13 NOVEMBER WEDNESDAY SERIES 6

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1 13 NOVEMBER WEDNESDAY SERIES 6 Helsinki Music Centre at Hannu Lintu, conductor Markus Groh, piano Erkki Melartin: Traumgesicht, Op min Paul Hindemith: Piano Concerto 30 min I Mässig schnell II Langsam III Medley: Tre fontane: Canzona March Valse lente Caprice Tre fontane INTERVAL 20 min Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op min I Andante ma non troppo Allegro energico II Andante (ma non troppo lento) III Scherzo (Allegro) IV Finale (Quasi una fantasia) (Andante Allegro molto) Interval at about The concert ends at about The LATE-NIGHT CHAMBER MUSIC (Hindemith s Sonata for Four Horns) will begin in the main Concert Hall after an interval of about 10 minutes. Those attending are asked to take (unnumbered) seats in the stalls. 1

2 LATE-NIGHT CHAMBER MUSIC József Hárs, Péter Jánosi, Satu Huuskonen & Tommi Hyytinen, horn Paul Hindemith: Sonata for Four Horns 15 min I Fugato II Lebhaft III Variations on Ich schell mein Horn 2

3 ERKKI MELARTIN ( ): TRAUMGESICHT, OP. 70 In 1910, Erkki Melartin was invited to St. Petersburg to conduct a concert in the popular series named after the renowned conductor-pianist Alexander Siloti. On the programme would be one of his own works. He had thought of presenting the St. Petersburg audience with his third symphony (1907), but in July, Siloti told him outright that no way would there be room for it. This meant that Melartin quickly had to produce something else something shorter than a symphony but nevertheless suitable for the considerable resources of the St. Petersburg orchestra, far beyond those at the time in Finland. Due to the shortage of time, he decided to use as his material the incidental music he had written in 1905 for the play The Dream of a Spring Morning by Gabriele d Annunzio ( ). Being familiar with the material meant he could make a brisk start, and by the end of August he was able to tell a friend he had just completed a symphonic poem entitled A Vision of the Night. In 1910, not a single Finnish composer had yet written for such a big orchestra, or such a virtuosic texture. Sibelius never used triple woodwinds, two harps and a largish assortment of percussions; nor, indeed, had anyone else before the Modernists of the 1920s. Dividing the strings throughout, so that one half plays with mutes and the other without, was also a new, original idea and automatically requires a large string section. After the premiere, Melartin conducted A Vision of the Night again in Helsinki in 1911, soon after that in Vyborg (Viipuri), and in March 1912 in Riga in Latvia. A long time then passed before Georg Schneevoigt picked out the score in Helsinki in April Like Sibelius s Finlandia, A Vision of the Night appeared under a new name almost every time it was performed. For St. Petersburg and the Finnish premiere it was given the German name Traumgesicht, for Vyborg A Vision of the Night, a Symphonic Poem. By Riga it had reverted to Traumgesicht, but with the addition of eine symphonische Dichtung, whereas for Schneevoigt s performance Melartin dropped the descriptive subtitle and instead equipped it with the generic Symphonische Musik. When the score was recently clean-copied and published in digital format, thanks to the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Erkki Melartin Society, it bore the name of the premiere performance: Traumgesicht. PAUL HINDEMITH ( ): PIANO CONCERTO Hindemith was a man of many musical talents composer, conductor, theorist, teacher, organiser, and one of the best viola players of his day. He was also rare in the history of music in that he could, in practice, play all the instruments in the orchestra, and a few others besides. In this respect he could 3

