18 september

18 SEPTEMBER
WEDNESDAY SERIES 2
Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00
Thomas Zehetmair, conductor
Felix Mendelssohn: Das Märchen von der schönen Melusine,
Overture, Op. 32
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90
“Italian”
11 min
30 min
I Allegro vivace
II Andante con moto
III Con moto moderato
IV Saltarello (Presto)
INTERVAL 20 min
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56
“Scottish”
I Andante con moto – Allegro un poco agitato
II Scherzo (Vivace non troppo)
III Adagio
IV Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai
Interval at about 19.55. The concert ends at about 21.05.
Broadcast live on Yle Radio 1 and the Internet (yle.fi/klassinen).
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40 min
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
(1809–1847)
Symphony No. 4 in A Major,
Op. 90 “Italian”
Mendelssohn spent a couple of years
travelling in England and Scotland before heading for sunnier Italy. There, he
was immediately moved to plan a new
symphony bathed in light and catching all the excitement of a carnival. But
as so often happens with impetuous
young men, his plans soon slipped his
memory after a change of scenery. He
finished his Italian Symphony in March
1833, but once he had lost contact with
the source of his inspiration, he kept
getting stuck and he was not satisfied
with the result. He gave the symphony
at least two thorough revisions yet still
he was not satisfied. It was premiered
in different versions (at least in 1833
and 1838, both in London), but he never got round to writing the definitive
edition he had promised in his letters
and the score was not published until
1849, by which time he was dead.
The listener today has difficulty understanding what could possibly be
wrong with this heady and infinitely
well-crafted symphony. The beginning
of the opening movement is one of
the most striking in all orchestral literature, and certainly one of the sunniest. The air is filled with the excitement
of the carnival Mendelssohn witnessed
in Italy, and the slightly calmer second
theme does little to check the pace.
The slow movement is said to have
been inspired by a procession of pilgrims, captured in a typical “walking
bass” accompaniment to a folk songlike melody that may allude to something intimate and romantic. The third
Overture “Das Märchen von
der schönen Melusine”
Mendelssohn was spurred to write his
overture Das Märchen von der schönen
Melusine (The Fair Melusine) in 1833,
after attending the opera Melusine by
Conrad Kreutz. He scorned the opera’s
flighty overture and decided there and
then to compose a better one of his
own that would speak more profoundly
to the audience.
The libretto for Kreutz’s Fair Melusine
was by Franz Grillparzer and originally
offered to no lesser a composer than
Beethoven, who had apparently found
it lacking. The opera tells the story of
a water sprite, Melusine, who falls in
love with a royal nobleman and is allowed an earthly life on certain conditions: she must not reveal her origins.
But when the nobleman presses her to
answer his questions, she has to return
to her watery domain and their love is
doomed. In other words, Melusine is a
female Lohengrin! Mendelssohn’s overture begins with a wave-like theme in
F major that clearly influenced Wagner
when, 20 years later, he composed the
overture to Das Rheingold. The sorry
tale is narrated in an overture in sonata form keeping mainly to F minor, its
two contrasting themes obviously representing the opposing worldviews of
Melusine and her nobleman.
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Scottish nevertheless got edged out by
the Italian and was left to gather dust
for the next ten years. Herein lies the
reason for the misleading numbering
and opus numbers of the Mendelssohn
symphonies, later versions of the Italian
included.
Early spring 1842 saw the completion of the Scottish Symphony and its
premiere at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in
March, with Mendelssohn conducting.
In June the following year he took it with
him to London, now with a dedication
to Queen Victoria. True to custom, he
gave no programmatic references and
made no mention of the initial stimulus provided by the ruined chapel. His
only public comment was a note in the
score saying that no long pauses were
to be made between the movements,
and that the audience were to be given no hint of the content apart from
the Italian tempo markings. However,
writers about music have, again true
to custom, compared the overall mood
of the symphony to the bleak Highland
landscape and the Celtic temperament,
with its melancholy and sometimes
warlike features. Some have claimed
– rightly or wrongly – to have heard
in the sweeping, epic first movement
and the finale echoes of the novels
of Walter Scott. The Scherzo is easier
to “interpret”: a merry dance drawing
on Scottish folk music. The recitativelike beginning of the slow movement
might allude to the narrative tradition
of the ancient peoples, but the listener
can readily ignore this if the beautiful
music simply appeals.
movement is evocative of Schumann’s
Biedermeier, half minuet, half waltz,
and not therefore so much of the
“fairy scherzo” generally associated
with Mendelssohn. The German youth
may well be expressing his homesickness in the Trio section, for the distant
fanfares on the horns and bassoons
sound very Germanic in such a southerly context. The finale, though labelled
a Saltarello, is really a Tarantella (there
is a slight difference), a wildly spinning
Southern Italian dance the stern minor
key of which radiates heated energy.
