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13 February THurSDay SerIeS 7Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00
Mario Venzago, conductorPaul Lewis, piano
Arthur Honegger: Symphony No. 3 30 min (Symphonie liturgique) I
Dies irae (Allegro marcato) II De profundis clamavi (Adagio) III
Dona nobis pacem (Andante)
INTERVAL 20 min
W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto 32 min No. 25 in C Major KV 503
I Allegro maestosoII Andante III Allegretto
Maurice Ravel: La Valse, 15 min a choreographic poem for
orchestra
(Mouvement de valse viennoise – Un peu plus modéré – Premier
mouvement – Assez animé)
Interval at about 19.40. The concert ends at about 21.05.
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arTHur HONeGGer (1892–1955): SyMPHONy NO. 3(SyMPHONIe
LITurGIQue)
arthur Honegger, who initially re-garded himself as a composer
of pure, absolute music, deviated from this ideal in his Symphonie
liturgique of 1946. Composed at the end of the Second World War, it
superimposes elements in the nature of a chorale or a prayer on
brutally aggressive ma-chine-like music. The movements are named
after the parts of the Catholic Mass: Dies irae (Day of Wrath), De
pro-fundis clamavi (Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O
Lord) and Dona no-bis pacem (Grant us peace). In his sym-phony,
Honegger sought to express revolt against the tumult of the mod-ern
world – the suffering, increasing bureaucracy and
mechanisation.
The first movement could be de-scribed as a mechanical,
hammering play with rhythm in which the theme presented on the
cellos is evocative of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The
heart-rending melodic motifs on brass instru-ments in various
combinations paint a picture of the hypnotic chaos of the modern
world.
The second movement opens in warm, caressing string tones. The
woodwinds and a muted trumpet add shades of their own to the
pastoral mood. Honegger said he wanted the movement to have a rich,
lush, free-breathing melodic line that symbolised happiness.
Setting out on the orchestra’s lowest notes, the third movement
presents a rhythmic melody, first on the bassoons, then the
trombones and trumpets. a French horn comments on this melodic
relay in ominous tones. The trills, chro-matic plunges and
polytonality create a tension that is not resolved until the very
end. The tonal weave is made all the more aggressive by the trumpet
sounds familiar from jazz. The sym-phony ends with a slow, calm,
string carpet of sound coloured by a warbling flute reminiscent of
a tin whistle.
Sanna Qvick (abridged)
W. a. MOZarT (1756–1791): PIaNO CONCerTO NO. 25
In 1786, Wolfgang amadeus Mozart composed his biggest and most
bril-liant Piano Concerto: no. 25 in C major (KV 503). He
personally performed it for the last time in 1787, and for a long
time thereafter it lay forgotten. The next performance was not
until 1934, by which time 147 years had passed; and Mozart did not
really become fash-ionable until the latter half of the 20th
century. Since the Second World War, this majestic concerto has
been re-cognised as one of the great master-pieces of its genre,
occupying an estab-lished place in the concert repertoire.
The solemn, resonant nature of the concerto is evident from the
very first great, fanfarish chords that lend the
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first movement a march-like, even mil-itary bearing. The second
movement, though marked Andante, is more of a tranquil Adagio. It
resembles sonata form without a development section and the music
flows freely along.
The concerto culminates in a rondo brimming with Mozartian
ingenuity and genius. The dancing main theme is borrowed from the
opera Idomeneo, set in ancient Greece, he had com-posed five years
before. Despite the general heroic and jubilant mood, Mozart
inserts a serious dialogue be-tween the piano and the orchestra by
way of contrast. all of a sudden the music radiates the fragile
beauty and fleetingness of life. Joy alternates with pain until
Mozart returns his listener to the Gavotte theme borrowed from
Idomeneo to bring the concerto to a happy and glorious end in a
cheerful C major.
Jesse Portti (abridged)
MaurICe raVeL (1875–1937): La VaLSe
Maurice ravel intended La Valse as a tribute to the Waltz King
Johann Strauss II who had died seven years be-fore. His beautiful
idea was to compose a sort of choreographic poem and to raise a
toast to the Viennese waltz.
He was, however, interrupted by the First World War and service
at the front. The man who returned home was sick and exhausted, his
nerves in
shatters, and for a while he concentrat-ed on mourning his dead
colleagues. The idea of glorifying the Viennese waltz also seemed
alien in the new postwar world. When he did return to his Valse, he
painted it in much more sombre tones. It first appeared in
ar-rangements for solo piano and for two pianos; the latter he
premiered in Vienna in October 1920, partnered by pianist-composer
alfredo Casella. The orchestral version was first heard in Paris a
few weeks later.
