R E PER TOIR E TIPS Some 21st century symphonies
Swedish clarinet show
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Börtz utilises a richly coloured palette in his Twelfth Symphony, in four movements, where he effectively alternates between the large symphony orchestra and more chamber music like sections. Motoric drive, suddenly flourishing dream sequences, gongs and glockenspiel sonorities are incorporated into the music. A baritone soloist appears in the slow second movement, in which Börtz has set a poem by Kjell Espmark.
The middle movement is the heart and dynamo of this refined three-movement symphony – the sun around which the other movements revolve as planets. As work on it progressed, the materials travelled from one movement to another, leaving tracks by the wayside and setting up “colonies”. The symphony also acquired a musical narrative, or rather several, that culminate in the final bars of the last movement.
PASI LYYTIKÄINEN
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Dafgård’s chamber symphony begins with a prelude, which strikes a creepy and desolate mood that remains in the background. A lyrical cantilena that starts out in the first violins puts its imprint on the Sinfonia’s second part, after which follows a Scherzo with a virtuoso clarinet part in the leading role. The finale is divided into a slow and a fast section, and reverts to material from both the slow beginning and the rhythmically playful Scherzo.
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PEHR HENRIK NORDGREN ANDERS ELIASSON
Symphony No. 8 (2006) Dur: 25’
Symphony No. 4 (2005) Dur: 25’
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Eliasson’s fourth symphony seizes the listener by the throat, at the same time as it conveys a most singular beauty with its tenderly entreating melodic melancholy. It is music charged with energy, constantly moving forward with strong and steady force. But at the very end comes a sudden opening to something else: the symphony ebbs away in a short epilogue with a flitting solo for flugelhorn.
The whole gamut of life is woven into what was to be the last symphony by Nordgren; the expression is dream-like in places, as if reaching out into another reality. The expectant mood of the first movement, Minore, and the clock-like tick of two notes (A-F) stimulate associations with the relentless passing of time. The delicate, limpid Intermezzo leads to a movement entitled Maggiore that is full of joie de vivre and marked by a rollicking folk tune quotation.
HALVOR HAUG
SVENDAVID SANDSTRÖM
Symphony No. 4 (2001) Dur: 23’
Symphony No 3 – Kärlekens fyra ansikten (Four Faces of Love, 2006) Dur: 35’
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Haug composed his Fourth Symphony in the autumn of 2001, deeply affected by the events of 9/11. The symphony, conceived in one single movement, expresses sadness, anxiety and powerlessness, but Haug also wants the listener to perceive the feeling of hope that is concealed in the music. The end is quite lovely when Haug lets the bells sound over a soft carpet of strings. The symphony is dedicated to “all innocent victims of terrorism around the world”.
HARRI VUORI Symphony No. 2 (2007) Dur: 38’
HIGHLIGHTS
4/2013
In Tobias Broström´s Samsara we are immersed in a floating state, lyrically shimmering, rhythmically exuberant, where we never reach firm ground…The concluding Cello Concerto offers a darker, more dramatic sound palette. The finale is quite in the manner of Sibelius, with its glittering French horn part emerging out of the energetic whirlpool of strings. Topnotch! Dagens Nyheter 11.9.
Hakola uses the symphony orchestra cleverly, colourfully and dramatically…the music may also be thought of as a fairly independent concert piece inspired by a film. Helsingin Sanomat 13.10. A successful investment by the RSO culminating in a way that is spectacular to say the least. The score is fearlessly melodic, rich in timbres and where nec-
Tobias Broström: Samsara, Cello Concerto CD: Västerås Sinfonietta/Johannes Gustavsson, Hugo Ticciati, Johan Bridger, Mats Rondin (dBCD154)
essary decorated in folk style, lyrically sensitive or dramatically expressive – whatever the moment demands. Hufvudstadsbladet 13.10. Kimmo Hakola: Music for the silent film Tukkijoella World premiere: Finnish RSO/Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 11.10.2013 Helsinki, Finland
Olli Kortekangas: Seven Songs for Planet Earth Finnish premiere: Tampere PO, Tampere Philharmonic Choir/Jani Sivén, sol. Tuija Knihtilä, Aarne Pelkonen, 13.9.2013 Tampere, Finland
Pettersson x 2 in Norrköping
Angels and furies The most gorgeous piece of the evening was Kimmo by recently deceased Anders Eliasson. Six percussionists filled the auditorium with angels and furies. In the slow middle movement the trumpet stood out like a sorrowfully singing Orpheus, before the third movement´s journey into the percussionists´ paradise where the blissful trumpet was welcomed by three pairs of cymbals. Sydsvenskan 28.10.
Emotional power in Haglund’s Trio
Work by Heiniö the highlight of a choral disc
There is a heartrending beauty in Haglund’s vibrant music that sometimes makes you feel the need to hold onto something. But in the new string trio this has evolved into the form of a healing process of mourning… The emotional power was at least as compelling. Dagens Nyheter 13.11.
Mikko Heiniö’s 18-minute Maria Suite is the highlight of the disc… Heiniö, 65, is 20 years younger than Einojuhani Rautavaara but has much in common with his older colleague, not least an interest in language… The esoteric, dissonant harmonies and the slow tempos evoke also associations with Rautavaara… Åbo Underrättelser 23.10.
Tommie Haglund: String Trio - Sollievo (dopo la tempesta) World premiere: Trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen, 11.11.2013 Stockholm, Sweden
Anders Eliasson: Kimmo Håkan Hardenberger, Bridger & Friends, 25.10.2013 Malmö, Sweden Benjamin Staern in Helsinki
The world of sound seems to be as diversified and beautiful for Kortekangas as nature itself. The work irradiates various delicate moments in different shades. The music proceeds naturally from classical to jazzy and even to Negro-spiritual expression, yet without being any patchwork quilt… Sowing the Seed is a magnificent kaleidoscope of notes, words and timbres. Aamulehti 15.9.
