WEDNESDAY SERIES 9 Tugan Sokhiev, Conductor Amihai Grosz
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13.2. WEDNESDAY SERIES 9 Helsinki Music Centre at 19:00 Tugan Sokhiev, conductor Amihai Grosz, viola Johannes Brahms: Haydn Variations, Op. 56a 19 min Theme. Chorale St. Antoni. Andante Variation I. Poco più animato (Andante con moto) Variation II. Più vivace (Vivace) Variation III. Con moto Variation IV. Andante con moto (Andante) Variation V. Vivace (Poco presto) Variation VI. Vivace Variation VII. Grazioso Variation VIII. Presto non troppo (Poco presto) Finale. Andante Béla Bartók: Viola Concerto 21 min I Moderato II Adagio religioso - Allegretto III Allegro vivace INTERVAL 20 MIN 1 Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68 45 min I Un poco sostenuto – Allegro – Meno allegro II Andante sostenuto III Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio – Più allegro Interval at about 19:55. The concert will end at about 21:15. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and streamed at yle.fi/areena. A recording of the concert will be shown in the programme “RSO Musiikkitalossa” (The FRSO at the Helsinki Music Centre) on Yle Teema on 17.3. and 24.3. and on Yle TV 1 on 23.3. and 30.3. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOUR MOBILE PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF! Photographing, video and sound recording are prohibited during the concert. 2 JOHANNES BRAHMS beginning with blaring fanfares. The se- venth is a swinging Siciliano with dotted (1833–1897): HAYDN rhythms and the eighth is veiled in mys- VARIATIONS, OP. 56A terious pianissimos. The finale is a set of variations in itself, built in the manner It was while Johannes Brahms was brow- of a Passacaglia on a five-bar motif in sing through the manuscripts of a few the bass and leading up to an imposing wind divertimentos thought to have climax incorporating the original chora- been composed by Joseph Haydn that le theme. his attention was caught by the second movement of one in B-flat bearing the heading “Chorale St. Antoni”. Three BÉLA BARTÓK years later, it was this theme that he (1881–1945): VIOLA used for a set of Haydn Variations he wrote for orchestra (Op. 56a) and for CONCERTO two pianos (Op. 56b). The composer of the divertimen- Like many European artists, Béla Bartók to was not, it later appeared, Haydn. It took refuge in the United States in the could have been one of his pupils, Ignaz Second World War, but unlike many oth- Pleyel, but then again, the pupil could ers, he maintained his ability to com- have borrowed it from some earlier pose despite the hardships he faced. source. He wrote the Concerto for Orchestra Like Beethoven, Brahms was a mas- – a veritable 20th-century classic – in ter of variation form. Though looking 1943, a solo violin sonata for Yehudi backwards in his choice of format, he Menuhin the following year, and during was also a pioneer in the way he han- the last years of his life composed his dled it. Sets of variations were popu- third piano concerto and drafted a vio- lar in the Classical era, but they were la concerto. When he died in New York mostly for piano or chamber ensemb- in September 1945, the piano concerto le. There had been none for orchestra was almost finished, but the viola con- apart from Salieri’s La folia di Spagna of certo was not. The solo part was all but 1815, so Brahms’s Haydn Variations mar- ready, but the orchestral part was, to ked a big step forwards. put it mildly, very sketchy in places. As if out of respect for the origi- Tibor Serly, a friend and former pu- nal wind divertimento, Brahms lets his pil of Bartók’s who was also a composer wind instruments present the chora- and played the violin and viola, took it le theme. He then subjects it to eight upon himself to fill out the viola con- variations. He colours the second and certo sketches as a work in three mo- fourth with discreet minor-key shades, vements. By 1949 he had completed makes the fifth a lively pseudo-Scherzo, his reconstruction and it was first per- and evokes a hunting spirit in the sixth, formed in 1950 with William Primrose 3 – who had originally commissioned the JOHANNES BRAHMS: concerto – as the soloist. Various others have since had a go at reconstruction, SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN C but the edition to be heard at this con- MINOR, OP. 68 cert is Serly’s. Bartók would appear to have had four The shadow of Beethoven, that great movements in mind. In August 1945, composer of symphonies, lay like a only six weeks before his death, he wro- mantle over the whole of the 19th cen- te that it would have “a serious Allegro, tury, but no one felt its weight