Program

By the late 1850s, Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) was at the height of his career as a composer. However, his most recent opera projects, including Simon Boccanegra and Un ballo in maschera, had caused him some grief, and he decided to take a break from writing music. He withdrew to his home in Parma. At his farm in St. Agata, he spent time gardening, riding, hunting and rowing on the lake. In the evenings, he played cards with his wife. Sometimes he treated himself to a cigar. This life was familiar and safe, and in the long run mind-numbingly boring.

When the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg reached out to Verdi in hopes of a new opera, the maestro was more than happy to return to work. He was given free rein as to the subject, and he commissioned Francesco Maria Piave to write a libretto based on the play Don Álvaro by Spanish playwright de Saavedra. La forza del destino was premiered in St Petersburg in late 1862.

In this melodramatic tale, every character is a hostage to their destiny. Seeking to escape the inevitable brings certain ruin and death. The most popular number in the opera is its overture, which introduces the savage Leitmotif symbolising Fate.

Austrian composer Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) is one of the masters of the Lied. He wrote nearly 300 solo songs to poems by Goethe, von Eichendorff, Mörike and others before syphilis wrecked his mental health. At the age of 38, he committed himself to a mental asylum where he died five years later.

Wolf’s greatest idol was Wagner, and as a music critic he was a fierce champion of Wagner’s work. Inspired by his role model, he developed a unique musical idiom characterised by emotional intensity and a harmonic language advanced for its time. His life goal was to write a Wagnerian opera, but Der Corregidor (1895) failed to measure up because of its terrible libretto, and Manuel Venegas (1897) remained unfinished.

The Italian Serenade is one of Wolf’s few instrumental pieces. He wrote it for string quartet in a couple of days in spring 1887, originally intending it as one of the three movements in a suite. In 1892, he arranged the piece for viola and chamber orchestra, contemplating the writing of a four-movement “Italian suite” which never materialised. In 1903, Max Reger wrote a version of the piece for chamber orchestra based on Wolf’s score. The Italian Serenade shows us a side of Wolf that avoids Wagnerian grandeur and rhetoric: it is a happy, light and humorous piece of music. 

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was the Sunday’s child of art music. He was born into the family of a banker, and his talent was noticed and nurtured at an early age. He was at home in the cultural circles of his community from childhood, was adept at networking and created a brilliant career as a composer, pianist and conductor. But the success story had its downside. Mendelssohn began to suffer from mounting self-criticism and turned into a perfectionist. He came to consider that he had written his best works in his teens. Eventually he became so insecure that he began to withhold his scores from the public.

One of the scores thus withheld was the Symphony in A major, written to a commission from the London Philharmonic Society. Its premiere in London in spring 1833 had been a huge success, but Mendelssohn, not pleased with the result, rewrote the score. Even then he was not happy, and the work was not printed until after his death. Traditionally numbered no. 4, it was in fact chronologically the third symphony that he wrote.

The Symphony was inspired by Mendelssohn’s trip to Italy in 1830. The second movement, for instance, was prompted by a religious procession in Naples. Mendelssohn would have been surprised at the enduring popularity of the work. He could not have guessed that audiences and musicians alike would continue to love its sunny disposition and brilliant orchestration. He would instead have moped over clumsy voice-leading or some such thing. Such can be the fate of a child prodigy.

Pjotr Tšaikovskin (1840–1893) kamppailu seksuaalisen identiteetin kanssa kulminoitui vuonna 1878. Silloin hänen kulissiavioliittonsa nuoreen naisoppilaaseen kaatui ennen kuin se ehti kunnolla alkaa. Hän joutui myöntämään olevansa homoseksuaali, tosin vain itselleen, mutta pakeni silti varmuuden vuoksi skandaalia Sveitsiin ja Italiaan, jotta saisi säveltää rauhassa juoruilta ja vainoilta. Kriisi vapautti Tšaikovskin taiteellisesti aivan uudelle tasolle. Etenkin sinfonioihin ilmestynyt elämäkerrallisuus tarjosi musiikin kerronnalle syvemmän, dramaattisia käänteitä tarjoavan pohjavireen. 

Tšaikovskin kolme viimeistä sinfoniaa käsittelee kiellettyä, kohtalonomaista rakkautta, jota yksilön tahdonvoima ei kykene vastustamaan. Kuudes (1893) huipensi trilogian kouriintuntuvasti myös tosielämässä, sillä hän kuoli vain runsas viikko sinfonian kantaesityksen jälkeen. Arveltiin, että hänet olisi joko murhattu tai pakotettu itsemurhaan kostoksi paljastuneesta suhteestaan nuoreen sukulaispoikaan; todennäköisesti hän kuoli kuitenkin äkilliseen koleramyrkytykseen. Runsaat yhteensattumat ovat pitäneet huhut virkeinä näihin päiviin saakka.