Colourful film music by Hakola
Here [Symphony No. 16] in the myriads of ideas and impulses there are more often glimpses of jazz and playfulness than of gloom and harshness, and a warm melancholy at the end where Jörgen Pettersson´s fervent tone is supported by soft strings… It [Symphony No. 4] is swarming with exquisite details of orchestration, dexterity, and the technique behind the performance is impressive. Folkbladet 6.11. Allan Pettersson: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 16 Norrköping SO/Christian Lindberg, 31.10.2013 Norrköping, Sweden
Mikko Heiniö: Maria Suite, for mixed choir CD: Key Ensemble/Teemu Honkanen (Fuga 9351)
This symphony is built around four texts by poet Ylva Eggehorn reflecting on the vicissitudes of life, the extraordinary in the ordinary. The tumultuous sound forces, violent eruptions in the percussion and densely interwoven strings, form an expressive soundscape around the sensitive, elegiac, ardent and melodious vocal part.
Symphony No. 5 (2003) Dur: 33’ The fifth symphony followed the fourth after an interval of over 30 years. The very opening already says what to expect: a true orchestral horn of plenty. Heininen describes the music as thematic-melodic, with details festooning its textural simplicity. There are studies in harmonic colour, Baroque-like allusions, and a violin in the background evoking associations with Heininen’s Violin Concerto of 1999.
Topnotch Broström
Diversity and beauty
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PAAVO HEININEN 3333-4330-14-hp-cel-str
Erkki Melartin
Rolf Martinsson: Concert Fantastique Swiss premiere: Berne SO/Rumon Gamba, sol. Martin Fröst, 10.10.2013 Berne, Switzerland
Symphony (2006) Dur: 40’ Lyytikäinen likens his first symphony to a journey: “My music is like a passing winter landscape. There are changing sound views, sometimes open fields and sometimes icy rocks.” In the focus of attention are not only stringed instruments but also French horns, which have an important role in presenting new thematic motifs. The march episodes in the second movement add Shostakovich-like irony to the vigorous music.
Erkki Melartin: Traumgesicht Finnish RSO/Hannu Lintu, 14.11.2013 Helsinki Finland
Photo: Mirjam Tally
JÖRGEN DAFGÅRD Sinfonia No. 1 (2003-2004) Dur: 21’
A consummate work and exceedingly delicate music. And with what fire and glow was it performed! Hufvudstadsbladet 17.11.
Photo: Maarit Kytöharju/Music Finland
JUHA T. KOSKINEN Symphony No. 1 (2006) Dur: 40’
A refined riot of colour by Melartin
Photo: Sami Helenius
DANIEL BÖRTZ Sinfonia 12 (2010-2011) Dur: 40’
Martin Fröst
Fröst showed off in this work that was specially written for him: from swelling crescendi to magnificent glissandi and vocal/playing passages. It put on display his whole gamut of technical skill. But mere virtuosity does not make a concert. It was the masterly fusion of the solo instrument and the ensemble that made it “Concert Fantastique”… with its at times expressionistic, at times seemingly modern sounds it made the “Première Rapsodie” for clarinet and orchestra by Claude Debussy, with all its impressionistic tone painting, seem almost colourless by comparison. Der Bund 12.10.
Photo: Mats Bäcker
REVIEWS
Lars Karlsson
Focus on Lars Karlsson
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Powerful Jubilate in Helsinki
The chords in Vuori’s second symphony are based on manipulated spectral harmonies, and the result is astoundingly bright “spatial” music. Vuori also speaks of the reconciliation of opposing worlds. The translucent, glittering harmony is offset by symphonic grandeur and spectacular orchestral effects.
In the Swedish composer Benjamin Staern´s Jubilate there is powerful energy and a lot of “go”, not unlike in the music of Magnus Lindberg and Sebastian Fagerlund. Staern writes diligently for orchestra at the same time as he keeps a firm grip on the listener thanks to his sense of dramaturgy. Hufvudstadsbladet 19.10. Benjamin Staern: Jubilate Finnish premiere: Helsinki PhO/Baldur Brönnimann, 18.10.2013 Nordic Music Days Helsinki, Finland
Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra
Puumala and Sibelius The Sibelius melodramas with a modern work by Veli-Matti Puumala in between them made an unusual programme in which compositions born of two different worlds complemented one another. Puumala convinced me already four years ago with his Memorial Fragment. Keskipohjanmaa 22.9. Veli-Matti Puumala: Rime World premiere: Ostrobothnian ChO/Tuomas Hannikainen, 20.9.2013 Kokkola, Finland
Karlsson knows how to handle a choir in an artful and firmly polyphonic way… Jaguaren is a wild work building up to a combustive and primitive witches’ dance. The surprise at the concert was the magnificent soloist Kristian Lindroos in the powerful, broodingly ecstatic Pär Lagerkvist song cycle. The two freshly refined chamber works, Arioso and Koralmetamorfoser, brought out Karlsson’s softly lyrical side. Helsingin Sanomat 10.11. Lars Karlsson: Åländsk symfoni, Tre motetter, Koralmetamorfoser, Arioso, Seven Songs to Texts by Pär Lagerkvist Jubilate/Timo Nuoranne, Akademen/Kari Turunen, Wegelius Chamber Strings/Arturo Alvardo, etc., 8.11.2013 Helsinki, Finland
HIGHLIGHTS
4/2013