La Valse reveals both ravel’s impres-sionist mindscape and his
phenomen-al powers of orchestration. It begins with an ominous
rumble on the bass-es. Soon, little hints of the waltz theme join
them on various instruments, but the fragments soon merge with the
heaving mass of sound. Finally, at first tentatively, the waltz
grows to full strength. La Valse is a deliberate traves-ty of a
Viennese waltz. It is packed with dissonances, fragments and
instabil-ity. as the end approaches, the sound waves raise, like a
storm, the tension into a noisy, despairing turmoil, and the final,
fatal blows fall, unexpectedly, from somewhere outside the
waltz.
Helena Holsti (abridged)
The programme notes were written in collaboration with students
of musicology at the University of Turku.
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MarIO VeNZaGO
The distinguished career of Swiss conductor Mario Venzago has
in-cluded engagements with the berlin Philharmonic, the Munich
Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the London Philharmonic, the
Melbourne Symphony, the boston Symphony and many other great
or-chestras. He has also been a guest at the Salzburg and Lucerne
Festivals.
Honorary Conductor of the basel Symphony Orchestra, Chief
Conductor of the bern Symphony and Principal Conductor of the
Northern Sinfonia Newcastle, Venzago is Principal Guest Conductor
of the Staatsphilharmonie rheinland-Pfalz and “Schumann Guest
Conductor” of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra.
Venzago’s varied discography has earned him several major
awards, in-cluding the Grand Prix du Disque, the Diapason d’Or and
the edison Prize. He has recorded the complete symphonic works of
Schumann, Nono and ravel with the basel Symphony Orchestra and all
the orchestral works by alban berg with the Gothenburg
Symphony.
PauL LeWIS
british pianist Paul Lewis is known es-pecially for his
performances and re-cordings of beethoven’s sonatas, con-certos and
Diabelli Variations. In 2010, he was the first pianist in the
history
of the bbC Proms to perform all five beethoven piano concertos
in a sin-gle season. Over the past two years he has appeared at
such prestigious con-cert halls and festivals as the Lucerne Piano
Festival and London’s Wigmore Hall, where he has appeared on more
than 60 occasions. His most recent and forthcoming engagements
include per-formances with the London Symphony and the London
Philharmonic, the amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New york
and Los angeles Philharmonics and the NHK Symphony from Tokyo. He
can also be heard in solo recitals at the royal Festival Hall in
London, the berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein and
Konzerthaus, and the Toppan Hall in Tokyo.
Paul Lewis has been the recipient of many prestigious
distinctions, among them a Diapason d’Or, edison and Gramophone
awards.
THe FINNISH raDIO SyMPHONy OrCHeSTra
The Finnish radio Symphony Orchestra (FrSO) is the orchestra of
the Finnish broadcasting Company (yle). Its missi-on is to produce
and promote Finnish musical culture and its Chief Conductor as of
autumn 2013 is Hannu Lintu.
The radio Orchestra of ten players founded in 1927 grew to
symphony or-chestra strength in the 1960s. Its previo-us Chief
Conductors have been Toivo
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Haapanen, Nils-eric Fougstedt, Paavo berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif
Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Sakari Oramo. The FrSO has two
Honorary Conductors: Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Sakari Oramo.
The latest contemporary music is a major item in the repertoire
of the FrSO, which each year premieres a number of yle commissions.
another of the orchestra’s tasks is to record all Finnish
orchestral music for the yle ar-chive. During the 2013/2014 season
it will premiere six Finnish works commis-sioned by yle.
The FrSO has recorded works by eötvös, Nielsen, Hakola,
Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, Kokkonen and others, and
the debut disc of the opera aslak Hetta by armas Launis. Its
discs have reaped some major distinc-tions, such as the bbC
Music Magazine award and the académie Charles Cros award. The disc
of the Sibelius and Lindberg violin concertos (Sony bMG) with Lisa
batiashvili as the soloist recei-ved the MIDeM Classical award in
2008, in which year the New york Times chose the other Lindberg
disc as its record of the year.
The FrSO regularly tours to all parts of the world. During the
2013/2014 sea-son it will be visiting Central europe un-der the
baton of Hannu Lintu.
all the FrSO concerts both in Finland and abroad are broadcast,
usually live, on yle radio 1. They can also be heard and watched
with excellent stream qua-lity on yle.fi/klassinen.