Concert Review: Now We Can Play the Forbidden Music

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the MET Orchestra end the Carnegie Hall season.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

In flight: Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Photo by Nicolas Brodard © 2017 the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The Carnegie Hall subscription season ended Tuesday night with an epic concert featuring conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, the MET Orchestra and a heaping program of four works by Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius. These two composers remain touchstones of Mr. Salonen’s long and successful podium career. With bold repertory choices (including a Mahler piece that, unaccountably, may have had its Carnegie Hall premiere at his very concert!) and a starry pair of guests, this proved a revelatory and engrossing evening.

Concert Review: His Way

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen. Photo by Silvia Lelli for the Salzburg Festival.

When the New York Philharmonic went through the torturous process of choosing a music director to replace Alan Gilbert, the Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen was very near the top of the list. On Saturday night, Mr. Salonen, who is the orchestra’s current composer-in-residence, led the last of three concerts this week featuring a new horn concerto by Tansy Davies, flanked by the music of Stravinsky and Richard Strauss.

Obituary: Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016)

The composer of eight symphonies and fourteen concertos was 87.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Composer Einojuhani Rautavaara at his piano.
Photo by Outi Pyhäranta. 

Composer Einojuhani Rautavaara died yesterday. The grand master of Finnish music was 87. His eight symphonies and enormous output of opera, songs and orchestral works broke bold new ground in the 20th and 21st centuries, and his legacy to younger composers can be heard throughout the world's concert halls.

Recordings Review: Famous Last Words?

On Sibelius, silence and the "death" of classical music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sage advice from your favorite blog.

As the Internet erupted in a swirl of argument following the announcement of the "Death of Classical Music" in a recent issue of Slate, things have been a little bit more subdued here at the Brooklyn apartment headquarters of Superconductor. Frankly, I've been down for the count with a persistent head cold, acquired (ironically) during Act I of last Wednesday's La Bohème.

Concert Review: The Sound of the Northlands

Listening in Suomi at Scandinavia House. 

Parenthetically speaking: the members of counter)induction.

Monday night at Scandinavia House's underground Victor Borge Hall featured members of the chamber group counter)induction, playing works by contemporary Finnish composers Esa-Pekka Salonem, Jukka Tiensuu, Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg. 

Visitors to New York's concert halls might recognize some of those names:

• Mr. Salonen is an international conductor, who also devotes considerable time to composition. 
• Ms. Saariaho, Carnegie Hall's composer-in-residence is known for her spacious, austere soundscapes. 
• Mr. Lindberg is completing his third year as the New York Philharmonic's composer-in-residence. 

All three are long-serving members of Finland's "Ears Open" movement, a resurgence of sonic creativity in that country.

Mr. Lindberg served as the emcee of the evening, introducing each work. He started by introducing the New York audience to the sound-world of Mr. Tiensuu, arguably the most obscure composer on the bill. Mr. Tiensuu's sound-world incorporates microtones--notes generated between those pitches on a standard scale--but does so in a unique way that recalls the complexities of baroque music. NOUS was a terse toccata, with repeated pounding rhythms and opportunities for virtuosity in its central waltz section. 

Next up was Homonculus for String Quartet by conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. As the title suggests, this was an intense piece of music. The two violins traded lines with the viola, over short, chopped rhythms that occasionally galloped or capered. constructed atop galloping cello rhythms that recalled another Finnish chamber ensemble: Apocalyptica. 

Similar, alchemical ideas infused Mr. Lindberg's Piano Trio, receiving its New York premiere in this concert. The Trio  was followed by the premiere of Mr. Lindberg's Clarinet Trio, with nimble playing from all three instruments. Mr. Lindberg laid out the thematic ideas in an opening "whirlpool." To build the second and third movements, the material was drawn from the bubbling cauldron, reshaped, and occasionally transmuted with fascinating results.

The second half of the program opened with Ms. Saariaho's Pres, a three-movement work for cello and electronic tones generated by an onstage MacBook Pro. . In a pre-concert interview Ms. Saariaho described an idea she had for an "endless" cello bow, the size of a large suspension bridge. She then moved to the computer station, working with 

It was not impossible to imagine that mega-instrument in the swoops and whooshes generated by the computer. Cellist Sumire Kido played with admirable focus, bringing the dreamy world of Ms. Saariaho's music to vivid life. The three movements incorporated natural and electronic sounds to accompany the cello, and a good balance was achieved in this unusual duet.

The concert concluded with Mr. Lindberg's Clarinet Quintet, a playful 20 minutes that, Liszt-like, packs the ideas of four seperate movements into one economical form. The five players tossed the theme back and forth rapidly, as if the musical ideas were too hot to handle. The most athletic playing here came from clarinetist Benjamin Fingland. Without the ability to play chords, the woodwind had to work twice as hard.

Beyond the actual notes, what made this performance work was the explosive energy built from Mr. Lindberg's taut rhythms and intertwining musical fragments. The work was clearly taxing on the musicians, but they were also enjoying the exchange of energy with eye gestures, shoulder movements and repeated leaps into the complex melodic fray. 

Concert Review: Finnish Tango Takes Manhattan

Avanti! brings a national craze to Zankel Hall.

The veteran: Markus Allan has sung Finnish tangos for 50 years.

On Thursday night, conductor Hannu Lintu led the Finnish chamber ensemble Avanti! in an unexpected and entertaining program focusing on that Argentine musical form turned Finnish national obsession--the tango.

