13 minute read
Osmo Vänskä biography
KAIJA SAARIAHO
(2001)
Kaija Saariaho is one of the most prominent creative voices of Finland, whose generous support for the arts has given it a musical culture matched by that of few other nations. Saariaho was born in Helsinki in 1952 and took her professional training at the Helsinki University of Art and Design and the Sibelius Academy, where her teachers included Paavo Heininen. She continued her studies at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, Germany with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber, and attended courses in computer music at Darmstadt and IRCAM in Paris. She has lived in Paris since 1982. Saariaho’s instrumental and vocal works — modern, luminous, shifting patterns of sound with a strong emotional core — have earned her such distinctions as the Kranichsteiner Preis, Prix Italia, Ars Electronica Prize, Nordic Music Prize, Rolf Schock Prize, Kaske Prize, Stoeger Award of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Nemmers Prize, Wihuri Prize and Sonning Prize; she was named Musical America’s “Composer of the Year” for 2008 and was Bloch Professor in Music at the University of California, Berkeley in 2015. Saariaho’s first opera, the visionary L’Amour de loin (“Love from Afar”), with a libretto by the Lebanese-French journalist and novelist Amin Maalouf based on an early biography of the 12thcentury troubadour Jaufré Rudel, received widespread acclaim upon its premiere at the 2000 Salzburg Festival, and won her a prestigious Grawemeyer Award and a Grammy Award. L’Amour de loin was given its American premiere by Santa Fe Opera in July 2002 and first staged by the Metropolitan Opera in December 2016. Her most recent opera, Innocence, with an original Finnish libretto by Sofi Oksanen and a multilingual libretto by Aleksi Barriere, was premiered in July 2021 to exceptional praise by the Festival International d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence. Additional productions of Innocence, based on a painfully contemporary story about the aftermath of a fatal school shooting in Helsinki, are scheduled at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Finnish National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Dutch National Opera and Metropolitan Opera.
Alexis Leger, who published his poetry under the nom de plume of Saint-John Perse, was born in 1887 in Guadeloupe, studied law at the University of Bordeaux, joined the French diplomatic service in 1914, and served in prominent positions in China, Europe and, during World War II, in Washington, D.C.; he remained in the United States until 1967. Leger/Perse wrote poetry throughout his life, but he was most prolific after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960. He died in Provence in 1975.
Kaija Saariaho came to know Perse’s long poem Oiseaux (“Birds”) soon after it was published in 1963, and she was particularly taken with its passages that “somehow described images I had in my mind: those of birds, fighting gravity, flying away, secret and immortal.” Under its influence in 1982, Saariaho composed Laconisme de l’aile (“Laconism of the Wing”) for solo flute and electronics to evoke “not bird song but rather the lines they draw in the sky when they are flying.” In 1992, she took Amers, Perse’s 1957 book of poems dedicated to the sea, as the title and inspiration for her work for cello soloist and seven players. (An amers is a natural or manmade fixed point used for navigation.) Aile du Songe (“Wing of the Dream”), a concerto for flute and orchestra inspired by Perse’s Oiseaux, was composed in 2011; Terrestre (“Terrestrial”), a reworking of the second movement of Aile du Songe for flute and chamber ensemble, followed a year later, as did Poèmes de Saint-Jean Perse: extracts from “Oiseaux,” in which Saariaho embedded spoken recitation of several excerpts from the poem in her original “sonic environments.”
Saariaho composed Aile du Songe in 2001 for the distinguished flutist Camilla Hoitenga on a joint commission from the Flanders Festival, Finnish Broadcasting Corporation and London Philharmonic Orchestra; it was premiered on October 12, 2001 at the Flanders Festival in Brussels, conducted by Marin Alsop, and recorded by Hoitenga, the Finnish Radio Symphony and conductor Jukka-Pekka for Montaigne Records early the next year. Of Aile du Songe, Saariaho wrote, “The sound of the flute has been a feature of my music since my earliest works. Its everpresent breathiness and all its timbral possibilities suit my musical language very well. The character of the instrument lends itself to phrases that gradually transform through gritty textures colored with phonemes whispered by the flautist into pure and smooth sounds.
“The title and the general mood of the piece are derived from Saint-John Perse’s collection of poems Oiseaux: ‘Aile falquée du songe, vous nous retrouverez ce soir sur d’autres rives!’ [Birds: ‘Falcated [sickle-shaped] wing of the dream, you will find us tonight on other shores!’] In these poems, Saint-John Perse does not describe the singing of the birds. He speaks rather of their flight, and uses the rich metaphor of birds to describe life’s mysteries through an abstract and multi-dimensional language: ‘Ignorants de leur ombre, et ne sachant de mort que ce qui s’en consume d’immortel au bruit lointain des grandes eaux, ils passent, nous laissant, et nous ne sommes plus les mêmes. Ils sont l’espace traversé d’une seule pensée.’ [Ignorant of their shadow, and knowing of death only that which is consumed of it that is immortal to the distant clamor of great waters, they pass, leaving us, and we are no longer the same. They are the space crossed by a single thought.]
