Two violin sounds – a sforzato and a pizzicato – provided the basic material for the tape used in Kaija Saariaho's first orchestral work. The French premiere of Verblendungen in 1984 marked the starting point for Saariaho’s international breakthrough. Notes on Light, in turn, has been described by cellist Anssi Karttunen, to whom the work is dedicated, as a rich journey into the heart of light.
“I am a choral singer myself and wanted to use Finnish choral singing as the basis of my work,” says composer Matthew Whittall of his work “Silence Speaks” commissioned for Helsinki Variations and inspired by a Christmas song by Jean Sibelius.
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.
Anssi Karttunen
Internationally-acclaimed Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen (b. 1960) was the soloist in the premiere performance of Notes on Light by Kaija Saariaho in 2007, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Known for his commitment to contemporary music, Karttunen has in fact premiered over 200 works: solo, with orchestras and in chamber repertoire. His association with Saariaho dates back to 1988, when he moved to Paris (where she lives), and since then, her works for cello have in practice all been tailored specifically for him. He has already performed Notes on Light over 50 times – more than any other concerto – and has become a veritable champion of her music. The title of the concerto, which they debated together, evokes memories of the solar eclipse in 1999; the movement headed Eclipse describes that occasion. “The moment when the music sinks into darkness still gives me cold shivers whenever I play it,” he says.
Karttunen last appeared with the HPO in autumn 2015, in a programme of music by Béla Bartók and Uuno Klami.
Matthew Whittall: Silence Speaks
Resident in Finland since 2001, Canadian composer Matthew Whittall says of Silence Speaks, commissioned by the HPO and dedicated to its Chief Conductor Susanna Mälkki: “Asked for a work on a Finnish theme, I turned to a source that embodies both the personal and the communal: choral music. My favorite choral work by Jean Sibelius remains the modest Christmas song Nyt seimelle pienoisen lapsen, with its gently asymmetrical rhythms and Dorian modality. This music is sampled, remixed, looped and time-stretched into an ambient soundscape. Silence is present as a quiet mass of strings hovering immobile throughout, over which ideas are sketched, held up to the light and sink back into the mist. As the piece took shape, I considered different silences: the silence of solitude, of winters in isolation; the silence of creative drought; the angry, forced silence of the arts, of the singing voice; the silence of grief and loss; the comforting silence of togetherness. All these silences are subsumed in a final surge of light – a rebirth.”
Kaija Saariaho: Notes on Light & Verblendung
“Kaija Saariaho is one of the monumental composers of our time,” wrote Anna Thorvaldsdottir in a poll arranged by the BBC Music Magazine in 2019 in which 174 leading composers from all over the world said who, in their opinion, was the greatest ever composer. The winner was J.S. Bach, but the highest living composer, in 17th place, was Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952). “There are so many wonderful things that can be said about her music, especially her great pieces for larger forces – many of which are personal favourites. In addition I feel that the powerful presence of her music over the years has been particularly important as a role model for younger generations, not least for younger women in music that find inspiration and encouragement in such a compelling composer. This multifaceted influence will, without doubt, carry on shaping the music of the future.”
Winner of numerous awards (including the Grawemeyer in 2003 and the Léonie Sonning in 2011), Saariaho is known for her extensive output – operas, orchestral, ensemble, solo and vocal works – in which timbre and texture play the leading roles. Her music is often described as poetic and refined, but it is not without a dramatic, rugged element. The five-movement cello concerto Notes on Light (2006) was a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra serves as a mirror or surface that absorbs light and both refracts it and creates new reflections.
Verblendungen (1984), an Yle commission, is scored for tape and small orchestra. The tape begins with two violin notes played sforzato and pizzicato, which gradually transform into a quasi-orchestra and further electronic music, until finally the ear can no longer say which is which. The title alludes to the novel Die Blendung by Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti and the key words of her piece are, says Saariaho, ‘going blind, different surfaces, fabrics, textures, depths, figurative dazzling. Interpolations, counter-light. Death. The total of independent worlds. Shadowing, fragmentation of colour’.
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 63
In 1908, boozy evenings and fat cigars began taking their toll on Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), and a growth was removed from his throat. Not surprisingly, his world was temporarily shattered, and his works of that period were laconic and pessimistic. The greatest of these was his Symphony No. 4, the premiere of which he conducted in 1911 with the predecessor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. The audience liked the Canzonetta and Night Ride and Sunrise also on the programme for that concert, but had its reservations about the symphony. The form was odd, the melodies difficult to catch, and it ended in a minor key. Modern music if ever and not designed to appeal to the masses. Sibelius’s wife Aino recalled that people leaving the concert avoided catching her eye, shook their heads in disbelief and few stopped to congratulate the maestro. Sibelius himself called his fourth a “psychological symphony”, in the introspective psychoanalytical spirit of the times, but it is a rewarding experience for the listener with an open, receptive mind – a work of great beauty and not without some moments tinged with happiness.
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