Now, I'm of Finnish descent, but my grandparents got to New York in 1911, two years before the first tango performance in Helsinki introduced this slinky Argentine dance to the Finnish people. My dad had some Finnish tango records, but he also collected polkas by Laase Pilhjama and that's what I think of as traditional Finnish music.

In Finland, the tango caught on in the years following the Winter War with Russia. After fighting both Russian and German forces, the Finns needed a way to decompress. And they found it in slower versions of the tango, almost always in a sad minor key. The national obsession became a craze in the 1990s, with a yearly tango festival in the tiny town of Seinäjoki drawing thousands to dance and compete.

Mr. Lintu led a program that explored the history of the art form in his home country, aided by legendary Finnish singer Markus Allan. Mr. Allan is completing a world tour celebrating 50 years of singing tangos. He proved to have a smooth, engaging baritone voice, and a pleasant onstage manner, capturing the humor and wit in these songs and working closely with the razor-sharp chamber orchestra.

Mr. Allan proved a genial, energetic interpreter, even encouraging the audience to get up and dance. Sadly, only Mr. Hiltunen did, leading a woman from her seat and dancing in the narrow aisle below the lip of the stage.

The singer then took a break to allow Mr. Hintu to present two Finnish waltzes: Oskar Merikanto's Kesäillan Vassi and the most familiar number on the program: Sibelius' Valse Triste, re-arranged for tango orchestra with accordion.

Although constructed on dance rhythms, the melancholy lyrics make these tangos more like lieder. Themes varied, from lost love, to looking toward a better tomorrow (a very Finnish attitude) or reflecting on the natural beauty of the country. 

The program was hosted by actor Tuomas Hiltunen, who provided commentary and context for these marvelous little songs, from the early 1930s tangos of Kullervo Linna and Toivo Kärki, through more modern works that moved a little faster. Highlights included the pensive "Such is the Journey of Life" by Mr. Kärki, and "Fairy Land", which dreams of immigration to abetter world than Finland:  the hills of Sunset Park, the old Finnish neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Growing Up With Sibelius

My father was the son of Finnish immigrants. So I grew up with the music of Jean Sibelius. Finlandia, the Valse Triste, the Second Symphony were in regular rotation in our apartment, an old-style high-ceilinged Finnish co-op in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Today, I live in another apartment in the same building.

100 Finnish Marks, with Jean Sibelius on the bill.
These bills are no longer in circulation, since Finland uses the Euro.

It's hard to explain what Finlandia means to me--and still does. I've never been to Finland, much less Karelia where my family comes from. But this is ten minutes of music that "feels" like my national identity: the stern opening, the sturdy march, the tender, haunting center section, and the wild frenzy of brass and percussion that brings the whole thing home.

Finlandia played an important role in my birth. The "B" melody was the alma mater of the Brooklyn high school where my parents taught, met and married. And when I went with my buddies to see the Bruce Willis action flick Die Hard 2, the presence of the work on the movie soundtrack (orchestrated and arranged by Michael Kamen) had me ignoring the crashed airplanes, machine-gun battles and wisecracks of the film. (The director, Renny Harlin, is another Finn.)

Sibelius is the most famous composer to come from Finland. His music was heavily influenced by the folklore of that country, the epic poem Kalevala, and the snow-swept pine forests and frozen lakes of this northeast corner of Europe. Most importantly, his works, (particularly the tone poem Finlandia, became the soundtrack of Finnish national identity and independence from Russian rule, achieved in 1917.

As I grew up and found myself working in the music industry, I came to learn and love not just those childhood tone poems, but the major works of this great composer. His output is centered around eight symphonies: the "song symphony" Kullervo and seven numbered examples of the genre. Each of the seven is an exercise in brevity, from the patriotic early symponies, to the tight-lipped Fourth, to his Seventh, which packs an entire four-movement sonata form into about 17 minutes with each movement flowing into one another like fast-running water.

Sibelius in later life.

I started today with the juxtaposition of the Fourth and Fifth, two very different works. For the record, I was listening to the Paavo Berglund recordings on EMI with the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra, though I also own good cycles from Sir Colin Davis (with the Boston Symphony Orchestra--currently out of print) and the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladmir Ashkenazy. The Fourth (as I mentioned above) is a dark, cynical exercise in tragedy, where themes are expressed, developed, and then curtly cut off in mid-expression, like a blooming flower snipped at the stem.

The Fifth is a much warmer piece, rich and expansive. The final movement, where a stately, down-shifting theme on the horns plays as accompaniment to an elegaic outburst in the strings, stands as the most beautiful, most noble thing ever written by this composer--and that includes the second theme in Finlandia.

A statue in honor of Sibelius, part of the
Sibelius Monument in Helsinki.

Sibelius stopped composing in 1926, (my Dad was three years old) following the premiere of his tone poem Tapiola and incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest. He lived for another three decades. His music, championed by conductors like Eugene Ormandy and Serge Koussevitzky, remained a popular staple of concert repertory in the United States, even though his work was savaged by German and British critics. Then again, Sibelius once said:

"Pay no attention to what the critics say. Remember, there has never been a statue raised in the honor of a critic."

Alex Ross' excellent book The Rest Is Noise has a terrific chapter on Sibelius. Mr. Ross mentions that the composer was working on an expansive Eighth Symphony, which he planned as a choral work along the same lines as Beethoven's Ninth or Mahler's Resurrection. The composer decided one morning to burn the score, along with a number of other musical manuscripts. His decision was our irreplaceable loss.