16 JANUARY FRIDAY SERIES 6 Helsinki Music Centre at 19
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16 JANUARY FRIDAY SERIES 6 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 Hannu Lintu, conductorBoris Berezovsky, piano Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G 22 min I Allegramente II Adagio assai III Presto INTERVAL 20 min Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor 70 min I Trauermarsch II Stürmisch bewegt, mit grösster Vehemenz III Scherzo IV Adagietto V Rondo–Finale Interval at about 19.30. The concert ends at about 21.15. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and the internet (yle.fi/rso). PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOUR MOBILE PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF! Photographing, video and sound recording are prohibited during the concert. 1 MAURICE RAVEL ing flash. By contrast, the idyllic middle one is not in a hurry to go anywhere. (1875–1937): PIANO Instead, Ravel lets the gloriously peace- CONCERTO IN G ful music flow endlessly onwards, un- impeded. The touchingly sustained in- Ravel completed the second of his two timacy nevertheless never lets up, so piano concertos, that in G, in 1931. To a that this movement, too, gives an im- great extent he had composed the two pression of being succinct and of giv- side-by-side. He was working on the ing all trivialities a wide berth. G-major one when Paul Wittgenstein The first movement offsets a perky, commissioned the concerto for the left motoric texture with calmer mate- hand. Ravel was moved to compose rial and infinitely charming echoes of this curiosity first, and only then did he blues. The structures are as clear as finish off the G-major. can be, and the listener has no diffi- Being an incurable perfectionist, culty following the sudden twists, with- Ravel was a slow composer. He grum- out any fear of falling by the wayside. bled about this on a number of oc- The slow movement begins with a sus- casions and said he envied the “re- tained melody on the piano alone. As ally great composers” who wrote with his model for this, Ravel said he took ease and produced many works. The the main theme of the slow movement G-major concerto was again a hard nut of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, keeping for him to crack, though it is impossible closely to it, bar for bar. The relation- to imagine anything checking the flow ship is, however, more of a spiritual of his invention. He probably just spent one, so it is pointless trying to spot any an inordinate amount of time and en- melodic similarities. The landscape ac- ergy polishing the details to perfection, quires more colours when the orches- note for note and bar by bar. The so- tra enters, but the mood remains un- loist at the premiere was Marguerite broken. The finale is a jubilant toccata Long, who would become one of the akin to a perpetuum mobile, and short. most brilliant and most colourful Ravel It is in fact so short that at one time it specialists. She gave the concerto its became the custom to play it again at first performance in January 1932 with concerts as an encore, but this is sel- the Orchestre Lamoureux conducted dom done these days. by Ravel, and followed it with a tight- scheduled tour of twenty cities. In each, the concerto was a tremendous success and it immediately won lasting world renown. The concerto’s most unusual feature is the relative lengths of the move- ments. Both the quick ones are short, the finale even passing in an astonish- 2 GUSTAV MAHLER magnificent feat, but it enjoys special status by virtue of its taut but reward- (1860–1911): ing psychological treatment. SYMPHONY NO. 5 The third section begins with the wonderful Adagietta also known as a Mahler composed his fifth symphony separate concert number, an enjoya- in 1901–1902 and conducted its pre- ble respite scored for strings and harp. miere in Cologne in 1904. His busy con- Idyllic yet full of yearning, it is followed ducting schedule left him little time for by a relatively cheerful, lusty finale. composing except in the summer, and When it begins, the pieces of the jig- as the long opera seasons eased off, he saw have only just been scattered on acquired a quite manic zest for work. the floor: motifs leap up and shoot off He rented a house on Lake Wörther here and there. But before long, the and turned one of the sheds into a picture starts to take shape, and the place where he could compose round dominant impression is one of forging the clock without being disturbed. ahead. Once again Mahler nevertheless The symphony is in five movements twists things round and the question but falls into three main sections, remains: was it actually real, and if it the first and third each comprising was, what was it? two movements with an independ- ent scherzo in between. The first be- Jouni Kaipainen (abridged) gins with a solemn Funeral March. It was prompted by a childhood memory of a barracks fanfare and