12.12. WEDNESDAY SERIES 6 Helsinki Music Centre at 19:00 Hannu Lintu, conductor Seong-Jin Cho, piano Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 I Moderato II Adagio sostenuto III Allegro scherzando 35 min INTERVAL 20 min Kimmo Hakola: Symphony No. 1, fp (Yle commission 2018) I Furioso e fuoco II In memoriam III Scherzi IV Misterioso e festivamente 43 min Interval at about 19:50. The concert will end at about 20:50. Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and streamed at yle.fi/areena. A recording of the concert will be shown in the programme RSO Musiikkitalossa (The FRSO at the Helsinki Music Centre) on Yle Teema on 13.1. and on Yle TV 1 on 12.1. and 19.1. 1
SERGEI RAHMANINOV (1873 1943): PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN C MINOR, OP. 18 Though one of the greatest musical figures composer, pianist and occasional conductor on the early 20th-century musical scene, Serge Rachmaninoff often suffered from a serious lack of self-doubt. In later life, he was given to wondering whether, in the words of a Russian saying, he had been chasing three hares without catching a single one. To the outsider, this sounds preposterous. In 1900, while recovering from one such bout of soul-searching, he threw himself into the composition of a new piano concerto. He wrote the slow and last movements first, and performed them to great acclaim at the end of the year. The concerto was heard in its entirety in Moscow in November 1901. The second is the most popular of Rachmaninoff s four piano concertos and all in all one of the best-loved items in Romantic concerto literature. That the glowing melodies, packed with feeling, are the product of a profound creative crisis is difficult to credit, so flowing and unforced do they sound. Their voluptuous surface may, furthermore, also conceal a dense network of motifs creating links between themes and movements. The piano part is brilliant and rewarding yet far removed from any show simply for the sake of it; rather, it always seems to be an inherent part of the music. The first movement immediately captures the listener s attention with a series of chords swelling from pianissimo to fortissimo. Soon, in comes a sombre, sweeping melody above the soloist s arpeggios. Contrasting with the grave C-minor is the second theme in a singing E-flat major. The development is whipped along by a rhythmic motif that begins the recapitulation and will reappear in the finale. But then the normal order of composition was reversed in this concerto; having finished the last movement first, Rachmaninoff was able to make use of its motif in the opening one, assigning it a prominent role. The slow movement begins, surprisingly, in the same key, C-minor in which the first movement ended, but within a few bars it modulates to E-major and unfolds as a dreamy mood piece. It becomes more active around the middle, as if looking far ahead to the scherzo episode embedded in the slow movement of the third piano concerto (1909). The finale contrasts a rhythmically striking main theme with one of Rachmaninoff s greatest melodies. The main theme dominates the development, but it is the second theme that becomes the crowning glory of the whole concerto. Kimmo Korhonen 2
KIMMO HAKOLA A COMPOSER-CITIZEN OF MANY WORLDS Ever since Kimmo Hakola (b. 1958) combined a fragment of Mongolian folk music with modernistic textures in Capriole for clarinet and cello (1991), he has recognised neither geographical nor temporal stylistic borders. The rough modernist tone of his earlier works has continued in his later ones, but it is now sometimes coupled with ethnic touches such as exotic oriental associations or captivating Klezmer, gushing romanticism or quirky humour. Some claim to detect postmodern features in Hakola s mixture of styles and modes of expression. But according to his composer colleague Juhani Nuorvala, Hakola s postmodernism is not intellectually and ironically reflective; on the contrary, he embraces his oriental dances and Hollywood-like string themes with warmth and love. Many of Hakola s works have a strong dramatic or narrative grasp. His music has sound and fury in almost the Shakespearean sense: gripping intensity and tranquillity, dramatic encounters and agonising monologues, abrupt emotional shifts, contrasts and surprises. His works are supercharged events for listeners and players alike. Early Hakola hits include his first String Quartet (1986; winner of the prestigious UNESCO Composers Rostrum prize) and Capriole. Chamber music has continuously occupied an important role for him, but ever since the monumental Piano Concerto that took him five years to compose (1991 1996), the emphasis has been on larger ensembles. Concertos have become a major type of composition for him. The most popular here have been the Clarinet Concerto of 2001, which enjoys cult status, and most recently the Concerto for Violin and Viola of 2017. The six operas by Hakola approach the genre from the most varied of angles. These include the cartoon opera The Mastersingers of Mars (2000), the family opera Mara and Katti (2011), an opera La Fenice (2011) commissioned by the Savonlinna Opera Festival and containing elements of meta-opera, and the monologue opera Akseli (2012) about the Finnish artist Akseli Gallén-Kallela. Among his other large-scale vocal works are the oratorio Le Sacrifice (2002/2005) commissioned by IRCAM, The Song of Songs (2006) based on texts from the Bible, and De kaspiska tigrarnas gud (2013; settings of poems by Stella Parland). Kimmo Hakola is also a conductor and pianist, and he sits on many committees and boards. He was Artistic Director of the contemporary music festival Musica nova Helsinki 1999 2006, of the Helsinki Chamber Choir 2005 2007, and has been Artistic Director of the Lux musicae festival in Siuntio since 2015. Kimmo Korhonen 3