“The concerto has two main movements: Aérienne [Aerial] and Terrestre [Terrestrial]. These two titles are also taken from lines in one of Perse’s poems, which are quoted at the end of this note. “The first movement, Aérienne, describes three different musical situations: in Prélude, the flute gradually pervades the space and generates the orchestra’s music. In Jardin des oiseaux [Garden of birds], the flute interacts with individual instruments from the orchestra, while D’autres rives [Other shores] likens the flute to a lone, high-flying bird, whose shadow forms different images among the strings over the unchanging landscape of the harp, celesta and percussion.
“The first section of Terrestre, Oiseau dansant [Dancing bird], introduces a deep contrast with the other material in the concerto. It refers to an Aboriginal tale in which a virtuosic dancing bird teaches a whole village how to dance. The finale and second part of Terrestre — Oiseau, un satellite infime [Bird, a tiny satellite] — is a synthesis of all the previous events, then the sound of the flute slowly fades away. ‘Dans sa double allégeance, aérienne et terrestre, l’oiseau nous était ainsi présenté pour ce qu’il est: un satellite infime de notre orbite planétaire.’ [In its dual allegiance, aerial and terrestrial, the bird was thus presented to us for what it is: a tiny satellite in our planetary orbit.]”
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 56, “Scottish”
(1841-1842)
At age twenty, Felix Mendelssohn was a wonder. He was one of Europe’s best composers, an excellent pianist, a path-breaking conductor and a visual artist of nearly professional capability, as well as a man of immense charm and personality. It is not surprising that his first appearances in London in the spring and summer of 1829 were a smashing success. Both to relax from his hectic London schedule and to temporarily sate his obsession with travel, he decided to tour the British
countryside late that summer. He settled on a walking tour through the Scottish Highlands, and arrived in Edinburgh on July 28th.
In a letter recounting the experiences of his first day in the Scottish capital, Mendelssohn wrote, “Everything here looks so stern and robust, half enveloped in a haze of smoke or fog. Many Highlanders came in costume from church victoriously leading their sweethearts in their Sunday attire and casting magnificent and important looks over the world; with long, red beards, tartan plaids, bonnets and feathers and naked knees and their bagpipes in their hands, they passed along by the half-ruined gray castle on the meadow where Mary Stuart lived in splendor.” Two days later, he reported on his visit to Mary’s castle, Holyrood: “In the evening twilight I went to the palace where Mary lived and loved.... Everything is broken and moldering and the bright sky shines in. I believe I have found today in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish symphony.” Then follow ten measures of music that were to become the introductory melody of the Third Symphony. Mendelssohn’s Scottish adventure continued for most of August. He traveled on foot, stopping at whatever vista caught his fancy so that he could make a quick pencil sketch of the scene. He was most impressed by one particularly stormy prospect on the gnarled Isle of Staffa, off the western coast of Scotland. This was the experience that gave rise to the superb Hebrides Overture. He completed his gratifying but strenuous journey and returned to London.
Mendelssohn occupied himself immediately with the Hebrides Overture and completed it the following year. The Symphony, however, did not come so easily. Some preliminary sketches for it were done in 1830, while he was touring Italy, but he admitted that he found it impossible to evoke the “misty mood” of Scotland while in sun-splashed Rome. He put the work aside, and did not finish it until 1842 in Berlin.
Many commentators have found all manner of specifically Scottish songs, ceremonies and sights embodied in this music. Mendelssohn, for his part, refused to apply any specific program to the work, and even wrote censoriously of the indigenous music he heard in Scotland. “No national music for me!” he proclaimed. “Infamous, vulgar, out-of-tune trash.... It is distracting and has given me a toothache.” It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there is little folk-like melody in this work. Mendelssohn later clarified his true inspiration for the “Scottish” Symphony: “It is in pictures, ruins and natural surroundings that I find the most music.” Rather than a tonal travelogue, this is a work of deep sensibility and melancholy that grew from the emotions the stern Scottish landscape and history engendered in the young Mendelssohn; it is music “more of feeling than of painting,” as Beethoven said of his own Sixth Symphony.
