3 mob

Thursday 5.12.2019 19.00 Season concert 9

from 25/19/11 € Espoo Cultural Centre

Thursday 5.12.2019 19.00 from 25/19/11 € Espoo Cultural Centre

Artists
Program
Services

Conductor Cem Mansur, known for his profound concert programming, shows how the music of Viennese composers from various eras transcends time and space. Trumpet virtuoso Jeroen Berwaerts performs music from across two centuries, and soprano Virva Puumala, winner of the Lappeenranta Singing Competition 2019, revels in the theme of solace and forgiveness in Schönberg’s String Quartet no. 2.

After the concert Jeroen Berwaerts turns to songs of Jacques Brel with the musicians of Tapiola Sinfonietta
Tapiola Hall 9 pm. Free admission.

Artists

Cem Mansur Concuctor

Jeroen Berwaerts Trumpet

Virva Puumala Sopran

Program

Joseph Haydn

Trumpet Concerto in E flat major

Haydn wrote his Trumpet Concerto for Anton Weidinger, one of the leading trumpet players of his day. Completed in 1796, it was not premiered until 1800.

The trumpet had for its entire history been constrained to playing the notes of the overtone scale. There was a need for filling in the gaps on the instrument, and one of the first solutions was the keyed trumpet. This had holes in it that could be closed with keys to produce additional pitches. Development of this instrument began in the 1760s or 1770s, but the first successful keyed trumpet was built by Anton Weidinger. This instrument could play every note on the chromatic scale over more than two octaves.

Haydn makes full use of the potential of the keyed trumpet. In the very opening phrase of the solo part in the first movement, six out of the 14 notes are pitches that could not have been played on a natural trumpet. The concerto is cast in the conventional three-movement form. The fast, symphonically shaped opening movement is followed by a slow siciliano and a catchy virtuoso finale.

Shortened from Kimmo Korhonen's work presentation
Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi

Joseph Haydn

Symphony no. 92 in G major, ‘Oxford’

By the end of the 1770s, Joseph Haydn was already one of the best-known composers of his time.
In the late 1780s, he wrote a number of symphonies to commissions from France. The last of these, in G major, acquired the subtitle ‘Oxford’ because it was performed in Oxford in July 1791 when an honorary doctorate in music was conferred upon Haydn.

This Symphony in G major is one of Haydn’s finest works from the period before the London Symphonies (nos. 93–104), the culmination of his symphonic output. The first movement begins with a slow introduction, like most of Haydn’s late symphonies. The energetic main subject sets the tone for the rest of the first movement, and the lighter second subject is of minor importance. The slow movement begins in tranquil beauty but turns to a darker minor key in the middle section. The Minuet, spiced with syncopations though solemn on the whole, also incorporates some minor-key moments. The finale begins with a main subject that is initially light and restrained, but in the course of the movement it reveals aspects that are more energetic and more serious.

Shortened from Kimmo Korhonen's work presentation
Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi

Heinz Karl Gruber

3 MOB Pieces for trumpet and orchestra

HK Gruber from Austria is an incredibly multi-talented and broad-minded artist whose nonconformist approach is the very embodiment of the freedom of expression and of means that we are used to today.

3 MOB Pieces was completed in 1968, originally intended for any of seven instruments with percussion. In 1999, Gruber adapted a new version of the work for trumpet and orchestra. The curious title of the work stems from the name of the ensemble that Gruber and his friends started in 1968, The MOB art & tone ART Ensemble, whose purpose was to give informal and freeform musical performances.

3 MOB Pieces is a collection of lightly sketched, relaxed miniatures, which according to Gruber are typical of the music written for the MOB Ensemble. The first piece, ‘Patrol’, is a jaunty bossa nova. The slower middle piece ‘After Heine’ is a tribute to the master of Romantic irony, Heinrich Heine, whose poems often begin in a sentimental vein but end on a discord. The final piece, ‘Verse’, is an energetic and brisk finale.

Shortened from Kimmo Korhonen's work presentation
Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi

Arnold Schönberg

String Quartet no. 2 in F sharp minor op. 10 (arranged for string orchestra)

Schönberg began his composing career as a card-carrying late Romantic in the 1890s, but in the first years of the new century he progressed towards a bolder style increasingly removed from the traditional system of major-minor tonality. In his String Quartet no. 2 (1907–1908), he finally abandoned keys altogether and moved into the realm that we now call atonal. An additional element in the sensational nature of the work was that its two last movements include a soprano soloist, wholly unusual for a string quartet.

Schönberg’s transition to atonality can actually be heard in the course of the work, in its final movement. The first three movements have traditional key signatures, although even here the sense of key is often vague in the music. The opening movement is in traditional sonata form with exposition, development and recapitulation. The second movement is a scherzo; at the end of the middle or Trio section, Schönberg quotes an old Viennese street ditty, O du lieber Augustin.

The vocal parts in the last two movements are settings of poems by German Symbolist poet Stefan George (1868–1933). The third movement, ‘Litanei’, is a sombre set of variations. The finale, ‘Entrückung’, begins ominously with the words “Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten” (I feel the air from another planet), and to the audience it certainly must seemed as if Schönberg’s atonal music were from another planet. Weightless and lovely, the music descends back to tonal ground in the final measures, where the original key of F sharp minor is now transfigured into F sharp major.

In this programme, Schönberg’s String Quartet no. 2 is performed in an arrangement for string orchestra by the composer himself.

Shortened from Kimmo Korhonen's work presentation
Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi

aftenglow in tapiola hall

21.00

Music of Jacques Brelin and Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jeroen Berwaerts, trumpet and vocal
Sari Deshayes ja Tiina Paananen, violin
Tuula Saari, viola
Janne Aalto, cello
Matti Tegelman, double bass
Veli Kujala, accordeon
Ville Syrjäläinen, percussions

PROGRAM
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Air
Jacques Brel (sov. Ivan Smeulders): Marieke
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Air
Jacques Brel (sov. Ivan Smeulders): Mathilde
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Tambourins
Jacques Brel (sov. Ivan Smeulders): Amsterdam
Jacques Brel, Gérard Jouannest (san. Jacques Brel, sov. Per Markusson): Ne me quitte pas

Free admission.