sounds; the gloomy tread of the funeral march is HANNU LINTU soon tinged with other emotions. The sweeping movement does, howev- Hannu Lintu took over as Chief er, cover life’s whole spectrum in true Conductor of the Finnish Radio Mahlerian style. “My symphonies rep- Symphony Orchestra in August 2013. resent the contents of my entire life; Formerly Artistic Director of the I have written into them all my expe- Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and rience and all my suffering,” he pro- Chief Conductor of the Helsingborg claimed. Symphony Orchestra, he has also The second section (i.e. the third been Principal Guest Conductor of the movement) is one of the biggest and RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in most peculiar scherzos ever composed. Dublin. He works regularly with the Saying that it mainly consists of two Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and was dances in triple time, a Ländler and a Artistic Director of its Summer Sounds waltz, does not even begin to describe festival in 2005. it. For it is a staggering fantasia, a In addition to conducting the leading nervy, thematically brilliant and crazy. Finnish orchestras, Maestro Lintu As a piece of counterpoint alone it is a has made guest appearances with 3 the Radio Orchestras in Berlin, Paris, BORIS BEREZOVSKY Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Amsterdam and Madrid, with a number of orchest- ras in North and South America (such Boris Berezovsky has established a rep- as the Toronto, Houston, Baltimore, utation both as a great virtuoso and as Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis a musician of unique sensitivity. Born Symphony Orchestras, and the Los in Moscow, he studied at the Moscow Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze. Bowl), in Asia (Seoul, Tokyo, Kuala Subsequent to his London debut at the Lumpur and Hong Kong) and Australia Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times de- (the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony scribed him as ‘an artist of exceptional Orchestras and others). During the promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity 2012/2013 season he made his debut and formidable power’. Two years lat- with such orchestras as the London er, he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra International Tchaikovsky Competition and the BBC Scottish Symphony, in Moscow. and this season he takes up re-invi- Boris Berezovsky is regularly invited by tations to conduct the Stockholm such prominent orchestras as the Berlin, and Gothenburg Symphonies, the Munich and New York Philharmonic Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, (DSO), the Toronto Symphony and ot- the Mariinsky Orchestra, and the her orchestras. London Philharmonia. He has giv- Hannu Lintu studied the piano and en recitals at such prestigious ven- cello first at the Turku Conservatory ues as the Berlin Philharmonie, the in his native Finland and later the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam Sibelius Academy, where he also at- Concertgebouw and the Salle Pleyel in tended the conducting class taught Paris and will shortly be appearing in by Jorma Panula, Atso Almila, Eri Klas solo recitals at the Royal Festival Hall in and Ilja Musin. He has further been tu- London, the Champs-Elysées Theatre in tored by, among others, Myung Whun Paris and the Suntory hall in Tokyo. Chung at the Music Academy Siena. In Berezovsky has recorded works by 1994 he was the winner of the Nordic Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Medtner Conducting Competition and others. His recording of the Discs by Hannu Lintu have been re- Rachmaninoff sonatas won him the leased on the Ondine, Alba, Naxos, German Schallplattenkritik award and Ricordi, Claves, Hyperion and Danacord his Chopin/Godowsky disc a BBC Music labels. Many of the discs featuring him Magazine award. His recording part- as the conductor have won awards ners in chamber repertoire have includ- both at home and abroad, and his pre- ed Vadim Repin and the Borodin String miere recording of the opera The Mine Quartet. by Einojuhani Rautavaara was nomina- Boris Berezovsky is Artistic Director ted for a Grammy. of the Pianoscope Beauvais Festival. 4 THE FINNISH Ligeti, Eötvös, Nielsen, Hakola, Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, Kokkonen RADIO SYMPHONY and others, and the debut disc of the ORCHESTRA opera Aslak Hetta by Armas Launis. Its discs have reaped some prestigious The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra distinctions, such as the BBC Music (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish Magazine Award and the Académie Broadcasting Company (Yle). Its mis- Charles Cros Award. The disc of the sion is to produce and promote Finnish Sibelius and Lindberg violin concertos musical culture and its Chief Conductor was Gramophone magazine’s Editor’s as of autumn 2013 is Hannu Lintu. The Choice in February 2014.