20131110_englanti

11 NOVEMBER
FRIDAY SERIES 3
Helsinki Music Centre at 19.00
TUKKIJOELLA (Log River, Finland 1928)
Santtu-Matias Rouvali, conductor
Kimmo Hakola, music, world premiere performance (Yle commission)
Production company: Suomi-Filmi Oy
Producer: Erkki Karu
Directors: Wilho Ilmari, Axel Slangus
Script: Erkki Karu after the play Tukkijoella by Teuvo Pakkala,
a four-act comedy with singing (1899, fifth, revised edition 1922).
Songs: lyrics by Otto Manninen, Larin Kyösti and Kaarlo Halme and
music by Oskar Merikanto
Director of photography: Frans Ekebom
Photographer’s assistant: Armas Fredman
Sets: Carl Fager
Make-up: Hannes Kuokkanen
Make-up assistant: Olavi Suominen
Music for cinema orchestra: Emil Kauppi after the incidental music by
Oskar Merikanto (1899)
Editing: Axel Slangus, Frans Ekebom
Studio Manager: Armas Fredman
Still photos: Kalle Havas, Kosti Lehtinen
Cast:
Urho Somersalmi (Aaprami Turkka), Ellen Sylvin (Pietolan Katri),
Mary Spennert-Hannikainen (Anni), Kirsti Suonio (Maija Rivakka), Litja Ilmari (PahnaMaija), Olga Salo (Leena), Eino Salmela (Antti Huhtanen), Paavo Costiander (Huotari),
Ossi Korhonen (Pölhö-Kustaa), Heikki Välisalmi (Heikki Tolari), Emil Lindh (J. Pietola),
Agnes Lindh (Eino Salmela’s mother), Olga Leino (Perttu’s widow, Pölhö-Kusta’s
mother), Mimmi Lähteenoja (Poro-Pirkko), Juho Pulssi (Korhonen),
Helge Ranin (Kasuri), Kalle Grönfors [Kalle Viherpuu] (Renki-Pekka), Toivo Suonpää
(logger), Virtanen II (log-shooter), Emil Mikkola (ferryman Taurila), Sulo Räikkönen
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Filmed on location in Iitti, Finland in summer and autumn 1928
Studio: Vironkadun studio
Premiere: 5.11.1928 Helsinki (Kino-Palatsi), Kuopio, Lahti, Tampere, Turku and
Viipuri
Distribution: Suomen Biografi Osakeyhtiö, no. 15194, no age restriction, 2852 m
/20 fps/ 124 min. Opening credits and other texts in Finnish and Swedish
Restored edition (Finnish Film Archive 2004):
2745 m /20 fps/ 119 min
RSO project 2013:
digital HD version: speed corr. 20 fps, duration 1 h 59 min 48 sec
Other film versions: Tukkijoella (Kalle Kaarna, 1937), Tukkijoella (Roland af
Hällström, 1951, with Tauno Palo, Lasse Pöysti)
No interval. The film ends at about 21.00.
Tukkijoella is the fifth and last in a series in which the Finnish Broadcasting
Company commissioned five Finnish composers to provide a new score for five
Finnish silent films of the 1920s. This film, with its new score, will be shown on
the Yle Teema channel on 6 January 2014.
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Tukkijoella also relies on nature and
scenery, for which film has an overwhelming advantage. Erkki Karu had already made a film with a similar setting
in Iitti, and it was here, on the same
rapids, that Tukkijoella was filmed.
The Helsinki premiere was a gala performance attended by the President of
the Republic, Lauri Kristian Relander,
his family and members of the
Government. It was a tremendous hit.
People poured in from the country regions to see it in Kuopio. Their delight
knew no bounds and the cinema was
packed time and again. Tukkijoella was
the biggest Finnish box-office film hit
of the season and one of the biggest
in the history of Finnish cinema at that
time.
TUKKIJOELLA
(Finland 1928)
The musical comedy Tukkijoella by
Teuvo Pakkala is a prime example of
the romantic image that once surrounded the lives of loggers in Finland.
The first of its three film adaptations
was made in the silent era, with a cinema orchestra playing music by Oskar
Merikanto arranged by Emil Kauppi.