more a Scherzo, a (rather short) slow move- heavily than Johannes Brahms. As a ment, and a finale beginning Allegretto result, he kept the genre at a respect- and developing the tempo to an Allegro ful distance for years – for decades, in molto. Each movement, or at least 3 of fact. them will, [be] preceded by a (short) re- Brahms made his first attempt at a curring introduction (mostly solo for the symphony in the mid-1850s before re- viola), a kind of ritornello.” jecting it and adapting its material for The final edition lacks the Scherzo other purposes. He embarked on a se- and the ritornello (meaning “a recurring cond, more earnest attempt in the early passage”), though the recitative-like vi- 1860s, and by summer 1862 had a ten- ola solo that begins the opening move- tative version of the first movement to ment and later becomes a recurring the- show his friends. He returned to the matic element could be a reflection of symphony in the 1870s and at last finis- the ritornello idea. The first movement hed it in autumn 1876. Even after the does not have the dramatic conflict of a premiere in Karlsruhe in November of traditional sonata-form movement, be- the same year he made some further ing relatively steady and moderate, at amendments, and not until summer times “serious”, as Bartók put it, and at 1877 was he eventually satisfied. others more optimistic. No other symphony has been so long The first movement slides without the making as Brahms’s No. 1, but then a break into the middle one marked it is also one of the finest debut sym- Adagio religioso. It passes through a phonies of all time. It continues the le- simply magical section and at the end gacy of Beethoven in many respects yet wavers between light and shade – belief is at the same time a masterpiece in a and doubt? A brief quick passage leads league all of its own. without a break to the compact finale The most apparent model and point dominated by lively folk-dance associa- of comparison is Beethoven’s fifth tions. Though looking death in the eye symphony. Like Beethoven’s “Fate”, it as he wrote it, Bartók was able, in his battles its way from the defiant C minor music, to see ahead to a brighter future. of the opening movement to a victorio- us final C major, revealing Brahms as a master of not only symphonic form but of symphonic drama as well. 4 The first movement begins with an in- TUGAN SOKHIEV troduction hewn out of granite; Brahms actually composed it after the rest of The international career of Tugan the movement. Stern and dramatic, it Sokhiev has followed a steady upward is borne along by tight-fisted rhythms, curve since the early years of the mil- one of which is the famous dot-dot-dot- lennium. He has been Music Director dash of Beethoven’s “Fate”. of the Orchestre National du Capitole The middle movements are more res- de Toulouse since 2008 and Artistic trained than the outer ones. The serene, Director of the Bolshoi Theatre, well-balanced, melodic slow one is in the Moscow, since 2014. distant key of E major. The third is of Born in North Ossetia, Sokhiev stu- the easy-going Intermezzo type favour- died with Anatoli Briskin, then with Ilya ed by Brahms in his symphonies instead Musin and Yuri Temirkanov at the St. of a Scherzo, but it has a livelier Trio Petersburg Conservatory. His debut at (middle) section. Welsh National Opera (La bohème) in The drama kicks in again after the 2002 was followed in 2003 by debuts two lighter-weight middle movements at the New York Metropolitan (Eugene with a slow introduction to the finale. Onegin) and with the Philharmonia The horns call to mind the baritone an- Orchestra in London. Next came the nouncing “O Freunde, Nicht diese Töne” Aix-en-Provence Festival (Love of Three in the last movement of Beethoven’s Oranges) in 2004 and the distinction of ninth symphony, and the impression is ‘Révélation musicale de l’année’ awar- further enhanced by the fact that the ded by the French Critics’ Union in main section begins with a hymn-like 2005. He was Music Director of Welsh tune that is only a barely-concealed al- National Opera 2004–2005, Principal lusion to the Ode to Joy of Beethoven’s Guest Conductor of Welsh National finale. Opera 2005–2008, and Principal The closing movement is a drama- Conductor and Artistic Director of the tic but victorious battle. In the coda, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Brahms further notches up the tempo. 2012–2016. Maybe the last bars reflect the euphoria In addition to his regular commit- Brahms must have felt at having finally ments, Tugan Sokhiev has guest con- completed a project that had weighed ducted many orchestras, among so heavily on him for so many years.