In memoriam

Arvo Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten 

Obliged by the prevailing regime in his native Estonia to modify his modernist style of composition, Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) immersed himself in music of the Renaissance and developed a mode of expression he called “tintinnabulism” (derived from the Latin word for a small monastic bell). Its salient features are tonality, triads and counterpoint. His “easy” idiom and notably religious subjects have made Pärt one of the few really popular contemporary composers.

Benjamin Britten died in 1976. Pärt later said, “I had just discovered Britten for myself. Just before his death I began to appreciate the unusual purity of his music – I had had the impression of the same kind of purity in the ballads of Guillaume de Machaut. And besides, for a long time I had wanted to meet Britten personally – and now it would not come to that.” Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell was premiered in Tallinn in 1977.

Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin

Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) was originally a piano suite inspired by music of the Baroque, and especially the harpsichord pieces by François Couperin. In Baroque tradition, a tombeau (tomb) was a musical monument to a particular person, and Ravel now devoted each movement to a friend who had died in the war. He later made a version for orchestra, omitting two of the original movements. Accused of writing music that sounded too jolly for a tribute to the dead, Ravel replied: “The dead are sad enough in their eternal silence.” The flowing Prelude is dedicated to Ltn. Jacques Charlot, the light Forlane (an Italian folk dance) to Ltn. Gabriel Deluc (a painter), the nostalgic Minuet to Jean Dreyfus and the lively Rigaudon to his childhood friends Pierre and Pascal Gaudin.

Benjamin Britten: An American Overture

The first shots of the Second World War were already echoing across the English Channel when Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) set sail for America. His reputation as a fine composer had already winged its way across the Atlantic and he was soon receiving commissions. The three years he spent in the US and Canada were, however, a trial, for he suffered from acute homesickness and writer’s block. In 1941, he appears to have composed An Occasional Overture as a commission for the Cleveland Orchestra. He later denied this and instead wrote a new piece of the same name. He later acknowledged it, but it was not premiered until 1981, as An American Overture.

Like his Canadian Carnival of 1939, the American Overture is a deep bow to Britten’s friend Aaron Copland, whose style had become synonymous with US music in the 1930s. The orchestration is exceptionally sparse: a plodding bass and brass fanfares evoke memories of a march band, and the shower of bare fifths and fourths is maybe a stylised nod in the direction of the American sound ideal. 

Nico Muhly: In Certain Circles

American composer Nico Muhly (b. 1981) wrote In Certain Circles for two pianos and orchestra in 2020. He says in a programme note:

“In Certain Circles is in three movements. The first contains a little fragment of a piece by Rameau. From time to time, the tune appears and quickly vanishes. A very simple gesture permeates all three movements. The second movement is a pair of dance-suite movements: a sarabande and a gigue. I tried to call on my knowledge of French Baroque music to make something I’ve never done before: music which more or less obeys the rhythmic rules of a received form. While the sarabande is quite supple, the gigue is explicitly mechanical and a bit unstable. The third movement begins with the pianos in completely different rhythmic worlds from one another; the music shifts quickly from very dark to very bright, from jagged rhythms to simple ones, and from delicate to quite violent. Every playful moment is offset by something severe and mechanical.”

Katia and Marielle Labèque

Katia and Marielle Labèque, a French piano duo internationally celebrated for their seamless playing, have specialised in repertoire for piano four hands and two pianos since graduating from the Conservatoire de Paris.

Katia and Marielle Labèque frequently perform with the world’s most prestigious orchestras and conductors. The duo’s repertoire spans traditional classical works and contemporary music, and they have collaborated with composers including Thomas Adès, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen. With the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Labèque sisters present the Finnish premiere of Nico Muhly’s In Certain Circles, a concerto commissioned for them.

The Times praised the Labèque sisters for their ”unerring sensitivity and virtuosic ferocity’” in their performance at the Barbican in June 2024, describing their piano duo as ”telepathic”.

Tomas Djupsjöbacka

Tomas Djupsjöbacka (born 1978) is a Finnish conductor, cellist, and chamber musician. He currently serves as Principal Conductor of the Vaasa City Orchestra in the region of Ostrobothnia. Djupsjöbacka has conducted numerous Finnish orchestras, including the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Lahti, the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Oulu Sinfonia.

As a solo cellist and chamber musician, Djupsjöbacka has performed with orchestras in Finland and abroad since 1998. He is the founding cellist of the string quartet Meta4 and a long-time member of the renowned Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Djupsjöbacka was the first ever Principal Guest Conductor of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra from 2019 to 2022.

Tomas Djupsjöbacka graduated from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and the Lausanne Conservatory in Switzerland in 2003, with a major in cello performance. He commenced his conducting studies with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Music Director of the New York Metropolitan Opera, and graduated from the Sibelius Academy in 2017.