impulses and experiences. In too much of everything; we can’t handle 2008, I was preparing for the televis- entities; the main thing is to hang on ing of an FRSO concert in St. John’s in real time. And explaining the whole Church, Helsinki. Its broad balconies world is ultimately as absurd as a Monty and echo reminded me of Renaissance Python comedy. call-and-response singing in which vocal So the text of Myriad isn’t really about groups engage, as it were, in dialogue. anything; it is just a mood picture. A Why not make use of this sometime? I mood important to me is the hustle and mentioned it to the orchestra’s General bustle of a city. We all have our favour- Manager, Tuula Sarotie, who was sitting ite spots, and for me, that teeming me- next to me, but soon forgot about it. tropolis is Paris; again and again I find Then in June 2013, to my delight, Tuula in its pandemonium the solitude I crave, asked me whether I would still be inter- surrounded by 12 million people. I can ested in putting that idea into practice, even put up with the noise, including for the conditions in the Helsinki Music the din of the garbage truck that shat- Centre hall were just right. And who ters my morning sleep. I find compen- 2 sation for its noise and pollution in its W.A. MOZART cafés, where I can admire the elegance of Paris and the Parisians. (1756–1791): CLARINET In autumn 2014, I was staying in the CONCERTO artist’s residence at the Baroque Schloss Wiepersdorf in Eastern Germany, sweat- Mozart wrote his Clarinet Concerto for ing over the forceps delivery of my text. his friend Anton Stadler, who gave it its To pass the time, I was watching the first performance in Prague in October film Pierrot le fou directed by Jean-Luc 1791, while playing in the performances Godard in 1965, when all of a sudden there of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. lines began to drop straight into my Mozart had included some magnificent work. It’s mad how the quotations from clarinet solos in his opera, especially for a text originally written back in 1962 de- Stadler, and his friend’s sensitive com- scribe our time – more than 50 years mand of his instrument had earlier pro- later. The same trick would soon be car- vided the stimulus for such works as the ried off by Federico Fellini in Satyricon Kegelstatt Trio (1786) and the Clarinet (1969). Quintet (1789). The clarinet was still a Plans seldom materialise as such. The relatively new instrument, and it was composition initially inspired by call- Stadler who inspired Mozart to com- and-response singing ended up being pose the first real masterpieces in what more of a work for large symphony or- would one day become the basic clari- chestra and choir, and the lines of text net repertoire. constitute only a small, though very The Mozart Clarinet Concerto is mu- theatrical and undoubtedly memorable sic of unique beauty and poesy in part of the composition. which sorrow and joy, light and shad- And the music of Myriad? ow are inextricably woven together in Unfortunately I cannot describe it in a softly glowing world. To underline words, so perhaps you’d best listen to it this silky softness, Mozart omitted the for yourself and let your senses and im- sharpest-sounding instruments, oboes, agination run free! from his wind section. The solo part, with its quick shifts from one regis- Osmo Tapio Räihälä ter to another, makes effective use of the instrument’s range, yet despite the challenges it poses, the ornamenta- tion does not veer towards superficial brilliance. The exquisitely soulful melo- dies coat everything in a golden sheen. Stylistically, the Concerto represents the simplicity and clarity, yet also the re- fined tone of Mozart’s late years. The first movement is a good exam- ple of Mozart’s distinctive concerto style 3 in which the relationship between solo- formed in its entirety until 1965. By that ist and orchestra is one of seamless mu- time he had been dead for 11 years, and tual understanding; the impression is roughly half a century had passed since more of a civilised conversation than of it was written. He composed most of it the turbulent drama demanded by later between 1910 and 1916, but it is based concerto ideals. The matchless Adagio on material dating from 1898–1911 that is one of the most moving and most af- he also used in several other works. The fecting of all Mozart’s slow movements, second movement, Comedy, was not simultaneously both serene and pro- written until later, however, and was found, happy and sad. While the finale probably among the last things he com- seems outwardly to be lively and flow- posed, in 1924. ing, its many dips into minor keys give The Symphony has four movements, the mood a veiled wistfulness all of its but there the similarities with the tradi- own. tional symphony format end. The large orchestra is supplemented in the out- Kimmo Korhonen (abridged) er movements by a mixed choir, and the orchestra itself has its own odd- ities, such as two saxophones, an or- CHARLES IVES gan, a solo piano, and a piano that can (1874–1954): produce quarter-tones. From time to time Ives also exploits the spatial di- SYMPHONY NO. 4 mension by using smaller, individual in- strumental groups. The juxtaposed mu- The career of US composer Charles sics, with their independent rhythms Ives is one of the most remarkable in and time signatures pose a challenge the history of music. He was a success- of their own in performance; hence ful full-time businessman and found- Stokowski had two assistant conduc- er of one of the biggest US insurance tors at the premiere performance. The companies. Meanwhile, almost hidden fairly short Prelude is dominated by the from the public eye, he was composing hymn Watchman, Tell us of the Night, but a large number of often astoundingly this is not the only hymn tune. The sec- modern works that were not discovered ond, “Comedy” movement is the most until years after he gave up composing complex in structure, with overlapping in around the mid-1920s. In 1947 he was and often almost chaotic layers, but it awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize for also has its quieter moments. The com- his third Symphony – more than four plexity of the second movement is off- decades after it was written. set by the third, a stately fugue on two The fourth Symphony is one of the hymn tunes. Ives considered the deeply greatest monuments in Ives’s oeuvre. spiritual finale the best music he ever He only ever heard two of its move- composed. ments performed, in New York in 1927, and the complete work was not per- Kimmo Korhonen (abridged Prog- ramme notes translated by Susan Sinisalo 4 HANNU LINTU Sallinen’s King Lear.
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