“Already as a child, I was enchanted by Albert Roussel's ballet Bacchus and Ariadne,” says Samy Moussa, this season’s composer-in-residence. The concert programme, which draws on ancient Greece and the eternal questions of humanity, is complemented by Moussa's own piece, premiered in 2024, in which Antigone wants to bury her brother who died in battle, even under the threat of the death penalty.
As a composer, the young Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871–1927) looked towards Central Europe, above all Wagner and Bruckner. A Swedish Romantic, he studied in Berlin and was an excellent pianist, even appearing with the Berlin Philharmonic as the soloist in a concerto of his own in 1896. He called Excelsior!, premiered in Copenhagen on tour with the same orchestra, a ‘symphonic overture’, and although it is in practice absolute music, it does have associations with Goethe’s version of the legend of Faust. The very title is a summons to strive onward and upward and suggests Faust’s struggle to come to terms with the joys of the flesh and noble virtue. The music is passionate and sweeps the listener along. Excelsior! had only three performances during Stenhammar’s lifetime, until it was rediscovered in the 1980s.
Samy Moussa (b. 1984) is this season’s HPO composer-in-residence. The oratorio Antigone (2020) is his first large-scale vocal work and was premiered a year ago at the Dutch National Opera, in a double bill with Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Though Moussa’s Antigone does follow chronologically from Stravinsky’s Oedipus, it is a stand-alone work and not really a sequel. The best-known version of the Antigone story is the tragedy of the same name dating from about 441 BC by Sophocles, but Antigone also appears in a number of other Ancient Greek texts. The libretto of tonight’s oratorio is by Niall Potter and Moussa and takes in some even older texts in an attempt to provide an objective picture. The events are related in Ancient Greek by a female chorus and there are no individual singing characters. Says Moussa: “In aesthetic and ethical terms, the idea of cultural continuity is fundamental to me. The use of Ancient Greek allows me to emphasise the connection between antiquity and us, now. We are the same.”
A composer who ‘discovered’ his metier relatively late in life (after a promising career in the Navy), Albert Roussel (1869–1973) was most at home in music for the stage: opera, theatre music and above all ballet. Possibly his most successful work is the two-act ballet Bacchus et Ariane (1930), and the Orchestral Suite No. 2 adapted from it is a favourite showpiece for many a conductor.
Bacchus et Ariane tells the ancient Greek myth of Bacchus, Theseus and Ariadne. Having killed the Minotaur, a beast part man, part bull that dwelt in the Labyrinth, Theseus returns with Ariadne – daughter of the owner of the Labyrinth, King Minos – to the island of Naxos, amid great rejoicing. Then along comes a mysterious figure who envelops Ariadne in his black cloak. Theseus and his followers rush to her assistance, only to discover that the kill-joy is none other than Bacchus, the god of ecstasy and of wine, against whom Theseus is powerless. Bacchus throws himself into a wild dance, in which Ariadne dreams she is taking part.
At the beginning of Act II, Ariadne wakes to find herself alone, for Theseus has sailed away and left her. In her despair, she tries to jump into the waves but ends up in Bacchus’s embrace and finds herself once again dancing in her dreams. A kiss from Bacchus rouses the whole island; figures appear out of the rocks and offer her a sip of an intoxicating drink that puts her under Bacchus’s spell. As they join in a frenzied dance, he raises her to heaven and turns her into a constellation, a crown of stars above her head. The ballet ends with wild, ecstatic carousing.
Roussel’s music, ranging from delicate dreaming to bacchanalian burlesque, is so explicit that the listener hardly needs to know the story. The two Suites follow the original ballet music almost exactly, Suites 1 and 2 being equivalent to Acts I and II.
The Helsinki Chamber Choir is a professional ensemble founded in 1962 as the Finnish Radio Chamber Choir. It adopted its current name in 2005.
The Helsinki Chamber Choir’s wide-ranging repertoire spans music from medieval times to the present day, and the ensemble is particularly renowned for its commitment to contemporary music. The choir regularly commissions new works and has given over 80 world premieres since 2005, in addition to more than 30 Finnish first performances.
The Helsinki Chamber Choir frequently performs at festivals in Finland and internationally, collaborating with orchestras, period-instrument ensembles, and contemporary music groups. Its concerts are often broadcast on radio and television, and the choir has appeared in productions for the international ARTE channel.
A member of Tenso, the European network of professional chamber choirs, the Helsinki Chamber Choir has recently toured the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Scandinavia.
Since 2007, the choir's Artistic Director has been Professor Nils Schweckendiek.
Composer-conductor Samy Moussa (born 1984 in Canada) is Composer in Residence for the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra during the 2024–2025 season. Moussa is one of the leading composers of today, and his works have been featured by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the DSO Berlin, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Wiener Philharmoniker, among others. In the 2024–2025 season, his works are programmed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and Staatskapelle Berlin.
Alongside composing, Samy Moussa has taken up conducting. His repertoire ranges from classical to contemporary music, and he has conducted orchestras such as the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the RSO Wien, the Staatskapelle Halle, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
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