Sinfonian lisänimi Pateettinen on Tšaikovskin veljen Modestin keksimä, ja harhaanjohtavasti käännetty. Venäjän kielessä pateettinen ei nimittäin tarkoita mahtipontista tai paatoksellista vaan pikemminkin tunteellista, intohimoista. Roihuavilla rakkauden tunnustuksilla alkava sinfonia päättyy pohjattomaan epätoivoon, kenties jopa kuolemaan.

Pjotr Tšaikovskin (1840–1893) kamppailu seksuaalisen identiteetin kanssa kulminoitui vuonna 1878. Silloin hänen kulissiavioliittonsa nuoreen naisoppilaaseen kaatui ennen kuin se ehti kunnolla alkaa. Hän joutui myöntämään olevansa homoseksuaali, tosin vain itselleen, mutta pakeni silti varmuuden vuoksi skandaalia Sveitsiin ja Italiaan, jotta saisi säveltää rauhassa juoruilta ja vainoilta. Kriisi vapautti Tšaikovskin taiteellisesti aivan uudelle tasolle. Etenkin sinfonioihin ilmestynyt elämäkerrallisuus tarjosi musiikin kerronnalle syvemmän, dramaattisia käänteitä tarjoavan pohjavireen. 

Tšaikovskin kolme viimeistä sinfoniaa käsittelee kiellettyä, kohtalonomaista rakkautta, jota yksilön tahdonvoima ei kykene vastustamaan. Kuudes (1893) huipensi trilogian kouriintuntuvasti myös tosielämässä, sillä hän kuoli vain runsas viikko sinfonian kantaesityksen jälkeen. Arveltiin, että hänet olisi joko murhattu tai pakotettu itsemurhaan kostoksi paljastuneesta suhteestaan nuoreen sukulaispoikaan; todennäköisesti hän kuoli kuitenkin äkilliseen koleramyrkytykseen. Runsaat yhteensattumat ovat pitäneet huhut virkeinä näihin päiviin saakka.

Sinfonian lisänimi Pateettinen on Tšaikovskin veljen Modestin keksimä, ja harhaanjohtavasti käännetty. Venäjän kielessä pateettinen ei nimittäin tarkoita mahtipontista tai paatoksellista vaan pikemminkin tunteellista, intohimoista. Roihuavilla rakkauden tunnustuksilla alkava sinfonia päättyy pohjattomaan epätoivoon, kenties jopa kuolemaan.

Finnish soprano Tuuli Takala (b. 1987) rose to prominence in 2013 by winning both the Kangasniemi Singing Competition and the Timo Mustakallio Singing Competition, as well as making her breakthrough at the Finnish National Opera as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. She has since performed the role at major venues including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the three opera houses of Berlin, Vienna Volksoper, Savonlinna Opera Festival and Opéra de Toulon. In 2015, she joined the ensemble of Dresden’s Semperoper.

Recent engagements include Sibelius’s orchestral songs with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under Pietari Inkinen and concert in Helsinki as soloist of the Urkuyö & Aaria Festival. In 2022, she appeared with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in the world premiere of Olli Kortekangas’s song cycle Songs of Meena, written especially for her.

Finnish tenor Tuomas Katajala (b. 1975) is one of the most versatile singers in the Nordic, with a repertoire of more than 100 oratorios, orchestral works and lieds spanning the Baroque to the contemporary.

Recent highlights include Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Latvian National Opera under Tarmo Peltokoski, Froh in Das Rheingold at Cologne Opera under Marc Albrecht, and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in Palermo. This season, he reunites with Peltokoski and Mahler’s 8th as soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and appears in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra under John Storgårds, and Szymanowski’s King Roger with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Katajala studied at the Sibelius Academy and continued his training in Amsterdam and at the Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro. He won first prize at the Musica Sacra Competition in Rome in 2004 and was a member of the Finnish National Opera ensemble from 2009 to 2014.

The principle of putting on regular concerts given by an orchestra of top musicians has remained right up to the present day in the over 140 years since the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra was formed. It premiered most of the symphonic works by Jean Sibelius with the composer himself conducting, and continues its commitment to contemporary music by commissioning works by composers both Finnish and foreign. 

Now a band of 102 musicians, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra annually performs to a total audience of over 100,000 and has become an important constituent of its host city’s cultural capital. The orchestra’s work also touches those who, for one reason or another, are unable to attend concerts at the Helsinki Music Centre. The orchestra performs in a variety of ensembles throughout Helsinki, provides performance opportunities for children and young people, and reaches special groups through its wide-ranging education and outreach activities. The orchestra’s HPO Kids program, launched in 2000, has expanded into Culture Kids, a city-wide cultural program for children across Helsinki.

In addition to its activities in Helsinki, the orchestra reaches international audiences through touring abroad and an active recording programme. The HKO Screen concerts, available online both as live streams and on-demand recordings, together with background interviews, bring viewers around the world closer to the creative process behind a musical work.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste has served as the chief conductor and artistic leader of the orchestra since 2023. During the seasons 2026–2028 the post of the principal guest conductor is filled by the orchestra itself, with concerts performed without a conductor and with programs planned by the musicians themselves.