“I have been called a futurist, a cubist, ultramodern and a man of extremes,” Ernest Pingoud told the Helsinki press, who found his radical tone language strange. Pingoud, who emigrated from St. Petersburg at the start of the revolution, served as General Manager of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1924 until his death. The evening’s first symphony is Thomas Adès’ surreal opera sequel to Luis Buñuel’s film “The Exterminating Angel”.
The concert begins with Leevi Madetoja’s rich contribution to the national Kullervo gallery. With its generous resonances, the harp is one of composer Kaija Saariaho's favourite instruments.
Dima Slobodeniouk
Dima Slobodeniouk (born 1975) has become one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation. Slobodeniouk works with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. The New York Times praised Slobodeniouk for giving ’one of the most auspicious New York Philharmonic debuts of recent years’.
In the 2022/23 season, Dima Slobodeniouk has been invited to make his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. This season also sees Slobodeniouk return to the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, where he attended as Music Director 2013–2022, and re-invitations to the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Helsinki Philharmonic.
Xavier de Maistre
Xavier de Maistre is one of today’s leading harpists. As a profoundly creative musician and a fierce champion of his instrument, he has broadened the harp repertoire, commissioning new work from composers. He also creates transcriptions of essential instrumental repertoire. This musical vision has led him to work with conductors including Sir André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, James Gaffigan, Daniel Harding, Susanna Mälkki and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
Parallel to orchestral concerts, de Maistre is passionate about chamber music. He regularly puts together various recital projects as well. As a soloist, he has been a frequent guest of many high-profile festivals, including Rheingau, Salzburger Festspielen, Wiener Festwochen, Verbier, Budapest Spring and Mostly Mozart in New York.
Xavier de Maistre (born 1973) has been awarded First Prize at the prestigious USA International Harp Competition and is the first French musician to be admitted at the Wiener Philharmoniker. In addition to his musical aspirations, de Maistre studied in Sciences-Po Paris and at the London School of Economics.
Ernst Pingoud: Symphony No. 1, Op. 18
Ernst Pingoud (1887–1942) was a true cosmopolitan – educated in St. Petersburg and Germany, of French descent and German-speaking, he settled in Finland in 1918 and was appointed manager of the HPO in 1924. A great train-lover, he ended his days by throwing himself under a train. His colourful music tended towards neoclassical spiced with expressionism, but it was not atonal. The first concert of his works in 1918 was something of a milestone in Finnish music: it was regarded as marking the arrival of modernism in Finland. Two years later, his second concert included the premiere of his first symphony. In a single movement, the symphony is not in the Classical-Romantic tradition, and the nationalist spirit of newly-independent Finland is almost conspicuously absent. It could be described as an extended symphonic poem with many changes of tempo and mood. Later critics reproached it for what they saw as musical cubism and even Bolshevism and preferred the term ‘symphonic sketch’, but all admired the masterly orchestration.
Kaija Saariaho: Harp Concerto Trans
The Harp Concerto Trans by Kaija Saariaho was first performed in 2017. Saariaho has a special liking for the harp, she says, and has used it a lot in her orchestral and chamber music. But composing for it is something of a challenge, since some of its more delicate textures are easily swamped by the orchestra. Passages for the full orchestra are therefore rare; rather, the concerto concentrates on dialogue between the soloist and instrumental groups.
The first movement, Fugitif, introduces contrasting musical characters and textures, and the opening harp gesture bears the seed of the cadenzas. The title of the second movement, Vanité, points to a particular type of still life evoking both human life and its ephemeral nature. Messager, the last movement, is quick and energetic. The harp and orchestral instruments carry the musical message in turns, and the material gets transformed back and forth on the way.
Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) is a leading Finnish composer. She was already familiar with the French spectralist composers before studying computer-assisted composition at IRCAM in Paris, and has later turned to opera with outstanding success.
Leevi Madetoja: Kullervo, Op. 15
Leevi Madetoja (1887–1947) was the fourth Finnish composer to take Kullervo, the ill-fated figure in the national epic The Kalevala, as the topic of a work for orchestra. Jean Sibelius had earlier composed a choral symphony about the same character. Madetoja’s symphonic poem Kullervo is nevertheless firmly rooted in the general Romantic tradition, having more affinity with the works of, say, Tchaikovsky than with the National-Romanticism of Sibelius. With its numerous changes of tempo and interludes, it is somewhat episodic, in keeping with the story.
Kullervo, sold into slavery as a child, is harshly treated. He breaks his knife on a stone baked in his bread, seeks revenge on the evil baker by setting wild beasts upon her, and seduces his sister, who on discovering that her lover was her brother commits suicide. Kullervo, enraged at the way life has treated him, soon follows suit.
Thomas Adès: The Exterminating Angel Symphony
The Exterminating Angel Symphony by Thomas Adès is an orchestral rendering of music from his third opera based on Luis Buñuel’s classic surrealist film of 1962. It tells of a group of society characters who find themselves trapped at a post-opera party. In the symphony’s opening movement, the guests arrive for dinner; the fact that they arrive twice indicates that they are leaving “reality” behind. A furious march connects the first two acts of the opera; the music depicts their first night under the spell of the Exterminating Angel. The symphony’s third movement is a Berceuse culminating in a duet for the two lovers Beatriz and Eduardo. Adès describes composing Waltzes – the symphony’s final and most extensive movement – as like “joining together the bits of a broken porcelain object. What interests me about the waltz is the seductiveness of this music,” he says.
British composer, pianist and conductor, Thomas Adès is one of the most outstanding composers of his generation. The HPO was one of the co-commissioners of the Exterminating Angel Symphony premiered in 2021.
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Only the orchestra has a dress code. You can dress as you like.
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