Gustav Mahler originally gave a title to each movement of his grand Third Symphony but removed them from the score before the work was published. However, six famous titles have stubbornly remained on the side of the symphony from one generation, programme and concert to the next. Now they will be heard as accompaniments to the culminating concert of Susanna Mälkki's term as Chief Conductor.
Pan Awakes, Summer Marches In
What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me
What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me
What Man Tells Me
What the Angels Tell Me
What Love Tells Me
Susanna Mälkki
Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra since 2016 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2017, Susanna Mälkki is a regular guest with the world’s most illustrious orchestras and at such opera houses as La Scala, the New York Metropolitan and the Vienna State Opera. From 2006 to 2013 she was Artistic Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris on the invitation of Pierre Boulez and has conducted the premieres of works by many of the greatest contemporary composers. Beginning her career as a cellist and winning the Turku Cello Competition in 1994, she spent three years as principal cello in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Susanna Mälkki is a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in France, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London and a member of the Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm.
Victoria Karkacheva
Mezzo-soprano Victoria Karkacheva is one of the rising stars in the world of opera. Born in Volgograd, Karkacheva studied in the prestigious Young Artists Programme at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre. Victoria Karkacheva is the first prize winner of the Tenor Viñas 2020 and Operalia 2021 international competitions. She also was awarded with the ’Operalia Birgit Nilsson Prize’ in 2021.
Since the 2022–2023 season, Victoria Karkacheva has been a member of the ensemble at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany. With the State Opera, she has performed in operas such as Eugene Onegin and War and Peace. In the upcoming season, Karkacheva will be heard in principal roles in new opera productions.
At the farewell concert of Chief Conductor Susanna Mälkki at the Helsinki Music Centre, Victoria Karkacheva will sing the solo parts of Gustav Mahler's 3rd Symphony. In April Karkacheva performed the solo parts in Barcelona at the Liceu, where she, according to critics, ’shone with her expressive warmth, projection and colourful voice’.
https://www.askonasholt.com/artists/victoria-karkacheva/
The Helsinki Music Centre Choir
Founded in autumn 2011 on the initiative of conductors Hannu Lintu, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and John Storgårds, the Helsinki Music Centre Choir of about 90 singers can, as required, regroup from a symphony to a male, female or chamber choir. It works in partnership with all the main Helsinki Music Centre occupants: the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Sibelius Academy. Its Artistic Director was composer Tapani Länsiö from its formation until the beginning of 2017, when he handed over to Nils Schweckendiek and Jani Sivén. The members of the choir are amateurs with a passion for singing. The HMCC repertoire, planned jointly by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from a long-term perspective, consists primarily of symphonic choral and orchestral works. The Choir also performs a cappella works for large choir. The Choir appears mainly at the Helsinki Music Centre but also at events such as the Organ Night and Aria festival in Espoo, the Turku Music Festival and the Ekenäs Summer Concerts.
The Helsinki Music Centre Choir is recruiting more singers. For details of auditions see
https://www.musiikkitalonkuoro.fi/
Cantores Minores
Cantores Minores, the Choir of Boys and Young Men of Helsinki Cathedral, was founded in 1952. There is total of ca. 400 members in the various stages of the choir yearly. Over 3 500 boys and young men have sung in the Cantores Minores during its 70 years of existence. The choir has produced numerous professional musicians active in a variety of fields.
Cantores Minores is the largest and most professional boys’ choir and choir school in Finland offering boys and young men both musical and spiritual education in the Helsinki region. Cantores Minores is especially famous for its performances of large church music pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel and Felix Mendelssohn.
As of the year 2005 The Artistic Director of the choir and The Principal of the Cantores Minores Music Institute has been Professor Hannu Norjanen, a Cantores Minores alumni himself.
https://www.cantoresminores.fi/
Helsinki Chamber Choir
The Helsinki Chamber Choir was founded in 1962 as the Finnish Radio Chamber Choir and assumed its current name in 2005. It is currently Finland’s only professional chamber choir.
While its wide-ranging repertoire includes music from the Renaissance to the present day, the Helsinki Chamber Choir is particularly highly regarded for its work with new music. The choir regularly commissions new works and has given over 80 world premieres in the seasons since 2005, as well as more than 30 Finnish first performances.
The choir appears frequently at festivals in Finland and abroad and collaborates with symphony orchestras, period-instrument ensembles and contemporary music groups. Its concerts are regularly broadcast on national radio and television, and it has also appeared in productions for the Arte channel and the European Broadcasting Union, among others with Einojuhani Rautavaara's Vigilia in 2013.
The Helsinki Chamber Choir is a member of Tenso, the European network of professional chamber choirs. Recent touring has taken the choir to the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Russia and around Scandinavia. The choir records regularly among others for BIS Records.
Since 2007 Professor Nils Schweckendiek has been Artistic Director of the Helsinki Chamber Choir.
https://www.helsinginkamarikuoro.fi/
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3
“A symphony must be like the world,” said Gustav Mahler (1860–1911). “It must embrace everything.” Hardly surprising, therefore, that his third symphony requires a good hour-and-a-half to perform and a giant orchestra. It provides a fuller picture of his worldview than any of his other works, and he gave two pointers to its underlying philosophy. The fourth movement is based on Zarathustra’s song O Mensch! Gib Acht! (O Man! Take Heed!) from Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1892) and the song Das himmlische Leben (Heavenly Life) is from the collection of folk poetry Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn).
The symphony abounds in torment that death alone can alleviate, and a longing that can only be fulfilled by heavenly paradise. The Zarathustra song alludes to joy via grief. The heavenly joy is that experienced by a child. There is no worldly noise in heaven, and to suggest this Mahler used birdsong, rustic dances, military marches and other elements of our day-to-day musical soundscape.
Though the third symphony ultimately had six movements, there were originally seven, to which Mahler gave the following titles:
Mahler later deleted the titles and the song Das himmlische Leben, but used it in the finale of his fourth symphony.
The first movement is a series of marches. Said Mahler, “Over the introduction to this movement, there lies again that atmosphere of brooding summer midday heat; not a breath stirs, all life is suspended, and the sun-drenched air trembles and vibrates.” He then suggests a long pause before the second movement, a minuet painting a picture of a flowering meadow. The third movement takes refuge from the heat in a teeming forest by moonlight. The off-stage flugelhorn represents a post horn. Night falls in the fourth movement, while in the fifth, a children’s choir imitates the sound of bells.
It was easy to interpret the original closing movement Das himmlische Leben as Mahler’s vision of heaven, judging from the mood, but What love tells me seems to point to something quite different. Its message is convincing, and it draws together various threads from the earlier movements.
Mahler was always wary of programme notes and the effect they had on the listener. The latent meanings are mostly deduced from his private correspondence, and he devised a ‘programme’ chiefly as a guide to composition. He wanted the music to speak for itself.
Yes, but only before or after the concert. During the concert we just want you to enjoy the music. This way you won’t disturb the musicians or other audience members.
Only the orchestra has a dress code. You can dress as you like.
You can give the ticket to a friend or donate it to a music student by calling 09-3102 2700 or sending an e-mail to helsinki.philharmonic@hel.fi by 3pm on the day of the concert.
