Joseph Martin Kraus: Olympie, overture VB 33

Transcription

1 20.1. Temppeliaukio Church at 15:00 Meta4 Aleksei Lybimov, fortepiano Olga Pashchenko, fortepiano Finnish Baroque Orchestra Joseph Martin Kraus: Olympie, overture VB 33 Jan Ladislav Dussek: Concerto for Two Pianos I Allegro moderato II Larghetto sostenuto III Allegro moderato 7 min 34 min INTERVAL 15 min Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D I Adagio molto Allegro con brio II Larghetto III Scherzo (Allegro) IV Allegro molto 33 min The soloists will be playing a copy of a Clementi fortepiano from 1799 (made by Chris Maene, Belgium) and a copy of a Walter fortepiano from 1800 (made by Paul McNulty, Czech Republic). Interval at about 15:45. The concert will end at about 16:40. A recording of the concert will be broadcast on Yle Radio 1 on

2 JOSEPH MARTIN KRAUS ( ): OLYMPIE, OVERTURE The fine works composed by Joseph Martin Kraus in the space of his brief life well earn him a place among the composing elite of Sweden s Gustavian era beginning in Over the past few decades, the Swedish Mozart has come to be more widely recognised as one of the most original composers of his day. His music often abounds in Sturm und Drang spirit; it has certain affinities with the music of Haydn composed in the early 1770s, but it may well also have been influenced by the years Kraus spent in Göttingen, studying and consorting with young writers favouring pre-romantic trends. Kraus mainly composed operas and symphonies, but he experimented with many other formats, too. One of Kraus s Swedish partners was Johan Henric Kellgren, a poet who had studied at the Turku Academy and who supplied the texts for a number of Kraus s compositions. One of these was his adaptation of Voltaire s tragedy Olympie (1761), for which Kraus composed an overture, a march, four interludes and an epilogue. The tragedy is set in ancient Ephesus and tells of the ill-fated love between Olympie, daughter of Alexander the Great, and Cassandre, the king of Macedon. The overture has become one of Kraus s most popular pieces. It begins in the manner of a French Baroque overture with a slow introduction with sighing motifs and dotted rhythms. The quick main section is in sombre, dramatic mood into which the more lyrical second theme introduces a ray of light. At the end, the music returns to the mournful mood of the opening, underlining the play s basic tragic undercurrent. Olympie was premiered at the Dramaten Theatre in Stockholm in January 1792, only just over two months before King Gustav III was assassinated. Shortly before, Kraus had produced a setting of Bellman s poem Öfver Mozarts död (On Mozart s Death), and his own days were by then sorely numbered. He died of tuberculosis in December of that year. JAN LADISLAV DUSSEK ( ): CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS Jan Ladislav Dussek dedicated his Concerto for Two Pianos in B-flat Major, Op. 63 to the French statesman Talleyrand but actually composed it for the Prussian Prince Louis Ferdinand known to be an excellent pianist. Dussek and Louis Ferdinand were the soloists in the first performance, with a string quartet, in Rudolstadt on October 9, The following day, Louis Ferdinand led the Prussian army against the French at Saalfeld and fell on the battle field. The Dussek concerto adheres to the customary three movement format, except that it has no cadenza. The opening movement flows along without any great drama, though the modulating 2

3 twists in the development naturally provide some spice. The two pianos do not really engage in dialogue with thematic motifs of their own and instead merge as one to produce a full-bodied superpiano. All in all, the pianos give the music greater substance after the orchestral exposition, and the singing second theme adds a beautiful, romantic, minor-key sheen. The mood of the slow movement is serene and well-balanced and acquires a novel romantic gilding when the pianos join in with lyrical, poetic comments. The concerto ends with a rondo built round a light and lively theme twice interspersed with sharper episodes, the first with an almost march-like tread and the second with dramatic runs. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN ( ): SYMPHONY NO. 2 IN D Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his second symphony, Op. 36, in , at a time when he was suffering from depression caused by his encroaching deafness. In October 1802, he poured out his anguish in the famous letter he wrote (but never sent) to his brothers Carl and Johann that later became known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. In it he makes a heart-rending assessment of his very existence and even debates suicide. His anguish did not, however, find its way into his second symphony, which is full of positive energy. Many see this as proof that no direct connection exists between a composer s life and works, while others claim that, in keeping with his titanic attitude, Beethoven used music as a means of rising above his personal agony. The first movement of the symphony already shows signs of the heroic composer of the Eroica. It begins with a slow introduction that is longer and meatier than that of the first symphony (and that at its climax already casts a prophetic gaze far away to the ninth symphony). The quick section that follows grows into one of the weightiest opening movements of any symphony composed up till then. The subsidiary theme is not a singing, lighter element in the traditional manner, being a vigorous march. The development is also unusually energetic. The slow second movement, calm and easy-going though not without some darker shades in places, provides the anticipated contrast to the forthright first. In spirit, it is gently Mozartian. For the first time in the history of the symphony, Beethoven called the third movement, marked by striking contrasts, a Scherzo, though the corresponding movement in the first symphony is already very much in the nature of a Scherzo despite being titled a Minuet. Thanks to Beethoven, the Scherzo became established as an intrinsic element of the 19th-century symphony, thereby making it a weightier genre than before. In the finale, Beethoven really opens the floodgates. The defiant, capricious main theme leads the way for a move- 3

