Composer Andrea Tarrodi had a dream about a giraffe: “We were the best of friends. I climbed up on it, and we jumped out of a window and rode away. We rode through forests, over meadows and mountains. When I woke up, I felt immensely happy.” His dream giraffe got its own composition from Tarrodi. Paul Klee's painting, the dawn and the resurrection of Jesus have inspired other composers in the evening’s programme. Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, is our distinguished guest soloist of the evening.
Arne Nordheim (1931–2010) was a leading Norwegian Modernist and one of the first to develop electronic composing techniques. Individualisierte Höhenmessung der Lagen for solo violin alludes to the painting (1930) of the same name by Paul Klee (1879–1940) and is the last of the five movements in the Partita für Paul he composed for an exhibition in Oslo about Klee and music. “I have tried,” said Nordheim, “to capture in my music some of the many moods and textures in these paintings: poetic, dreamlike, grotesque – angles defying the laws of nature, objects playing with gravity. In the last two movements I have added a digital delay unit, which records and plays back the music of the violin; this results in a continuously expanding, multi-layered soundscape, the ‘past’ gradually crowding the ever present ‘live’ music. In this way I imitate the ‘layer-upon-layer’ technique which Klee obviously loved.”
Born in Bulgaria but moving to London when she was 11, Dobrinka Tabakova (b. 1980) has won favour as a composer of music that is tuneful, meditative and devout. Her concerto for viola and string orchestra (2004) has been downloaded millions of times on Spotify alone, and String Paths was nominated for a Grammy in 2008. Dawn (2007) for violin and cello solos with strings is the first of three pieces making up the triptych Dawn-Day-Dusk and is dedicated to Kremerata Baltica on the celebration of their 10th anniversary and Gidon Kremer on his 60th birthday. It represents sunrise with low, rich chords in the orchestra, which ascend throughout the pieces with decorated solos which lead the progress. The piece is equipped with the words, “…and she emerged from the lake, with fire in her hands.”
The works of Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi (b. 1981) are all inspired by some extra-musical natural phenomenon, landscape or story. Of Camelopardalis she says: “One night I dreamt that I had a giraffe. We were the best of friends, my giraffe and I! I climbed up on it, and we jumped out of a window and rode away. We rode through forests, over meadows and mountains. On the horizon we saw a big red sun rising, and a flock of colourful birds flew by. When I woke up, I felt immensely happy; it was such a strange and beautiful dream! At that time, I was just about to start writing a piece for the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and it just felt natural to let the piece be inspired by the dream. Camelopardalis is a constellation in the northern sky, and the word is Latin for giraffe. Somewhere in the middle of the piece you may hear the song of the giraffe, presented by the bassoon…”
Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) was a Modernist French composer, a Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, where his students included Boulez and Stockhausen, and for more than 60 years organist at La Trinité Church. He was a devout Catholic and his faith was often reflected in his music. Some of his contemporaries found its concert performance difficult to accept. “Its ambivalent nature offends certain sensitive believers, who reproach him for its pseudo-religiosity and who see in his work disorder and an impure atmosphere,” said one critic of his Prière du Christ montant vers son Père (Prayer of Christ ascending towards His father, 1932). The Prayer is the fourth and last movement of a work, L’Ascension, for orchestra and describes chapter 17 in the Gospel according to St John: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (King James translation).
Jörg Widmann (b. 1973), composer, conductor and clarinettist, is one of the most often-performed composers in the world today. His music succeeds in combining two seemingly mutually-exclusive elements: complexity and entertainment. He often incorporates historical references to earlier colleagues. His Horn Concerto of 2024 is a prime example of music that has all the eye-catching pull of a gaudy circus tent in the middle of a dreary concrete car park. The concerto is cast in seven movements together lasting almost 40 minutes. Widman composed it to mark the end of his Composer in Residency with the Berlin Philharmonic and it is dedicated to its principal horn player Stefan Dohr. In true Widmann manner, it is peppered with mysticism and endless nods, and runs through the whole gamut of horn techniques, some buried in history and others reaching out into virgin territory. There are numerous loans, either direct or indirect, from at least Carl Maria von Weber, Johann Strauss the Elder, Jacques Offenbach, Rossini, Beethoven and Mahler.
Stefan Dohr (born 1965) is a German horn player, recognised as a sought-after soloist, chamber musician, and Principal Horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Since 2015, he has been Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music in London.
As well as performing the solo repertoire of the Classical and Romantic periods, Dohr has a keen interest in contemporary music. A number of pieces have been written for him, including a horn concerto by Jörg Widmann, world premiered in Berlin in May 2024. Dohr will give the Finnish premiere of the concerto with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
The classical music site Bachtrack, reviewing Widmann’s horn concerto world premiere, called it ’tongue-in-cheek’ and wrote: ’While paying his dues to the distinct timbre of the horn, Dohr also showcased a variety of sounds that one hardly believed possible (…) With deadpan control, Dohr alternated virtuoso playing with rather unserious effects, including cartoonish tics and raspberry-blowing noises. None other than a master like Dohr could have dissected the anatomy of his instrument so thoroughly.’
Pekka Kuusisto (b. 1976) is one of Finland’s most renowned musicians. At the commencement of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2024/25 concert season, Kuusisto began his second year as Principal Guest Conductor. Additionally, as Co-Artistic director, he is a member of the Artistic Leadership Team responsible for planning the programme. As he states, 'We offer both long perspectives and flashes of inspiration, both safety and fun.' In the HPO’s concerts, Pekka Kuusisto will perform as a soloist, conductor, and also as a player-director at the front of the orchestra with his violin.
Pekka Kuusisto’s career as a solo artist took off in 1995 when he won the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition at the age of 19. Since then, he has toured concert halls around the world. Kuusisto’s repertoire spans classical music to modern experiments. He improvises and composes, readily intertwining music with other art forms, aiming to make concerts more accessible and engaging for the audience.
In addition to Helsinki, he frequents Oslo (Norwegian Chamber Orchestra), Bremen (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie), and San Francisco (San Francisco Symphony).
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