Symphony No. 3 in A Minor,
Op. 56 “Scottish”
Mendelssohn began working on his
Scottish Symphony as early as 1829.
That spring, he had travelled to
London, where his cultivated presence
and phenomenal musical talent were
all the talk of the town. In July, he travelled on to Scotland, where he visited
not only Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides
but also the chapel ruins at Holyrood
House. In a letter home he wrote: “Now
roofless, grass and ivy grow there, and
at the broken altar Mary was crowned
Queen of Scotland. Everything around
is broken and mouldering and the
bright sky shines in. I believe I have
found today in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish symphony.” His
inspiration was undoubtedly strong,
but it vanished once he had turned his
back on the Highlands. He continued
working on his symphony even after
reaching Italy, informing the folks at
home that he was considering writing
two symphonies at the same time. The
Jouni Kaipainen (abridged)
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THOMAS ZEHETMAIR
THE FINNISH
RADIO SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
Thomas Zehetmair is one of the most
outstanding artists in the world today
– highly regarded worldwide as a violinist, conductor and chamber musician. In 2005 he was honoured with the
German Critics’ Award for his versatile
artistic work. He is Music Director of
the Royal Northern Sinfonia in the UK,
Artistic Partner of the St. Paul Chamber
Orchestra in the USA, and Principal
Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the
Orchestre de chambre de Paris, France.
Concert tours with the Royal Northern
Sinfonia have led Thomas Zehetmair to
Asia, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and
Germany. He works as a guest conductor with orchestras such as the Hallé,
the Bavarian Radio Symphony and the
Rotterdam Philharmonic. This season includes concerts with the English
Chamber Orchestra, the Mozarteum
Orchestra Salzburg and the Dresden
Philharmonic. As a violinist, he will appear with, among others, the Berlin
Philharmonic.
With the Royal Northern Sinfonia
Thomas Zehetmair has recorded such
works as the Brahms and Stravinsky
Violin Concertos, and discs of symphonies by Schumann and Sibelius.
Thomas Zehetmair holds honorary
doctorates from the Music Academy
Franz Liszt in Weimar and Newcastle
University, UK.
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
(FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish
Broadcasting Company (Yle). Its mission is to produce and promote Finnish
musical culture and its Chief Conductor
as of autumn 2013 is Hannu Lintu.
The Radio Orchestra of ten players
founded in 1927 grew to symphony orchestra strength in the 1960s. Its previous Chief Conductors have been
Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt,
Paavo Berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif
Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and
Sakari Oramo. The FRSO has two
Honorary Conductors: Jukka-Pekka
Saraste and Sakari Oramo.
The latest contemporary music is
a major item in the repertoire of the
FRSO, which each year premieres a
number of Yle commissions. Another
of the orchestra’s tasks is to record all
Finnish orchestral music for the Yle archive. During the 2013/2014 season it
will premiere six Finnish works commissioned by Yle.
The FRSO has recorded works by
Eötvös, Nielsen, Hakola, Lindberg,
Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, Kokkonen
and others, and the debut disc of the
opera Aslak Hetta by Armas Launis. Its
discs have reaped some major distinctions, such as the BBC Music Magazine
Award and the Académie Charles Cros
Award. The disc of the Sibelius and
Lindberg violin concertos (Sony BMG)
with Lisa Batiashvili as the soloist received the MIDEM Classical Award
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in 2008, in which year the New York
Times chose the other Lindberg disc as
its Record of the Year.
The FRSO regularly tours to all parts
of the world. During the 2013/2014
season it will be visiting Central Europe
under the baton of Hannu Lintu.
All the FRSO concerts both in Finland
and abroad are broadcast, usually live,
on Yle Radio 1. They can also be heard
and watched with excellent stream
quality on yle.fi/klassinen.
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