30 SEPTEMBER WEDNESDAY SERIES 3 Helsinki Music Centre at 19

Transcription

1 30 SEPTEMBER WEDNESDAY SERIES 3 Helsinki Music Centre at 19 IN COLLABORATION WITH PIANOESPOO Anna-Maria Helsing, conductor Jeremy Denk, piano Franz Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No min Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2 Sz. 95 I Allegro II Adagio Presto Adagio III Allegro molto Presto 27 min INTERVAL 20 min Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op min I Largo Allegro moderato II Scherzo (Allegro molto Meno mosso Tempo 1) III Adagio IV Allegro vivace Adagio Tempo precedente 1

2 The LATE-NIGHT CHAMBER-MUSIC will follow in the Concert Hall after an interval of about 10 minutes. Those attending are asked to take (unnumbered) seats in the stalls. Jeremy Denk, piano Syncopation / Ragtime Suite (arr. Jeremy Denk) William Byrd: Ninth Pavan and Galliard in D Minor from Lady Nevell s Book William Bolcom: Graceful Ghost Rag Scott Hayden Scott Joplin: Sunflower Slow Drag Art Tatum: Tea for Two Paul Hindemith: Ragtime (from Suite 1922) Igor Stravinsky: Piano-Rag-Music Charles Ives: Ragtime Dances 3 & 4 from Four Ragtime Dances Conlon Nancarrow: Canon Donald Lambert: The Pilgrims Chorus from Tannhäuser Interval at about The concert ends at about 21.15, the late-night chamber music at about Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and online at yle.fi/rso. 2

3 FRANZ LISZT ( ): MEPHISTO WALTZ NO. 1 Johann Faust first entered world literature in 1587, in a German chapbook. Ever since then, artists have been interpreting him with unfailing intensity, but never more so than in the Romantic era. Always seeking personal advancement whatever the risks, even if it meant selling his soul to the devil (known as Mephistopheles or Mephisto for short), Faust seemed to epitomise the artist s holy destiny. In the programme issued by Liszt for his first Mephisto Waltz, the leading character is Faust, but it is the devil who is the driving force and sets the mood. Faust and Mephisto attend a wedding at a tavern. Mephisto plays the fiddle and Faust gets caught up in the dancing. That night, Faust seduces a beautiful young girl into accompanying him into the woods, where a nightingale is singing. The Waltz begins with what was in Liszt s day a bold strumming of fifths imitating the sound of Mephisto tuning his fiddle. The dancing is jagged, suggesting the devil s sly touch and fiendish magic. Faust s seduction acquires a more amorous tone as the cellos luxuriate in the mood, becoming almost grotesque as the couple slip off into the woods where, with a flute to imitate a nightingale, Liszt gives himself over to delicate, lyrical nature painting. He wrote two versions of the final section: one ending on a striking fortissimo and the other gradually dying away to pianissimo. BÉLA BARTÓK ( ): PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 The three Bartók piano concertos trace a clear arch, from the strict, rhythmically tense Modernism of the first to the softer, more balanced style of the third. The second falls somewhere in between. While playing the first, Bartók had become aware of the difficulties it posed for the player and consciously tried to make the next one simpler. And so I decided, he said, to compose my second concerto with fewer difficulties for the orchestra and more pleasant themes. This is reflected in the more noticeably Neoclassical idiom, in which some even claim to hear echoes of Bach. The powerful charge is nevertheless obvious. Right from the Allegro barbaro (1911) onwards, a wild, hammering, percussion treatment of the piano had been a feature of Bartók s keyboard style. The first concerto followed in the same vein, but the second is slightly less aggressive, though it is still forcibly assertive. The piano also assumes a clearer solo role; in the first movement, for example, it has a long cadenza something missing from the first concerto. The piano is accompanied in the first movement only by winds and percussions while the strings take a rest, then in the outer sections of the slow movements the winds are silent. The concerto observes the symmetric arch scheme characteristic of Bartók. This format is clearest in his works in five movements, such as the fourth and fifth string quartets. The second piano concerto has only three movements, 3