4 ment that is both boisterous and captivating yet has a touch of humour evocative of Haydn. It forges ahead through sharp twists and surprises right up to the final climax, in which the whole orchestra gets swept along in the flood. Programme notes by Kimmo Korhonen translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo META4 Formed in 2001, Meta4 is one of Finland s most renowned string quartets. Its international career was set in motion in Moscow in 2004, when it won the first prize and the special prize for the best performance of a Shostakovich work in the Dmitri Shostakovich Quartet Competition. In 2007, it went on to win the Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition in Vienna and the Finland Prize of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture in recognition of its international breakthrough. Meta4 was selected as a BBC New Generation Artist for , and in 2013 the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Fund awarded it a special prize in recognition of its work. Meta4 has an active world-wide concert schedule that has in recent years taken in such venues as the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid and the Stockholm Konserthus. At home in Finland it was Artistic Director of the Oulunsalo Soi music festival and it has been a quartet-in-residence at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival since The quartet has released three albums on the Hänssler Classic label. That of Haydn Quartets, Op. 55, 1 3 (2009) won an Echo Klassik award in 2010 and that of Shostakovich s Quartets 3, 4 and 7 (2012) the Yle Record of the Year and the Emma Classical Album of the Year awards. The most recent Meta4 disc is of Bartók s Quartets 1 & 5 (2014). Meta4 has also released a disc of chamber music by Kaija Saariaho (Ondine, 2013) and an LP of Sibelius s Voces Intimae String Quartet (Berliner Meister Schallplatten, 2013). ALEKSEI LYBIMOV Aleksei Lybimov entered the Moscow Central Music School in 1963 and was one of the last pupils of the legendary Heinrich Neuhaus. From the late 1960s onwards he gave the Soviet premieres of works by many composers, among them John Cage, Terry Riley, Stockhausen, Boulez, Webern and Ligeti. He has also performed works by recent composers from his home and neighbouring countries, such as Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Silvestrov and Pärt. Because of his performances of contemporary Western music, Lybimov was banned from travelling for many years. During that time, he studied the authentic performance of Baroque music and, with Tatiana Grindenko, established the Moscow Chamber Academy specialising in the Baroque. From

5 to 1982 he abandoned the modern piano and concentrated on studying the harpsichord and fortepiano. From the 1980s onwards, as the political climate relaxed, Lybimov was able to build up an impressive international career that has brought invitations to appear with many top orchestras, not only Russian ones but also such renowned ensembles as the Los Angeles, London, Munich and Israel Philharmonics, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. Aleksei Lybimov has an extensive discography running to dozens of titles and ranging from Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin and Brahms just as much as to contemporary repertoire. One of his most highly-acclaimed releases is his recording on the fortepiano of the complete Mozart piano sonatas. OLGA PASHCHENKO Olga Pashenko was seven when she entered the Gnesin Institute in her native Moscow and she gave her first solo piano recital in New York at the age of nine. She also studied at the Moscow Conservatory and the Sweelinck Academy in Amsterdam. Her many victories in competitions across Europe in the present decade, as pianist, fortepianist and harpsichordist, have afforded Olga Pashenko an illustrious career. She has appeared at many festivals, given solo recitals and been the soloist with orchestras in Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and elsewhere. She has been Artist in Residence at the Beethoven House in Bonn since 2014 and was Artist in Residence of the Early Music Festival Utrecht in 2014 and Olga Pashenko released her first disc, of music by Dussek, Beethoven and Mendelssohn and entitled Transitions in Her second CD (2015) contains Beethoven s Waldstein, Appassionata and Les Adieux sonatas performed on Beethoven s original Graf piano of THE FINNISH BAROQUE ORCHESTRA The Finnish Baroque Orchestra regularly performs in the imposing Ritarihuone, Helsinki, as part of its concert series as orchestra-in-residence, in addition to touring to halls throughout Finland. It has appeared at the Helsinki Festival, Kuhmo Chamber Music, the Turku Music Festival and elsewhere in Finland, and abroad has been invited to the Regensburg Early Music Days, the Présences Festival in Paris and to concert series in Germany and Austria. FiBO, as it is known, recently founded its own label, FiBO Records. Its first release, in late 2017, contains such Baroque favourites as Bach s Brandenburg Concertos 3 & 5, Vivaldi concertos with soloists drawn from its own ranks, and Jukka Tiensuu s Mora the first modern Finnish composer for a large Baroque orchestra. 5

6 Throughout its history, FiBO has been a pioneer in many aspects of Finnish music. Originally going by the name of the Sixth Floor Orchestra, it played an important role in making the Baroque movement known in Finland. Its firstrate performances and innovative programme planning have caught the attention of concert organisers both in Finland and abroad. With growing financial support at home in Finland, its popularity has increased abroad, and such distinctions as the Musical Act of the Year and Record of the Year awards have encouraged it to blaze a trail of its own with ever great enthusiasm. 6