Gustav Mahler visited Helsinki in late 1907 to conduct the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Gallén, Kajanus and Sibelius entertained the honored guest, but Mahler’s first contact with Sibelius' music did not impress the maestro. According to Erik Tawaststjerna, a fatal mistake was made: “Kajanus should have made sure the Spring Song was replaced by, for example, the Swan of Tuonela or Lemminkäinen's Return.” This will be fixed in this concert.
Mezzo-soprano Katarina Karnéus has the ability to captivate audiences. “A moment of complete silence fell as they contemplated the musical journey Karnéus had taken them on” (Bachtrack).
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.
Katarina Karnéus
Born in Stockholm, Katarina Karnéus studied at Trinity College of Music in London, and at the National Opera Studio. In 1995 she won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Since then she has appeared throughout the world in opera, concert and recital and worked with many leading conductors including Simon Rattle, Roger Norrington, Antonio Pappano, Michael Tilson-Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst.
Opera engagements have included The Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, the Netherlands Opera Amsterdam, La Monnaie Brussels and the Frankfurt Opera.
In concert, Katarina Karnéus has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the NDR Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, and at the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh Festival and the Salzburg Festival.
https://www.grovesartists.com/artist/katarina-karneus/
Gustav Mahler: Five Rückert Lieder
The poems of Friedrich Rückert fascinated Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), who in 1901 set four of them to music with orchestral accompaniment – Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft, Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen and Um Mitternacht – conducting their premiere in Vienna in 1905. After his death, it became the custom to add a fifth Rückert song, Liebst du um Schönheit, which he had composed in 1902 as a gift for Alma, his wife. Originally scored for voice and piano, this was orchestrated by Max Puttmann in 1910.
The Rückert songs are not a cycle in the conventional sense, though they all share such motifs as art and love. Each of the songs has a timbre all of its own. The severity of Um Mitternacht, for example, is achieved by woodwinds, and the lightness of Ich atmet’ by the absence of low strings. The intimate, moving mood of Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen is achieved by a cor anglais, harp and strings.
Jean Sibelius: Lemminkäinen, Op. 22
Hailed a national hero after his Kullervo symphony of 1892, Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) turned once again to Finnish themes and symbolism in his Karelia Suite and entertained designs for something far greater in the spirit of the national epic, The Kalevala. Among his plans was an opera, The Building of the Boat, on stories from the epic. Inspired by Wagner’s example of the seamless unity of words and music he had already tried to emulate in Kullervo, he departed for Bayreuth in 1894. But on the way, he became less convinced about Wagner and his plans for a mighty opera were slowly reduced to an unsuccessful opera lasting a mere half hour or so: The Maiden in the Tower (1896). He also rejected his suite about Lemminkäinen, like Kullervo one of the main characters in The Kalevala, after its premiere performance and it was not published in its entirety until 1939, after numerous revisions. This suite has since become one of Sibelius’s most popular works.
The suite does not follow the story from The Kalevala in chronological order, being more in the nature of a set of mood pictures, each of which can be performed on its own. Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island is an erotic portrait of the handsome hero frolicking with the seductive temptresses. Sibelius originally intended The Swan of Tuonela, in which a cor anglais symbolising purity and innocence glides slowly along the river leading to the underworld (Tuonela), as the overture to the opera that never got written.
Lemminkäinen in Tuonela depicts the hero’s fatal attempt to catch the swan. He his killed by a herder for daring even to attempt this but is found and brought back to life by his mother and gallops home in the final movement, Lemminkäinen’s Homecoming.
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.