Tukkijoella is a romantic flight from
reality, a musical with not one but three
happy endings. It became Finland’s
greatest theatre hit and, following the
first film version, remained in the staple theatre repertoire for nearly thirty
years. The Finnish National Theatre
alone performed it 300 times.
Consisting mainly of dialogue and
songs, the play laid the foundations for
the romantic logger tradition and established archetypical characters that
could be likened to those of commedia
dell’arte. That these archetypical types
were created by a gifted modern writer
alongside an ambitious artistic career
is proof of Pakkala’s versatile talent.
The plot is sketchy, even stereotypical,
and serves mainly as a frame on which
to peg dialogue rich in folk humour.
Erkki Karu’s production of Tukkijoella
meant a new addition to Suomi-Filmi’s
national masterpiece series and was at
the same time an investment in a sure
commercial winner. The actors were, as
far as possible, role veterans well known
from the theatre.
Converting a play based on fluent,
witty dialogue into a silent film was
in itself a paradox. On the other hand,
Antti Alanen (abridged)
MUSIC FOR THE FILM
TUKKIJOELLA (1928),
OP. 90
I was thrilled to receive an invitation to
take part in the Yle silent film project.
Composing a score for a silent film has
been a unique challenge and an educational experience.
Having committed myself, I approached the project from two angles.
First, I debated the paradox of its technical realisation: how to synchronise an
old film abounding in time lags with
a large symphony orchestra to create
be a vibrant, coherent work of art. The
most difficult thing has been devising a functional set of coordinates to
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positions within an overall frame that
breathed, that embraced the events in
the film and that had a beautiful ending.
encompass the live orchestra and the
film.
I spent ages debating the relationship between music and image. There
were two options. One was to create an
aural colour scheme for the film and its
events while understanding that the
music does not occupy the leading role
and must be subordinate to the image.
The other was to see the film as a visual drama raised by the music to a new
plane – naturally giving precedence to
the film. I chose both, but with the emphasis on the latter. It was important
to grasp that the music is not an update of that already existing, and that
in composing my score, I would involuntarily be creating a new work of art.
I started by composing some freeflowing music for various scenes, one
reason being that one idea of the project was to produce an orchestral suite
for separate concert performance. This
done, I believed I was on firm ground.
It was when I began fitting the music
to the film that the film revealed its
true prima-donna role. There seemed
to be no logical way of persuading it
to fit. Instead, it had to be coaxed, one
second at a time, bit by bit. This detailed job was the most exacting I have
ever done: hard work, but interesting.
Added to which, I kept having to remind myself that I could not think of
the music independently, without the
picture.
The day it dawned on me that the
film was like a soloist for whom I was
constructing a concert setting marked
the start of the most enjoyable part
of the project. I realised I was on the
right road, core motifs metamorphosing, crisscrossing and taking up new
Kimmo Hakola (abridged)
SANTTU-MATIAS
ROUVALI
The conducting career of SanttuMatias Rouvali has rapidly progressed
in leaps and bounds. In addition to
studying in the conducting class of Leif
Segerstam, Jorma Panula and Hannu
Lintu since 2007, he has already appeared with major symphony orchestras both in Finland and abroad. Before
turning to conducting, he studied percussion in the Junior Sibelius Academy.
Santtu-Matias Rouvali has been
Chief Conductor of the Tampere
Philharmonic and Principal Guest
Conductor
of
the
Copenhagen
Philharmonic since autumn 2013. He
is also an Artist in Association of the
Tapiola Sinfonietta. Meanwhile, he continues to work in close partnership with
the FRSO.
Engagements last season included
appearances with the Swedish Radio
Symphony Orchestra, the French
Radio Symphony Orchestra, the
Dresden Philharmonic and the London
Philharmonia. Santtu-Matias Rouvali
has been assistant to Sakari Oramo
at Kokkola Opera Summer since 2009
and there conducted such productions
as Bizet’s Carmen and Mozart’s The
Magic Flute.
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ceived the MIDEM Classical Award
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.
THE FINNISH
RADIO SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
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 re-
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