Planet Earth

Pekka Kuusisto

Violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his artistic freedom and fresh approach to repertoire. Widely recognised for his flair in directing ensembles, Kuusisto is Artistic Director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and Artistic Partner with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He is also a Collaborative Partner of the San Francisco Symphony, and Artistic Best Friend of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. In the 2021/22 season, he is the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Featured Artist, with whom he performs as both violinist and conductor and has programmed two concerts in the orchestra’s Music of Today series.

In the 2021/22 season Kuusisto performs the world premiere of Bryce Dessner’s violin concerto with the HR Sinfonieorchester, and later with the Philharmonia, San Francisco Symphony, and Munich Chamber orchestras and Orchestre de Paris. He performed the world premiere of Thomas Ades’s Märchentänze for violin and orchestra with the Finnish Radio Symphony orchestra and later with Barcelona Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony and Danish Radio Symphony orchestras. He performs the French premiere of Märchentänze for violin and piano with the composer at the Fondation Louis Vuitton and later at the Wigmore Hall in London. Kuusisto performs other concertos written for him including Nico Muhly’s violin concerto, Shrink and a new concerto by Djuro Zivkovic. In recent seasons Kuusisto has premiered new works by Sauli Zinovjev, Daníel Bjarnason, Anders Hillborg, Philip Venables and Andrea Tarrodi.

The Helsinki Music Centre Choir

Founded in autumn 2011 on the initiative of conductors Hannu Lintu, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and John Storgårds, the Helsinki Music Centre Choir of about 90 singers can, as required, regroup from a symphony to a male, female or chamber choir. It works in partnership with all the main Helsinki Music Centre occupants: the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Sibelius Academy. Its Artistic Director was composer Tapani Länsiö from its formation until the beginning of 2017, when he handed over to Nils Schweckendiek and Jani Sivén. The members of the choir are amateurs with a passion for singing. The HMCC repertoire, planned jointly by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from a long-term perspective, consists primarily of symphonic choral and orchestral works. The Choir also performs a cappella works for large choir. The Choir appears mainly at the Helsinki Music Centre but also at events such as the Organ Night and Aria festival in Espoo, the Turku Music Festival and the Ekenäs Summer Concerts. The Helsinki Music Centre Choir is recruiting more singers. For details of auditions see www.musiikkitalonkuoro.fi.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Andante cantabile in D, Op. 11

The first is the most popular of the three string quartets by Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), and the second movement, Andante cantabile, based on the Russian folksong Sidel Vanya, was a hit the moment it was premiered in 1871. Five years later, it was performed at a concert in honour of Leo Tolstoy who, though later famous for his attacks on cultural life in 19th-century Europe, was so moved that he burst into tears. “Never in my life have I felt so flattered,” Tchaikovsky later recalled. In 1888, he made an arrangement for cello and string orchestra that was made particularly famous by Mstislav Rostropovich. Other arrangements have followed: for string orchestra, clarinet, viola, wind ensemble, four recorders and others. With its beautiful melody and lyrical mood, it requires no analysis.

Hildur Guðnadóttir: Vichnaya Pamyat

Hildur Guðnadóttir (b. 1982) comes from Iceland and is perhaps best known for her Oscar-winning score for the film Joker (2019) and her BAFTA and Grammy awarded music for the HBO series Chernobyl (2019). The latter tells of the 1986 accident and was filmed in a decommissioned Lithuanian nuclear power plant, where she and Chris Watson recorded soundscapes. During the last episode in the series, an epilogue, a Ukrainian male choir performs the arrangement she made of an Orthodox hymn, Vichnaya Pamyat (Memory Eternal). It is, she says, “a traditional Ukrainian funeral song. They sing it whenever anyone dies in Ukraine or Russia. I did an arrangement of the song and then we went back to record it in the Ukraine because that song has a very strong connection for people in this culture. They know how to sing it. I can try to make sense of the melody but I think the real feeling of it had to come from people that know it.”

Andrea Tarrodi: Birds of Paradise

Andrea Tarrodi (b. 1981) is a leading contemporary Swedish composer of chamber and vocal music, orchestral and solo works, and an opera about Sigrid Hjertén the painter. The winner of many awards, she was the first female Swedish composer to have a work premiered at the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in 2020.

Tarrodi believes in synaesthesia. “Different notes and chords have different colours,” she says. “When I was young, I was initially torn between painting and composing, and I still approach music through an artistic lens.” Birds of Paradise for string orchestra – she later made a version for orchestra – premiered in 2008 has a distinctly visual ambiance. It was inspired by the TV series Planet Earth made by Sir David Attenborough, and especially the episode featuring species of birds found in Oceania. A colourfully impressionistic piece, it tonight receives its first performance in Finland.

Antti Auvinen: Stabat Tiger Mater

Antti Auvinen (b. 1974) wants his music to speak out, to cause a reaction, and it may therefore be inspired by such things as right-wing populism, war propaganda, or the refugee crisis. He has written a prize-winning chamber opera (Bliss) about religious violence. His Stabat Tiger Mater, now receiving its premiere, was a commission for the Helsinki Variations series. The title is, he says, a reference to the Stabat Mater, about a mother grieving for her child, composed by Toivo Kuula in 1915 and the Olympic Fanfare of 1939 by Aarre Merikanto. The word “Tiger” in turn alludes to the Swedish propaganda campaign during WWII; “a Swedish tiger” was smart and kept his mouth shut about events on the home front, while at the same time Sweden was secretly selling arms to Germany. The reference to the Olympic Fanfare is again about keeping shtum, this time the 2022 Winter Olympics and the West’s attitude to their being held in a country, China, violating human rights. There are, however, no direct quotations in the music; rather it has something of the “absurd euphoria” of a sporting event.

Igor Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) was a veritable Neoclassical trend-setter in the 1920s. One of his finest works of the period is the Symphony of Psalms he composed in 1930 as a commission from Serge Koussevitzky for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Stravinsky had experienced a religious awakening in the previous decade. He began to pray, went to church and studied the Bible, and the Symphony reflects his need to express his Russian Orthodox faith by musical means. But, he said, “The Symphony of Psalms is not a symphony in which I have included psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of psalms that I am symphonising.”

What makes the Symphony Neoclassical? Its references to Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint and its objective, disciplined approach, for example. The omission of violins and violas creates a special, sombre mood. The work is in three movements performed without a break: Psalms 38 (restless seeking), 39 (the finding of faith) and 150 (a hymn of praise to God).