The composer tells about the work "My life as a symphonist began the moment when, as a lad of thirteen, I first heard the seventh, E-major symphony by Anton Bruckner. That summer, I sat in a booth at Töölö Music Library listening again and again and enjoying all the Bruckner symphonies with the scores in front of me. I was spellbound, profoundly moved. I now had a purpose in life: I would one day achieve the same as a composer. My symphony has been a long time in the making. I have not felt equal as a composer to the Bruckner symphonies. In the course of my life I have composed over a hundred works: great operas, great concertos, oratorios and orchestral works. Composing has sometimes been laborious, but for the most part delightfully smooth. True, pesky self-criticism has from time to time reminded me of its existence, but in the end, I have always managed to drag my feet along. The most important thing in life is to find one s way out of one s own labyrinths. Here, now, is my first symphony. To my mind, it has nothing in common with the symphonies of either Bruckner or indeed any other composer; I am master of my own music and I will relish the freedom I have won for the rest of my life by writing lots more symphonies. The second movement of the symphony is a memorial to two people now no longer with us but who mean a lot to me. One is Risto Väisänen, my teacher for many years, who remained my musical mentor right up to his very last years. From him I have learnt most about music. Both encouraged me in the symphony s critical years and for this I am grateful. I am proud that, after years of struggling, processing and polishing, I have found the courage to reinstate in the symphony-scape the musical expressions that once led me to reject different versions of the symphony. From this I have learnt that it is not always necessary to look for reasons; that it is also possible to develop oneself and one s ideas." Kimmo Hakola 2018 Programme notes translated (abridged) by Susan Sinisalo HANNU LINTU Hannu Lintu has been Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra since August 2013. During the 2018/2019 season, his schedule will include appearances with the Baltimore, St Louis and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony, the NDR Symphony Hamburg and other orchestras. Further highlights of the season will include his debut with the Boston Symphony and the Russian National Orchestra. In particular, he has worked in recent times with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, the Washington National Symphony and the Symphony Orchestras of Dallas and Detroit. Maestro Lintu also conducts regularly at the Finnish National Opera and the Savonlinna Opera Festival. He conducted Giuseppe Verdi s Otello in Savonlinna in July 2018 and his schedule for spring 4
2019 includes a production of Alban Berg s Wozzeck in Helsinki. Hannu Lintu studied the piano and cello at the Sibelius Academy before joining the conducting class of Jorma Panula. He attended masterclasses with Myung Whun Chung at L Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena and won first prize in the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994. He has recorded on the Ondine, BIS, Hyperion and other labels. SEONG-JIN CHO Seong Jin-Cho was brought to the world s attention in 2015 when, aged 21, he was the first South Korean to win the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw. His victory aroused great enthusiasm, leading the magazine Pianist to write in February 2006: this latest Chopin Competition winner can stand proud next to the likes of such illustrious past winners as Pollini, Argerich and Zimerman. In early 2016 Cho signed an exclusive agreement with Deutsche Grammophon. Seong Jin-Cho has been praised for the poetry of his performances, his innate musicality and unfailing technique. He has already appeared on many of the world s foremost concert platforms and collaborated with a host of top orchestras and conductors. Also an active recitalist, he has been heard at such illustrious venues as New York s Carnegie Hall, in the Master Pianists series of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and at the Vienna Konzerthaus. Even before Cho signed his exclusive agreement, Deutsche Grammophon had released his disc of works by Chopin in 2015. This was followed by another Chopin CD in November 2016 (Piano Concerto No. 1 and four Ballades), a disc of works for solo piano by Debussy in 2017, and Beethoven s Piano Concerto No. 5 conducted by Myung-whun Chung in 2018. Cho was six when he began taking piano lessons in Seoul and he gave his first public recital at the age of 11. After graduating from the University of the Arts in Seoul, he moved to Paris in 2012 and continued his studies with Michel Béroff at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, graduating in 2015. He is now based in Berlin. Even before his victory in the Chopin Competition, Seong Jin-Cho had reaped success in many other contests. In 2009, he was the youngest ever winner of the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan. Two years later, at the age of 17, he was awarded the third prize in both the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv. 5
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 hthe Radio Orchestra of ten players formed in 1927 later grew to symphony orchestra size in the 1960s. Over the years, its Chief Conductors have been 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 2018/2019 season, the FRSO will premiere four Finnish works commissioned by Yle. The FRSO has recorded works by Mahler, Ligeti, Eötvös, Sibelius, Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, Kokkonen and others, and the debut disc of the opera Aslak Hetta by Armas Launis. Its disc of the Bartók violin concertos with Christian Tetzlaff and conductor Hannu Lintu won a Gramophone Award in 2018, and that of tone poems and songs by Sibelius an International Classical Music Award. It was also Gramophone magazine s Editor s Choice in November 2017 and BBC Music Magazine s Record of the Month in January 2018. Its forthcoming albums are of music by Lutosławski, Fagerlund and Beethoven. The FRSO regularly tours to all parts of the world. During the 2018/2019 season its schedule will include a tour of Finland under Hannu Lintu, to Pietarsaari, Kauhajoki, Forssa and Lahti. FRSO concerts are broadcast live on the Yle Areena channel and Yle Radio 1 and recorded on Yle Teema and Yle TV 1. 6