What is at the very lowest? In the soil, it is the ground moraine or the coarse substance of gravel and sand formed by glacial rivers. In a piece of music, the lowest frequencies are often reached by the double bass. Lotta Wennäkoski composed her new work for HPO double bassist Adrian Rigopulos at his request.
When György Ligeti composed his Romanian Concerto in the 1950s, a work based on folk melodies, he had to be careful not to go against the rules of art in Stalinist Hungary. He was not careful enough: the F sharp note, which did not belong in the scale of B flat major, was too much for the censors, and the work was labelled politically incorrect.
Not until Stanley Kubrick used (without permission) music by György Ligeti (1923–2006) in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) had anyone really heard of this avant-garde composer. The partnership nevertheless proved lucrative and was resumed for The Shining (1980).
The Ligeti sound of the 1960s was not, however, possible until he escaped from Hungary in 1956. His early Concerto Românesc represents a composer forced to observe the official Stalinist line. Even folk music had to be politically correct. Even so, the Concerto failed to meet the censors’ approval and its performance was banned. The reason probably lay in the last two movements, in which Ligeti models the lame rhythms and off-key intonation of village folk musicians. One version of the Concerto was premiered in 1971, but Ligeti later revised it.
The finale is a real showpiece for composer and orchestra alike, in which laid-back village music meets modernist tricks.
The Concerto Românesc lasts about 12 minutes and is in four movements performed without a break. The first two bear echoes of earlier works by him. The finale is a real showpiece for composer and orchestra alike, in which laid-back village music meets modernist tricks.
A Finnish composer of world-wide renown, Lotta Wennäkoski (b. 1970) has a liking for pithy and sometimes enigmatic titles. She is also known for her jolly, abundant orchestration – in works, for example, such as Flounce premiered at the BBC Proms in 2017 and the concerto Prosoidia (2023) composed for Ilya Gringolts and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It is again an element of Alin (meaning “undermost” or “lowest”, 2025), for double bass and ensemble performed without a conductor and written on the initiative of Boston-born bassist Adrian Rigopulos. Alin is not really a concerto, but the focus is very much on the double bass and Rigopulos’s virtuoso command of effects, techniques and timbres.
Cast in a single movement lasting about 18 minutes, Alin is made up of different episodes, some intensely melodic, others rhythmic. In between are more delicate, hearkening interludes. There is no extra-musical programme, but the piece could, says Wennäkoski, be thought of as a journey on the seabed and surface, and it has plenty of solos for the double bass.
Each of the symphonies by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) adopts a different approach; the 8th, for example, was inspired by nature and the 9th by melodies he heard in America. When the London Philharmonic Society commissioned him to write his Symphony No. 7 (1885), he was already well known for his Slavonic Dances, so decided to seek inspiration in his Bohemian homeland. The premiere he conducted in London was a success, but the 7th has been overshadowed by some of his other symphonies, even though some claim it is one of his best. Maybe the minor key and the only faint hint of Slavonic dances were not quite what the audience expected.
Though the symphony ends on a mighty major chord, the listener may be left wondering whether it was in fact triumphant.
The heavy tread of the first movement may call to mind another composer highly popular in London at the time, Johannes Brahms. The score of the second, a mournful orchestral song, bears a footnote “From the sad years” – Dvořák lost both his mother and oldest daughter within a short period of time. The third movement is a scherzo, a Furiant dance and a reminder of the former man- of-the-people Dvořák. Though the symphony ends on a mighty major chord, the listener may be left wondering whether it was in fact triumphant.
Boston-born bassist Adrian Rigopulos was drawn to the double bass from a young age, out of a love for its deep sound color, but also for its integral role in a wide variety of musical genres. In the beginning, Rigopulos was primarily interested in bluegrass and punk, but a passion for classical music followed quickly thereafter. He is a founding member of the Helsinki Chamber Soloists. Adrian has also toured with Swiss jazz pianist and composer, Nik Bärtsch, as part of his ensemble Mobile.
Adrian participated in the orchestra academy of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich for the 2014/15 season and has played as a guest with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, and the Filarmonica della Scala in Milan. In June 2015, Adrian completed his MMus Orchestra at the Hochschule Luzern in the class of Božo Paradžik. He also studied at the Hochschule der Künste Bern in the studio of David Sinclair and completed a Performance Diploma at The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied with Toronto Symphony Principal Bass, Jeffrey Beecher.
| Violin 1 Pekka Kauppinen Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä Meri Englund Eija Hartikainen Katariina Jämsä Elina Lehto Ilkka Lehtonen Jani Lehtonen Petri Päivärinne Kalinka Pirinen Satu Savioja Sanna Kokko Liam Mansfield Sirkku Helin Violin 2 Anna-Leena Haikola Kamran Omarli Teppo Ali-Mattila Heini Eklund Serguei Gonzalez Pavlova Dhyani Gylling Matilda Haavisto Linda Hedlund Alexis Mauritz Virpi Taskila Violetta Varo Viola Atte Kilpeläinen Torsten Tiebout Mariette Reefman Aulikki Haahti-Turunen Kaarina Ikonen Tiila Kangas Markus Sallinen Hajnalka Standi-Pulakka Charlotta Westerback Julie Svacinova Cello Tuomas Ylinen Inkeri Rajamäki Jaani Helander Veli-Matti Iljin Saara Särkimäki Hans Schröck Johannes Välja Sami Mäkelä Bass Ville Väätäinen Paul Aksman Eero Ignatius Tuomo Matero Henri Dunderfelt Jukka Räikkönen | Flute Niamh McKenna Jenny Villanen Oboe Paula Malmivaara Nils Rõõmussaar Clarinet Björn Nyman Heikki Nikula Bassoon Markus Tuukkanen Noora Van Dok Horn Ruben Buils Garcia Ville Hiilivirta Miska Miettunen Mika Paajanen Trumpet Tomas Gricius Mika Tuomisalo Trombone Victor Álvarez Alegria Anu Fagerström Jussi Vuorinen Timpani Tomi Wikström Percussion Tuomas Siddall Pasi Suomalainen Harp Bengi Canatan |
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