4 well be called an all-round musician of the Baroque era transported to the 20th century. The Piano Concerto dates from By the time he wrote it, he was 50 years old and living in Connecticut in the United States. The first movement is dominated by lucid, linear logic within the confines of clear-cut though not over-stated sonata form. The main key is A minor though the movement ends in the major. Many of the textures are evocative of Bach, though Mozart and Clementi may also be seen hovering in the background, and there is even a distant echo of Chopin. The slow movement in C sharp minor spins along contrapuntally, but timbre here occupies a more prominent role than in Hindemith on average. In the finale, Hindemith brings out a motley cavalcade of quite different moods and textures. He calls it a Medley, which in music means a potpourri and in sport swimming a combination of different styles. The jubilant closing movement thus consists of almost unconnectedsounding pieces. Closer inspection nevertheless reveals a clear link at the level of material, so that the temptation to regard the pieces as variations one of the other is indeed strong. In essence, the Canzona, March, Valse lente and Caprice are independent fragments. Together they finally lead to a medieval dance, Tre fontane (Three Fountains), the melody of which seems to be the theme for the set of variations. The concerto arrives at a determined conclusion in A major. JEAN SIBELIUS ( ): SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN E MINOR, OP. 39 Little is known of how Jean Sibelius came to write his first symphony. Not until later in life did he start keeping the diary that has been such a fine source of information on the genesis of his works. The Symphony No. 1 is one of the works by Sibelius most often performed. This does, of course, reflect the romantic preferences of world concert audiences, but it also proves that in composing it, Sibelius was already a master. He began work on it in early 1899 and, far from being just a practice piece, it is a full-blown representative of the romantic symphony. The plot of the symphony is, in brief, as follows: a brooding, meditative introduction followed by a vigorous, foaming Allegro; a slow movement dominated by a delicate, singing theme; a Brucknerishly defiant, bald Scherzo, and a somewhat rhapsodic finale. Tchaikovskian pathétique-like echoes in the introduction to the finale of the motif from the introduction to the first movement before plunging headlong into a torrent of little motifs. Busy bustle interrupted by a magnificent, tranquil landscape, a hymn-like tune that is one of the very greatest in all Sibelius. Like the first movement, the finale ends on quiet pizzicatos question marks instead of an exclamation mark, as the saying goes. There are also other links between the move- 4

5 ments, but they are less obvious than the theme of the introductions to the first and last movements. Jouni Kaipainen (abridged) PAUL HINDEMITH: ( ): SONATA FOR FOUR HORNS Hindemith spent a very long time working on his sonatas. By the time he came to compose that for four horns in 1952, he had been honing his thoughts on sonata form for decades already. Each sonata had a different structure tailored to its specific instrument, for he wanted his sonatas to act as portraits of their instruments. His works for the French horn are extremely well written and idiomatic, and the player is left in no doubt that the composer was very familiar with the instrument and could in some measure at least play the works himself. Baroque, and above all Bach, meant a lot to Hindemith. He was a linearist and contrapuntalist through and through. This is very evident in his sonata for four horns, the first movement of which is a Fugato. Strong soprano and bass lines are notable features of his style. His feel for the bass line, which points to the Baroque, is in fact what distinguishes Hindemith from the other Neo-classicists. It gives his music fullness and solidity while at the same time creating a strong sense of tonality. The second movement, Lebhaft, and the third, Variationen, sound highly chromatic and dissonant, but again they have a firm tonal base. A further indication of Hindemith s interest in early music is the variation in the third movement of the sonata on the Renaissance motet Ich schell mein Horn ins Jammerthal (I sound my horn in this vale of tears). This motet was composed by Arnt von Aich in about Johannes Brahms also used the melody in a song. The simultaneous use of horns with and without a mute generates some interesting timbres in the third movement. Tommi Hyytinen (abridged), horn player in the FRSO HANNU LINTU Hannu Lintu, why did you choose Melartin s Traumgesicht instead of the first symphony by Pingoud mentioned in the programme for the season? We decided that in view of the errors and ambiguities in the manuscript score and orchestral parts of Pingoud s first symphony, it would be best to wait until it has been published in print. A Finnish musical heritage project in which I m personally involved is right now getting under way, and the aim is, in time, to get clean copies made of all the Pingoud symphonies and piano concertos. To my mind, a modern symphony orchestra does not need to play archaeologist. 5