The four movements of the “Scottish” Symphony are directed to be played without pause. The long, brooding introduction opens with a grave harmonization of the melody that Mendelssohn conceived at Holyrood. The sonata form proper begins with a flowing theme, graceful yet filled with vigor. Other melodic inspirations follow. A stormy, thoroughly worked-out development utilizes most of the exposition’s thematic material. After the recapitulation, a coda with the force of a second development section is concluded by a return of the brooding theme of the introduction. The second movement is the only one that consistently shows sunlight and high spirits. It is built around two melodies: one, skipping and animated, is introduced by the clarinet; the other, brisk and martial, is presented in the strings. The wonderful third movement is cast in sonata form: its first theme is a lyrical melody of noble gait that is perfectly balanced by the elegiac second theme, characterized by its heroic, dotted rhythms. The finale is a vivacious and well-developed dance in an atmospheric minor key. The Symphony concludes with a majestic coda in a broad, swinging meter.
PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA
Osmo Vänskä has been Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra for 17 years and is Music Director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra since 2020. Recognised for compelling interpretations of repertoire of all ages and an energetic presence on the podium, his democratic and inclusive style of work has been key in forging long-standing relationships with different orchestras.
With the Minnesota Orchestra, Vänskä has undertaken five major European tours, as well as historic trips to Cuba in 2015, at the invitation of the Cuban Ministry of Culture – the first visit by an American orchestra since the two countries announced steps to re-establish diplomatic relations – and South Africa in 2018, as part of worldwide celebrations of Nelson Mandela’s Centenary. The latter was the first visit by an American orchestra to the country and drew together South African and American performers in musical expressions of peace, freedom and reconciliation, on a five-city tour that followed a successful return to London’s BBC Proms.
Other highlights of his tenure in Minnesota include 20 album recordings, leading and mentoring young composers during the annual Composer Institute seminar and conducting its Future Classics concerts, performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center or Chicago’s Symphony Center, and various educational and outreach projects in Minneapolis and other cities across the United States.
Guest conductor invitations include renowned international ensembles such as The Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco Symphony and Chicago Symphony orchestras in North America; Orchestre de Paris, Berlin’s Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and RundfunkSinfonieorchester, and Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra in Europe, the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK; or Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, Hangzhou Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Taiwan Philharmonic orchestras in Asia.
Vänskä’s commitment to educational work is also patent with the performances led on tours in the United States and Europe with the students of the Curtis Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra, or with New World Symphony in Miami, where he also coaches its Conducting Fellows.
A distinguished recording artist, primarily for the BIS label, Vänskä is currently recording all of Mahler’s symphonies with the Minnesota Orchestra. With six discs already released, they received a Grammy nomination for their recording of Symphony No.5, the first in the series. They previously recorded the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Sibelius to critical acclaim, winning a Grammy Award for ‘Best Orchestral Performance’ in 2014 and receiving further nominations.
Vänskä studied conducting at Finland’s Sibelius Academy and was awarded first prize in the 1982 Besançon Competition. He began his career as a clarinetist, occupying the co-principal chair of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. He regularly performs in chamber music, having been invited to La Jolla Summerfest, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Naantali Summer Festival, Sysmä Summer Sounds, Music in Ruovesi, etc. He has recorded Bernhard Henrik Crusell’s three Clarinet Quartets and Kalevi Aho’s Clarinet Quintet for the BIS label and is in the process of recording several duos for
Photo credit: Mozart Silvestrov
clarinet and violin which he has commissioned with his wife, violinist Erin Keefe.
Vänskä is the recipient of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, the Finlandia Foundation’s Arts and Letters award, and the 2010 Ditson Award from Columbia University. He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Glasgow and Minnesota and was named Musical America’s 2005 Conductor of the Year. In 2013 he received the Annual Award from the German Record Critics’ Award Association for his involvement in BIS’s recordings of the complete works by Sibelius. Mr. Vänskä last conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony on subscription in December 2019.
Carnegie Museum of Art is delighted to bring you this artwork from our collection that connects to the sounds of the Pittsburgh Symphony that you will hear today – a partnership born from our shared 125th anniversaries in 2020.
"Then let me earnestly recommend to you one studio which you may freely
enter… the studio of nature.” Asher B. Durand, from Letters on Landscape, Paintings, published in The Crayon,1855
German composer, Felix Mendelssohn, and Hudson River School artist, Asher B. Durand are linked by Romanticism—a 19th century movement that emphasized individuality. European Romanticism, a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, seats Mendelssohn as the bridge between the formality of Classicism and the emerging emotional connections to science and nature. Durand’s painting exemplifies the vastness and divinity of nature and westward expansion that defined the Romantic era for American Hudson River School artists.
Come visit Carnegie Museum of Art this season to connect with artworks like this and more. Learn more at cmoa.org/PSO
ASHER BROWN DURAND (AMERICAN, 1796–1886) PASTORAL LANDSCAPE, C. 1854–1861 CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART HEINZ FAMILY FUND, 2007.45
