Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony has an abundance of everything: musicians, singers, trumpets, percussion instruments, birdsong, country dances, military marches, sunshine, nocturnal moods. There is even an abundance of movements: six!
The composer even imagined that the work could be titled Pan, both in the sense of “everything” and as a reference to the Greek mythological god who ruled over forests, pastures, shepherds, livestock and fertility. The Third Symphony opens with a fanfare played by eight French horns. The introduction is as passive as a summer day, marked by oppressive heat without the slightest breeze. The air trembles and vibrates.
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) observed in a famous quote that a symphony should contain the entire world. The best and most extreme manifestation of this tenet is his Symphony no. 3. It is the most extensive in a series of extensive works, clocking in at about 100 minutes, and has six movements. Its huge performing forces include not only a very large orchestra but also a vocal soloist, a women’s choir and a children’s choir.
Mahler wrote the Symphony in stages over a period of several years. It was premiered in Krefeld in summer 1902 with Mahler himself conducting and was a great success. The movements originally had descriptive headings, although Mahler later deleted them: 1. Pan Awakes, Summer Marches In; 2. What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me; 3. What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me; 4. What Man Tells Me; 5. What the Angels Tell Me; 6. What Love Tells Me. These titles indicate that the Symphony traces a spiritual process beginning with the tangible world and transcending to an immaterial dimension.
The huge first movement is a series of dramatic and rollicking marches. The second is a sensitive minuet. The third is a scherzo, interrupted on two occasions by the nostalgic, dreamy music of a ‘posthorn’ (generally substituted by a flugelhorn or trumpet in performance).
A human voice is introduced in the fourth movement, with a solo voice singing a poem from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra. In the fifth movement, children sing of the Kingdom of Heaven in a setting from a naïve poem from the folk poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The finale is an expansive Adagio that ascends to embrace the entire universe.
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, has established himself as one of the outstanding conductors of his generation. Born in Finland in 1956, he began his career as a violinist. Today, he is renowned as an artist of exceptional versatility and breadth.
Saraste has previously held principal conductorships at the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. As a guest conductor, he appears with major orchestras worldwide, including the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Coaching and mentoring young musicians is of great importance to Saraste. He is a founding member of the LEAD! Foundation, a mentorship programme for young conductors and soloists.
Scottish mezzo Karen Cargill has earned wide acclaim on major operatic stages, including the New York Metropolitan, Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Glyndebourne. Equally established on the concert stage, she regularly appears with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Robin Ticciati, Rafael Payare, and Edward Gardner. Cargill also sings Lieder with her regular recital partner Simon Lepper.
In the current seson, Cargill’s operatic engagements include Judith in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle at the Canadian Opera Company and Adelaide in Strauss’ Arabella at the Metropolitan Opera. She has recently sung Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC SSO and Waltraute in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with Patrick Hahn and the Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. In June, she joins the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen as the soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.
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.