6 Traumgesicht suited this concert best, in terms of its orchestration, too. The Melartin Society has just done a grand job in producing a new, clear edition of the score. So far, the work has, oddly enough, remained firmly hidden it was last performed in 1932, and there is no recording of it whatsoever. What are your views on Melartin as a composer? A talented, versatile man. He could turn his hand to all sorts of things, painting and writing in addition to composing. But such were the times. People felt an artist had to be culturally active in many different ways. They admired men like Scriabin, who had a hand in just about all the arts. Here in Finland Pingoud, for example, wrote weighty essays, to my mind considerable tracts on musical philosophy. In actual fact, Sibelius was in this respect an exception: composing was enough for him. People often also forget that Melartin was only ten years younger than Sibelius. He tends to be unnecessarily lumped together with those who, even years after Sibelius had stopped composing, wilted in the Maestro s shadow and tried to write post-sibelian symphonies. Time has, in my view, to some extent distorted our concept of Melartin. How would you describe Traumgesicht? We haven t discovered a crown jewel, but Traumgesicht is an excellent piece for orchestra and sounds well. Stylistically, it is nothing like what one might expect of Melartin. An interesting contemporary comparison is Sibelius s Pohjola s Daughter composed four years earlier. Both works were written for Siloti s St. Petersburg concerts. Both Pohjola s Daughter and Melartin s Traumgesicht prove that Finnish composers at that stage also had their eyes pretty well trained on Richard Strauss. For Melartin admired both Tchaikovsky and on the other hand Strauss and Mahler. Added to these are the Finnish melodic influences. So we have here the makings of quite a peculiar brew. In the musical sense, the German romanticism of Wagner or Strauss has nothing to do with folk tradition. Then along came Mahler, who succeeded in mixing them together. Melartin was one of the first Finns to conduct Mahler s symphonies, in Vyborg, in just around the 1910s. It s my bet that the march episode with its drums in Traumgesicht comes from Mahler. The orchestration of Traumgesicht includes two harps, which points both to Strauss and to France. Then again, the character of the orchestration and the melodic intensity turn our thoughts to the Germanic world, and harmonically there s a lot of Tchaikovsky. Traumgesicht belongs in the same league as some of the big, colourful orchestral pieces by such head-in-theclouds composers as Pingoud or Aarre Merikanto. Melartin had the advantage of having a symphonic mind and his feet on the ground. He had more of a symphonist s mindset than Raitio, Pingoud or Merikanto. On top of all this, Traumgesicht constructs a drama in a manner adopted 6

7 from Scriabin: climaxes follow one after the other, and after a long build-up, the culmination is quickly dispelled. The polyrhythmic accompanying figures, operating at many rhythmic levels, point in the same direction. Reading contemporary comments on performances at the beginning of the 1930s, one cannot help noticing that no one was really satisfied with Traumgesicht. Merikanto and co. considered it too outdated and the press too modern. How do you regard Sibelius s No. 1 as a symphony? The first symphony is most definitely not the work of a beginner, but it s still the work of a relatively inexperienced symphonist. It reveals Sibelius as a composer travelling away from a national style to a supranational symphonic world. Now that we are in a position to see the whole span of Sibelius s symphonies, it may seem less revolutionary than the others. But on the other hand it is also a key work in that his entire, outstanding symphonic output sprang from the seeds of a development process that would last for years. Performing the symphony possibly calls for more deliberate liberality and music-making in the grand style than many of the later Sibelius symphonies. Some of the idiosyncratic features of the orchestration, such as the grandiloquent use of tuba and timpani, often causes a headache. On the other hand, seldom are Sibelius s string melodies so passionate and singing. Also on the programme is the seldomheard Piano Concerto by Paul Hindemith Markus Groh discovered this. It hasn t been performed much, even in Germany. Markus first came across an old concert recording of it, then searched around for the score and realised it is in fact a great concerto operating at many levels. The emphasis is on the second, slow movement, the world of which even has Baroque-like traits. I personally sometimes have a bit of a problem with the academic, musicianly style for which Hindemith is also known, but his music is, at its finest, strong and expressive or else disarmingly candid, like this concerto. I have a feeling that Finnish audiences are afraid of Hindemith, as they are of Nielsen. Hindemith has a slightly poor reputation because he is looked upon as a clever Neo-classicist who didn t really have the courage to open up and who, to crown it all, had a suspiciously large output. But his works are not really familiar any more. I d like to hear Hindemith s big, expressive works performed more often in Finland the E flat major symphony, Harmonie der Welt, Mathis der Maler, to say nothing of the operas. Lotta Emanuelsson 7

8 MARKUS GROH Within little more than a decade, Markus Groh has established himself as one of the most versatile pianists of his generation. In 1995 he was the first German to win the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition. Since then, he has received invitations from all over the world: from the London Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and many other orchestras, to work with such conductors as David Robertson, Kent Nagano and Jonathan Nott. Markus Groh has given solo recitals at prestigious venues from Amsterdam to Tokyo. This autumn he joins the Flanders Symphony Orchestra on a tour of Belgium and France and will be the soloist with the Louisville Orchestra in Gershwin s Rhapsody in Blue. Nowadays resident in Berlin and New York, Markus Groh has released critically-acclaimed and award-winning CDs of repertoire by Liszt and Brahms. 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 is Hannu Lintu. The Radio Orchestra of ten players founded in 1927 grew to symphony orchestra strength in the 1960s. Its previous Chief Conductors have been Toivo 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 archive. During the 2013/2014 season it will premiere six Finnish works commissioned 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 distinctions, 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 received 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 season it will be visiting Central Europe under 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 quality on yle.fi/klassinen. 8