26 NOVEMBER THURSDAY SERIES 3 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor Kari Kriikku, clarinet Antti Auvinen: Junker Twist, (Yle commission) 10 min Unsuk Chin: Clarinet Concerto, fp in Finland 25 min I Mirage – Fanfare – Ornament II Hymnos III Improvisation on a Groove INTERVAL 20 min Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5, early version 31 min I Tempo tranquillo assai II Allegro commodo III Andante mosso IV Allegro commodo – Largamente molto Interval at about 19.50. The concert ends at about 20.55. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and online at yle.fi/rso. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOUR MOBILE PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF! Photographing, video and sound recording are prohibited during the concert. 20 ANTTI AUVINEN and love, for example, are difficult to express in words but can be processed (1974–): JUNKER TWIST in art. Art music can serve as a medium for mirroring disturbing images, in the It snarls and sighs, it twists and strains, case of Junker Twist those of violent, the floorboards thunder and the walls zealous nationalism and intolerance. come tumbling down. Such is Junker Twist: an attempt to rise above and Ville Komppa shake off the prejudices that plague us. But it is also an expression of a de- sire to break free, to establish human relationships based on equality and trust. While we can see what a pitia- UNSUK CHIN (1961–): ble wimp the zealous patriot is, we can CLARINET CONCERTO also catch a glimpse of the dignity to which he aspires in his dance without, however, achieving it. Zealous wimps A former pupil of Sukhi Kang in her na- tend to be locked in their own illusions tive South Korea and of György Ligeti and to build on them: this is reflected in Hamburg, Unsuk Chin nowadays in the rhythms, and the almost mili- lives in Berlin but does not regard her tant-sounding jerking and jarring of compositions as particularly Eastern or the angst that is caused by intolerance. Western. She has been the recipient of On the other hand, Junker Twist also such awards as the Gaudeamus Prize hints at the joy of discovery and even and the Arnold Schönberg Prize in tragicomic farce. Auvinen works with 2005, and she was the focus composer rhythms, with layered and contrasting of the 1999 Musica nova Helsinki festi- timbres. He expands his instruments val of contemporary music. outside the traditional orchestral line- The Clarinet Concerto is possibly the up, and he has studied the use of elec- most impressionistic of her concertos tronics to model potential timbres. to date. The biggest challenge was, she The human voice is filtered in Junker said, combining the inherent nature of Twist through brass instruments or the solo instrument and the orchestra. megaphones. The sounds are often “It was very difficult to create orchestral hybrid ones: hyperventilation, tension, colours that would allow the soloist to sighs. There is an element of the ex- integrate himself into a unified picture. treme in the tempos, for though a cer- If one is not careful, the clarinet occu- tain tempo is given, the piece can be pies a completely different sphere.” played faster. The first movement, the last to be According to Antti Auvinen, art, and completed, bears the title Mirage– especially art music, provides a means Fanfare–Ornament. It emerges out of of addressing fundamental questions silence, trying to coax silvery reactions of existence. Racism, violence, death and movements out of the orchestra 21 by means of multiphonics, glissandos of a surrealistic dance of death. and arabesques. Chin has likened the Before everything gets completely floating, fluttering solo clarinet to a out of hand, the solo clarinet “impro- bird. The tension then builds up to a vises” a vision of the serene bliss of the vision that erupts into fanfares of col- slow movement. The clarinet and per- ourful, solemn gestures. Left twirling cussions grow softer and softer as they in the air after the climax are figures lead the concerto to its conclusion. that are accompanied back to silence The Clarinet Concerto by Unsuk by long, radiant chords until the music Chin was a joint commission from five suddenly comes to a halt. orchestras (Gothenburg, New York, Silence is an even more integral ele- Cologne, London and Barcelona) and is ment of the slow movement, Hymnos. dedicated to Kari Kriikku. The solo clarinet presents a chorale-like theme in a delicate pianissimo, using Antti Häyrynen multiphonics to produce several notes simultaneously. The melody itself is like a message from another time or world, or maybe the subconscious. The theme proceeds like a slow pas- sacaglia and the orchestra – first a cel- JEAN SIBELIUS: lo, then the clarinets – begins to sum- SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN marise, continue