Program

The career of composer Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) got off to a flying start when Robert Schumann declared him to be the next great name in symphonic music, a new Beethoven. This tribute was premature and had an unfortunate impact: although Brahms was an undeniable virtuoso, his merits as a composer up to that time included only what might be described as kindling for firing up his performing career: sonatas, solo songs and chamber music. Schumann’s praise heaped unreasonable pressure on the emerging young musician, and Brahms struggled with this until he actually completed a symphony — more than 20 years later.

Brahms wrote several works based on material that he originally intended to make into a symphony. The earliest of these is the Piano Concerto no. 1 in D minor (1858). It was initially supposed to be a sonata for two pianos. Brahms began writing it in 1854, soon after Schumann had been dragged out of the river Rhine and committed to a mental asylum. When Schumann’s death began to seem inevitable, Brahms decided to convert the sonata into a symphony, as a sort of parting gift to his friend and mentor. This plan proved too ambitious to be sustained, but in the end the stuff of this sonata/symphony emerged as perhaps the most symphonic piano concerto ever written.

The concerto is in three movements, and its tumultuous nature mirrors Brahms’s mental turmoil. The first movement captures the anguish caused by Schumann’s attempted suicide by drowning and his subsequent death. The second movement is a warm-hearted love letter to his widow, Clara Schumann. The finale evokes the shadow of Beethoven, with which Brahms had only just begun to come to grips.

Sauli Zinovjev (b. 1988) made his breakthrough with the orchestral work Batteria (2016). He has since written several orchestral works, besides solo concertos and chamber music works performed around the world. In autumn 2025, Sinfonia Lahti premiered the commissioned work Fade Out.

Zinovjev’s symphony now being premiered, Taste of Metal (2023–2025), is a joint commission by the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris. The composer writes:

“At its best, a piece of music contains everything. An entire life in a single moment. This notion shaped my approach to music even before I knew that the iconic Gustav Mahler had stated something very similar. The desire to create an entire universe is not just a philosophy; it is a power that drives my creativity with an almost compulsive intensity.

“My output to date culminates in my first symphony, Taste of Metal. Its inspiration arose from the sculptures of Markus Copper: tense, overpowering works that exude danger, raw energy and a profound awareness of the fragility of human life. Similarly, Taste of Metal is at once beautiful and cruel. The work has for movements: ‘low’, ‘flow’, ‘glow’ and ‘blow’, tracing an arc from movement deep in the earth to internal combustion and an explosive release. Here, metal is not just sound but also weight and the bitter tang of blood.”

Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, has established himself as one of the outstanding conductors of his generation. Born in Finland in 1956, he began his career as a violinist. Today, he is renowned as an artist of exceptional versatility and breadth.

Saraste has previously held principal conductorships at the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. As a guest conductor, he appears with major orchestras worldwide, including the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Coaching and mentoring young musicians is of great importance to Saraste. He is a founding member of the LEAD! Foundation, a mentorship programme for young conductors and soloists.

“Music has never stopped fascinating me. And even after all these decades there are still some works, including works that I have heard many times and played even more frequently, that have the notorious “goose bumps passages”, moments that touch and stir you as much as ever. This also includes the F major passage in the first movement of Brahms’ D Minor Piano Concerto.”

Rudolf Buchbinder (b. 1946) is one of the legendary performers of our time. The authority based on a career spanning more than 60 years is uniquely combined with esprit and spontaneity in his piano playing. He has performed the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven in cycles all over the world more than 60 times.

Buchbinder attaches great importance to historical music sources. His private collection of sheet music includes 39 different editions of Beethoven's complete piano sonatas, and for example copies of the autograph piano parts of both piano concertos by Johannes Brahms.

Rudolf Buchbinder is an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

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.