Processions

Daníel Bjarnason

Daníel Bjarnason is a leading figure on Iceland’s contemporary music scene. Many of his works have been performed in Finland, and he has equally made a name for himself conducting orchestras such as the Los Angeles, Toronto and Tokyo Symphonies. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the Iceland Symphony and last appeared in Finland with the Radio Symphony Orchestra last autumn. Like many of his generation, he values community over individuality. Rather than dictating, he prefers to engage in dialogue with the players, to create something as a joint effort.

Bjarnason studied in Reykjavik – the piano, composition and orchestral conducting – before continuing at the University of Music Freiburg in Germany. He has been artist in residence or collaboration with the Iceland Symphony and the orchestra of the Musiekgebouw Frits Philips Eindhoven and at the Reykjavik Festival.

Juho Pohjonen

Juho Pohjonen (b. 1981) is one of the most active Finnish pianists on the international scene, and particularly in the United States, where he can be heard in both solo and chamber repertoire. Appearances have included performances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony, and at the Mostly Mozart festival in New York. One of Juho’s recent signature works is the piano concerto by Daníel Bjarnason, which he has performed here in Finland with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Radio Symphony Orchestra, and across in Sweden in Umeå.

Together with his brother Joonas, Juho Pohjonen has masterminded and programmed a pioneering music app called MyPianist allowing, say, violinists and cellists to practise concertos and sonatas to a virtual pianist accompaniment.

Grażyna Bacewicz: Overture

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969) was a real child wonder at home in Poland. She played the violin, and in 1932, after a highly-acclaimed concert of her compositions, was awarded a grant to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Women composers were rare in those days and she often had to explain her choice of career, but she is nowadays regarded as a bold experimenter and a pioneer of Polish modernism. The orchestral Overture was written in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. It is in Neoclassical style, though Bacewicz disliked the term, and was premiered at a festival of new music soon after the war. The first section, dominated by strings and brass, is followed by an Adagio led by the woodwinds, until the triumphant ending looks back to the beginning in a jubilant build-up. Some claim that the recurring drum motif familiar from Beethoven’s fifth symphony is a cryptic message in Morse: the letter V for victory.

Daníel Bjarnason: Processions

A pinch of experimental machine, a dash of strict modernism, a drop of ethereal ambient, even pop if you look hard enough: the music of Daníel Bjarnason (b. 1979) has it all. Thanks to him, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir and Hildur Guðnadóttir, Iceland is right now the world’s hottest contemporary music country. Bjarnason wrote his piano concerto Processions (2009) especially for fellow countryman Víkingur Ólafsson, who also recorded it on the Bedroom Community label with Bjarnason conducting, and it won the Best Composer/Best Composition prize in the 2010 Icelandic Music Awards.

Processions is in three movements: In Medias Res (which begins in mid-stream, as it were), Spindrift (a sort of lament) and Red-handed (a thumping, ritualistic march). Some may detect a whiff of Ravel in the quieter stretches, maybe Rachmaninov and Prokofiev in the piano’s outbursts.

Witold Lutosławski: Symphony No. 3

Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) was no doubt the greatest Polish composer to grow up amid the ruins of WWII. His early works were denounced by the regime as elitist and formalist, obliging him to write music that was politically correct. Things changed with the death of Stalin, and so did Lutosławski’s style. He first used 12-note technique in 1954, along with the aleatory that was to become his hallmark, especially in his Symphony No. 3 (1973–1983).

The word ‘alea’ is Latin and means ‘dice’. ‘Aleatory’ is, roughly, music involving elements of random choice. The players have more freedom than in other music, since the composer does not necessarily dictate the metre, tempo or even pitch. In his third symphony, Lutosławski lets the players do what they like until the conductor gives a sign or they hear that their partners have moved on. Such works to some extent differ from traditional ones, but they are not nearly as chaotic as might be expected.

Lutosławski avoided the conventional symphony format in which the first movement is the weightiest. In his third, the best bits are in the latter half. The symphony may be regarded as something of a protest in the spirit of the Polish Solidarity movement.