and comment on the solo clarinet. The variations on the E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 86, hymn multiply and grow more aggres- 1915 VERSION sive, as in a fantastic hall of mirrors, un- til the melody returns to float in its in- The fifth symphony of Jean Sibelius itial state. A series of variously-scored has sometimes been described as a orchestral chords accompanies the so- reaction to the fourth, but this does loist at the end in Baroque spirit. not allow for the wealth of material In her Clarinet Concerto Chin points that found its way from the fourth to out the playful and ritualistic properties the fifth and especially the first ver- of her solo instrument, and these again sion of 1915. The process of compos- have a place in the quick, final move- ing his fifth symphony (1914–1919) was ment Improvisation on a Groove that to be the longest and most difficult in continues without a break. The player Sibelius’s whole career. needs to keep a cool head even though He first set to work on the fifth in the the percussions are digging out their most modern of spirits, and the result fishing tackle. The spinning rods reel was less polished than the final ver- out wild displays of virtuosity while the sion. The “leitmotiv” on French horns orchestra whips up to a fiendish whirl- and timpani which Erik Tawaststjerna pool in which Kent Nagano, conducting called a “bucolic signal” is not heard at the premiere, claimed to see features the beginning of the Tempo tranquillo 22 assai. In the final version this informs tere, lacking any nod in the direction of the listener of the two impulses that romantic nostalgia. dominate the work and functions as When Sibelius decided to revise his a sort of question to the woodwinds’ fifth symphony, first in 1916 and again “answer” that begins the 1915 version. in 1917–1919, he said he wanted to The opening is thus purely pastoral and make it more human and down-to- gives no hint of the monumental shape earth. His final solution to the finale of things to come. was longest in the making, and in 1919 The strings’ entry marks a much he confessed to having rewritten it. deeper dip into the shadows and a The finale of the 1915 version is fiercer build-up to the first climax. The much longer than the later one. The tone of the development seems more beginning is familiar, but the wood- enigmatic and mysterious. The transi- wind theme played out against the tion to the bassoon solo accompanied swaying French horn one has still not by pianissimo strings therefore feels acquired its ultimate form. The biggest natural, but the following crescendo difference is, however, the final build- with its ominously wavering chords up, which Sibelius approaches from a ends in pizzicatos that look ahead to far greater distance. It develops more the Scherzo. slowly, at times with shamanistic osti- It may seem to the listener today natos and lonely woodwind solos. that the Scherzo could carry straight The dips into grief and melancholy on from the first movement, but the dive deeper and more discordantly. The 1915 version still lacks the motivic links final climax correspondingly seems to that connect them. The marcato trum- be all the more weighed down by life. pet theme in the final version is as- The symphony ends with five chords, signed to the strings and does not give the first four linked. the Scherzo such a clear turning point. The fugato episode hints at a motivic Antti Häyrynen mosaic and the short final sprint pro- Programme notes translated (abridged) vides a sufficient climax to this sepa- by Susan Sinisalo rate Scherzo movement. The slow movement is more pol- ished and streamlined in the 1919 ver- sion, but the gradual exposition of the Andante mosso theme, the pedal points and echo effects that persist through- out the movement, and the collision with the brass sforzatos reminiscent of the fourth symphony create a more primitive impression. Sibelius later omitted some of the variations of 1915. The end of the movement is more aus- 23 JUKKA-PEKKA SARASTE An artist of exceptional versatility and breadth, Saraste feels a special af- finity with the sound and style of late Jukka-Pekka Saraste has served Romantic music. Equally, he maintains as Chief Conductor of the WDR a strong connection with the music of Symphony Orchestra, Cologne since today. He recently conducted the world 2010. He was Music Director and Chief premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s Triple Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Concerto at the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra from 2006 to 2013, and at and the world premieres of Friedrich the end of his tenure there was made Cerha’s Drei Orchesterstücke and Conductor Laureate, the very first Pascal Dusapin’s Violin Concerto at the such title bestowed by that orchestra.