Wang & Salonen

Kaija Saariaho’s Lumière et pesanteur was composed as a gift to the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, inspired by his performance of her La Passion de Simone (2006) in Los Angeles in January 2009. Simone in the title is the French Jewish philosopher and social activist Simone Weil (1909–11943), whose life and work is portrayed in the work. Lumière et pesanteur is based on the eighth part of the oratory Dieu se retire pour ne pas être aimé comme un trésor par un avare (God withdraws in order not to be loved like miser loves treasure). Saariaho builds up a subtle mood. The mostly slow, reflective music whirls and breathes in hazy harmonies that linger, swell and overlap.

Stravinsky composed Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1929) after his success with Concerto for Piano and Winds (1924). He had moved to Paris to escape the Russian revolution, and he needed to make music to make a living. As the name suggests, Capriccio is a playful piece. The piano leaps and jumps, transporting the listener to a music hall. Stravinsky compared the cimbalom-like cadence in the second movement with “a kind of Romanian restaurant music”.

We get to hear more Russian piano music in Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat major from 1911–1912. It is the shortest of the composer’s five complete piano concertos. It only lasts about fifteen minutes, but it is extraordinarily inventive. The first few bars introduce a magnificent, romantic, theme, after which the composer abandons all traditional forms in favour of sparkling great interval leaps and key changes at a furious, energetic pace. This is a very early work in which you can already discern the beginnings of Prokofiev’s personal style.

Jean Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen Suite was originally a draft for a Wagner-inspired opera that would have been called Veneen luominen (The Creation of the Boat), an adventure from the Finnish national epic Kalevala. The composer abandoned the project after a year and rewrote it for the Lemminkäinen orchestral cycle. It consists of four tonal poems based on legends about the heroic character Lemminkäinen, also borrowed from the Kalevala. The popular tonal poem The Swan of Tuonela is frequently performed as a freestanding orchestral work.

Text: Andreas Konvicka