Congratulations Esa-Pekka!
Throughout his entire career as a conductor and composer, Esa-Pekka Salonen has always been a champion of new music and new expressions. In his Cello Concerto, in a whirlwind of notes, he literally pushes the soloist towards the boundary of what is possible. In the 17th century, the violin virtuoso and composer Heinrich Biber was at the cutting edge of music, not least with his Battalia à 10, in which he used very unusual techniques and executions for the time. Beethoven’s creative and rhythmically vibrant Symphony no. 7 positively bubbles over with jubilation and inspiration; what could be a better celebration of the former Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and co-founder of the Baltic Sea Festival. The concert will be livestreamed on Play.
When, at the age of 21, he stepped up onto the podium for the first time, in front of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, he considered himself to be a composer who would do a little conducting on the side. Fate chose otherwise, but even though Esa-Pekka Salonen is better known as a conductor, composition is of equal importance to him. He has said that the two sides feed off one another, that his composer’s brain is always engaged. Salonen’s Cello Concerto explores the very meaning of virtuosity, a word associated with lightning-fast nimbleness, advanced rhythms and technical brilliance. But he argues that the quiet, almost motionless moments also require incredible skill; virtuosity is equally about imparting profound meaning to a single note. Salonen has described himself as chronically curious and his concerto has been inspired by a wide variety of sources: elements of chaos theory, meteorology and astronomy are combined with detailed orchestral execution and, in the simple as well the complex movements, virtuoso cello solos.
Another erstwhile trailblazer was Heinrich Biber, an Austrian violinist who, with intrepid curiosity and musical brilliance, wrote some of the most important works in musical history for the instrument. He experimented with retuning the strings of the instrument, polyphonics and very advanced techniques. As early as 1673, in his work Battalia à 10, he used different forms of extended techniques that many today would consider modern, or at least contemporary. As the name implies it is a battle, rendered in music, complete with gunshots, whistling bullets and rhythmic war drums. By preparing the instruments with pieces of paper, playing with the wood side of the bow and plucking hard on the strings, the battlefield materializes before the listening audience. One of the movements takes place in between the fighting when the drunken soldiers sit around, singing a variety of German, Bohemian and Czech folksongs in a cacophony that, if anything, is reminiscent of Charles Ives.
Richard Wagner, frequently associated with mighty and dramatic operas, was an ardent admirer of Beethoven in his teenage years. When, at the age of 14, he heard Beethoven’s exuberant Symphony no. 7 he was allegedly deeply moved, as so many others both before and after, and he later described the symphony as “the Apotheosis of the Dance itself”. On the one hand an uncharacteristic statement, considering the popular image of Wagner as a serious, intellectual and melancholy man, but on the other it is evidence of the music’s irresistible playfulness and joie de vivre. Music writer George Grove wrote about the symphony’s captivating fourth movement that, “the force that reigns throughout this movement is literally prodigious”. The second movement, which in itself has become a popular concert piece and been turned into both folk music and rock versions, was so well received at the première that they performed an encore. Again: what better way to celebrate one of our greatest and most lauded musicians, Esa-Pekka Salonen!
Participants
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.
Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is known the world over as both a composer and a conductor. His restless innovation drives him constantly to reposition classical music in the 21st century. He is currently the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, where he works alongside eight Collaborative Partners from a variety of disciplines, ranging from composers to roboticists. He is the Conductor Laureate of three world-renowned orchestras: the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Music Director from 1985 until 1995; the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009; and the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he was Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor from 2008 until 2021. Salonen also co-founded the annual Baltic Sea Festival, and served as its Artistic Director from 2003 until 2018.
Since joining the San Francisco Symphony, Salonen has worked to expand and embrace the possibilities of the orchestra, looking toward the future of classical music and its audience. Salonen’s 2023/24 season includes world premieres of Jesper Nordin’s violin concerto Convergences with Pekka Kuusisto, Anders Hillborg’s Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax, and Jens Ibsen’s Drowned in Light, all of them with the San Francisco Symphony.
From 2015 to 2018, Salonen was Composer in Residence at the New York Philharmonic. He was the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Composer in Residence of the 2022/23 season. In October 2023, he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the world premiere of a short new work composed in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The 2023/24 season also sees Salonen lead his Sinfonia concertante for organ and orchestra with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra, with Olivier Latry appearing as a soloist with both orchestras.
Esa-Pekka Salonen has received numerous major awards, including the UNESCO Rostrum for the work Floof, the Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto, and the Nemmers Composition Prize. He has been awarded the royal Swedish medal Litteris et Artibus, the Pro Finlandia medal and Commander 1st Class of the Order of the Lion of Finland, and Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2020, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
With a combination of artistic integrity, intensity and elegance, the cellist Truls Mørk has played his way to the very top as a soloist. He performs with the foremost orchestras around the world and has recently performed with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Orchestre de Paris and Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, to mention but a few. Mørk has recorded the great solo concerts of Dvořák and Elgar, as well as Britten and Shostakovich, and also the collective Cello Suites of both Bach and Britten. He has also begun touring with the pianist Behzod Abduraimov. Mørk is dedicated to contemporary music and has performed more than 30 works, such as Krzysztof Penderecki’s Concerto for Three Cellos, Hafliði Hallgrímsson’s Cello Concerto and Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon.
Programme
I. Poco sostenuto – Vivace
II. Allegretto
III. Presto
IV. Allegro con brio
Concert length: 2 h incl. intermission
No bus to Berwaldhallen from Stockholm City –
Busline 69 is shortened and runs Karlaplan – Kaknästornet / Blockhusudden. For more information, please visit www.sl.se/en/
FESTIVAL OFFER (Östersjöklippet)
With the Baltic Sea Festival Offer (Östersjöklippet), you get three different levels at a discount – 10, 15 and 20% off the regular fare depending on whether you buy three, four or five different concerts at the same time.
TO ‘ÖSTERSJÖKLIPPET’
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