Program

Louise Farrenc (born Jeanne-Louise Dumont, 1804–1875) was a prominent French piano virtuoso and an accomplished composer. She was appointed Professor of Piano at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1842, and her collection of etudes op. 26 was required material for all piano students. In 1859, her daughter Victorine, also a pianist, died unexpectedly. It appears that Farrenc stopped writing music because of the shock, and her public performances became much less frequent.

Farrenc’s output as a composer consists mainly of chamber music, including two Piano Quintets, a Nonet, two Violin Sonatas and three Trios. Her music was popular and highly respected in her lifetime, and she was twice awarded the Prix Pierre Cardin by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Yet on the other hand she was constrained by the social conventions of her time. For instance, she never gained a position as a teacher of composition — indeed, before 1870 the Conservatoire de Paris did not even allow women to study composition. As a concert pianist, she constantly found herself having to insist being paid the same as her male colleagues.

Farrenc’s most significant extensive works are her three symphonies and the two orchestral overtures she wrote in 1834. The first of these, op. 23, is replete with fiery drama and surprising twists.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) was not an Impressionist — or at least not in the same sense as his contemporary Claude Debussy. Although Ravel did employ modern sonorities and introduced novelties into his musical grammar, he was principally interested in musical forms of the past and the spirit of history. He could thus be described as a Neo-Classicist. His retro trips were quite respectful, though, unlike those of Serge Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, who at times made an outright mockery of historical music.

Ravel’s music also incorporates geographical features in the sense that La Valse embodies the Vienna of a bygone era, Shéhérazade is set in exotic Persia and the Piano Concerto in G major captures the pulse of New York jazz. He was particularly fond of showcasing his Spanish roots on his mother’s side, particularly in the Rhapsodie espagnole and of course the Boléro. His orchestral rhapsody Tzigane (1924) combines both elements, being a Hungarian-tinted fantasy souvenir of an era that will never return. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of it being a parody.

Ravel conceived Tzigane after hearing violinist Jelly d’Aranyi improvise on the folk dances of her native land, even if those tunes were based on the music of the nomadic Roma rather than actual Hungarian folk music. Tzigane continues in the tradition of Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt in presenting Hungarian music through the vehicle of a virtuoso violinist. The work is in two sections, beginning with an ominous, improvisation-like solo that holds the orchestra in check until the party finally gets into full swing.

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) was a composer and the most prominent music theorist of his time. He was employed as an organist in Dijon, Paris and Avignon until he was nearly 40 years old. In 1722, he published his Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels, which remains a valid music theory textbook to this day. Propelled to fame by this treatise and by the virtuoso keyboard pieces he wrote thereafter, he is today remembered principally for the dozens of operas that he wrote, even though these came late in his career: he was 50 years old when he wrote his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733).

Based on Jean Racine’s play Phèdre (1677), the libretto narrates love tragedy from Greek mythology: Hippolytus, son of King Theseus, is in love with Aricia, but Theseus’s wife Phaedra is in love with him. Phaedra accuses Hippolytus of attempting to seduce her and is punished by the gods with madness. In the end, Aricia and Hippolytus are united. There are no fewer than 17 roles. The opera is in five acts and lasts some three hours.

When first performed, the opera was an opinion divider. Some marvelled at its bold orchestral colours and harmonies, while others felt it was an insult to the glory of composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and derided it as malformed, or ‘baroque’ — apparently the first time that this term was ever used to describe music.

As per the French tradition, dance numbers are quite as important as vocal numbers. The concert suite is made up of the overture and eight scenes, the best-known of which are the ‘Premier air des Furies’ from the Underworld act and the dances of the sailors and the hunters (‘Airs des matelots’ and ‘Airs des chasseurs’, respectively).

In 1778, Mozart was able to take a respite from his life of drudgery in the service of the Bishop of Salzburg and head his horses for Paris. It was a city he had charmed only 15 years before as a Wunderkind, but this time he had to make do with cold inns and audiences. Not discouraged, he penned a symphony designed to suit French tastes. “Whether other people will like it I do not know,” he said. “I can vouch for the few intelligent French people who may be there; as for the stupid ones – I see no great harm if they don’t like it.” In other words, the Paris Symphony was a calculated hit, tailor-made to appeal to the tastes of the trendy and afford him an entry into society. It differs from his earlier symphonies in many ways. Now, for the first time, he used two clarinets, and he had a bigger orchestra than in Salzburg at his disposal. It has only three movements, because the French did not care for minuets.

The symphony was a great success. The audience applauded mid-movement and demanded an immediate encore of the string melody with pizzicato accompaniment in the first movement. A single hit could not carry him very far, however, and Mozart returned home to plan his next job-hunting excursion.

Malin Broman is a violinist much in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader. In 2008, she was appointed Concert Master of the Swedish Radio Orchestra. 

During the period 2015–2020, Broman was the Artistic Director of Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra. In 2019 she took up the post of Artistic Director for Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, and in 2025 she began as Musical Director for Nordic Chamber Orchestra. 

Devoted to chamber music, Broman is a founding member of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, which was selected for both the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme and the European Concert Halls Organization. The trio has made its Carnegie Hall debut and appeared at major venues, including the Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, and tours of Argentina, Australia, and Canada.

During the COVID period, her YouTube video of Mendelssohn‘s Octet, where Broman plays all eight parts, went viral. In 2019 she was awarded H.M. The King’s Medal for her services to music. Malin Broman plays a 1709 Stradivarius violin generously loaned by the Järnåker Foundation, a Candi viola and a Del Gesù Guarneri copy by Stephan von Baehr.

Soprano Emma Kajander (b. 1997) made her debut at the Finnish National Opera in the leading role of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera in 2024. Her engagements for the current season include Pamina in Mozart’s Zauberflöte at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. She will also appear as a soloist with Jyväskylä Sinfonia in Handel’s Messiah. Next summer Kajander will be heard at the Bregenz Festival, performing in the world premiere of Daníel Bjarnason’s Passion of the Common Man and in Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra.

Kajander won the 2025 Lappeenranta Singing Competition. The previous year she placed second both in the Kangasniemi Singing Competition and in the Helsinki Lied Competition. She also won the first prize in the Nordic Havets Röst competition in 2023. She has been awarded the Martti Talvela Foundation Prize.

Kajander is currently studying at the Sibelius Academy with Outi Kähkönen. She has additionally studied with, among others, Irina Gavrilovici, Karita Mattila, and Camilla Nylund.

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 110,000 and has become an important constituent of its host city’s cultural capital. It also reaches people who for one reason or another cannot attend concerts at the Helsinki Music Centre, for in addition to making international tours, it sends small ensembles out across the city, provides opportunities for young people to perform and, through its active education programme, is able to make contact with special groups. For the third time it invited an entire age group – this time all the children born in Helsinki in 2020 – to enjoy music with their families over the next seven years as members of the HPO Kids -program.  

The HKO Screen concerts and background interviews screened live or recorded on the Internet makes the process of creating a piece of music even more readily accessible. 

The orchestra has a three-member Artistic Leadership Team, which comprises Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Co-director Pekka Kuusisto and Composer-in-Residence Anna Thorvaldsdottir.