4 yet it nevertheless falls into five tempo zones because of the dashing, virtuoso Scherzo in the middle of the slow movement. This movement is one variation on the mysterious and in places sinister night music present in many of Bartók s works. The idea of symmetry is carried out not only in the tempo relations but also at the level of material, for the brisk finale contains flashbacks to the opening movement. SERGEI RACHMANINOFF ( ): SYMPHONY NO. 2 Rachmaninoff spent three months writing the first movement of his second symphony, but only two on all the rest. The time he took to complete the first is in a way understandable in that, being in sonata form and establishing the coordinates for the work as a whole, the first movement is often the most complex in construction. In this case the importance of the first movement is further enhanced by the fact that, in the very first bars, it presents a motto theme on the cellos and basses that will in many ways fertilise the material to come and give the symphony its underlying coherence. In the Scherzo that follows, Rachmaninoff draws on the Dies irae melody that appears in many of his major works. The movement also allows the strings to sing, and with feeling. It has none of the quieter section traditionally occupied by a Trio, and instead has a nimble, transparent episode beginning as a fugue. The slow movement indulges in some long, long melodic lines dripping with romantic sentiment and some voluptuously full-bodied textures. The violins present the opening theme, after which a solo clarinet assumes the role of lover. The finale brings the symphony to a triumphant, spirited close. Its main ingredients are a jubilant main theme incorporating a more veiled, march-like episode, and a broad, singing second theme one of Rachmaninoff s many greats. For a moment the music recalls the slow movement before the start of the development, building up to a belllike assemblage of scales falling at different speeds. At the end, the second theme is assigned an important culminating role, incorporating motifs from both the main theme and the motto. Programme notes translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo ANNA-MARIA HELSING Anna-Maria Helsing has gained an outstanding reputation with leading Scandinavian orchestras and opera houses. She studied in the classes of Leif Segerstam and Atso Almila at the Sibelius Academy in and in 2008 was chosen to take part in the Allianz International Conductor s Academy in London. From 2010 to 2013 Anna-Maria Helsing was Chief Conductor of the Oulu Symphony Orchestra. At home in Finland she has conducted such major orchestras as the Finnish Radio Symphony, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Tampere Philharmonic and the 4

5 Tapiola Sinfonietta. Abroad she has guested with, among others, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera, the Gothenburg, Iceland, Odense and Trondheim Symphonies, the Braunschweig State Orchestra and the Estonian National Symphony. Anna-Maria Helsing made her debut at the Finnish National Opera in 2008, conducting Kaija Saariaho s Adriana Mater. She has also been Assistant Conductor at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, conducted opera in Oulu, Tampere and Vaasa, and the premiere of Jukka Linkola s opera Hallin Janne with the Jyväskylä Sinfonia. Forthcoming engagements include appearances with the Stockholm Philharmonic and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, and her debut with the Norrland Opera Orchestra. In 1999, Anna-Maria Helsing won the first prize in the International Competition for 20th Century Music for Young Artists in Warsaw and in 2011 she was awarded the Louis Spohr Medal in Braunschweig. Philharmonics, the Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and London Symphonies, he has given solo recitals in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and elsewhere. Last season he began a four-season tenure as an Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and he makes regular guest appearances at many festivals, among them the Verbier, Tanglewood, Aspen and Mostly Mozart. Engagements in the 2015/2016 season include a fourteen-city recital tour of the US culminating in his return to Carnegie Hall. He will also be giving a recital tour of the UK, taking in a return to the Wigmore Hall. With an extensive discography to his name, Denk has won special acclaim for his discs of works by Charles Ives and György Ligeti. With violinist Joshua Bell he has released an award-winning album called French Impressions. His 2013 disc of Bach s Goldberg Variations shot to the top of the Billboard, New Yorker and New York Times charts. JEREMY DENK Jeremy Denk is not only one of the most interesting American pianists in the world today, and one renowned for his dazzling brilliance; he also writes columns for the New Yorker magazine, a blog, and opera librettos. In 2014 he was the recipient of Musical America s Instrumentalist of the Year award and the Avery Fischer Prize. A soloist with such orchestras as the New York and Los Angeles 5

6 THE FINNISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle). Its mission is to produce and promote Finnish musical culture and its Chief Conductor as of autumn 2013 has been Hannu Lintu. The FRSO has two Honorary Conductors: Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Sakari Oramo. The Radio Orchestra of ten players founded in 1927 grew to symphony orchestra strength in the 1960s. Hannu Lintu was preceded as Chief Conductor by Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt, Paavo Berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Sakari Oramo. In addition to the great Classical- Romantic masterpieces, 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 archive. During the 2015/2016 season it will premiere six Finnish works commissioned by Yle. The programme will also include Piano Concertos by Beethoven and Prokofiev, Symphonies by Schumann and Brahms, and Mendelssohn s oratorio Elijah. Among its guest artists will be pianists Murray Perahia, Nelson Freire and András Schiff, conductors David Zinman, Tugan Sokhiev and Manfred Honeck, soprano Karita Mattila and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. The FRSO has recorded works by Ligeti, 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 prestigious distinctions, such as the BBC Music Magazine Award, the Académie Charles Cros Award and a MIDEM Classical Award. The disc of the Sibelius and Lindberg Violin Concertos was Gramophone magazine s Editor s Choice in February The FRSO regularly tours to all parts of the world. One of the many highlights of the 2015/2016 season will be tours to Japan and Austria with conductor Hannu Lintu. The home channel of the FRSO is Yle Radio 1, which broadcasts all its concerts, usually live, both in Finland and abroad. Its concerts can also be heard and watched with excellent live stream quality on the FRSO website ( rso), and the majority of them are televised live on the Yle Teema channel. 6