Program

Hungarian composer György Kurtág (b. 1926) is one of the great composers of the 20th century. He is also known as a pianist and a teacher, and in 2012 he was awarded the Sibelius Prize of the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation. 

Kurtág’s music is all about conciseness and austerity: everything is communicated in a minimal handful of notes and gestures. Because of this, many of his works are fragments or clusters of fragments. But to deduce from this that he is dry and intellectual would be erroneous. His music is expressive and at times subtly humorous. 

Kurtág’s ...quasi una fantasia... op. 27:1 was commissioned by the Berlin Festival Week and premiered in October 1988 with Zoltán Kovacs at the piano and Péter Eötvös conducting the orchestra. The title is an allusion to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op. 27/1, and the music comes across as a scarcely coherent recollection of a traditional piano concerto. 

A feature of interest in the piece is that the chamber orchestra is divided into groups distributed around the concert venue. Exciting tonal colour is created with instruments such as a dulcimer, a recorder, harmonics and bongo drums. ‘Introduction’ meditates on silence; ‘Presto minaccioso e lamentoso (Wie ein Traumeswirren)’ is a wild scherzo; ‘Recitativo’ is a dramatic funeral march; and ‘Aria’ is a sequence of dreamlike echoes from the past. 

Written in August 1788, the Symphony in C major KV 551 was the last symphony completed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). At this point in his career, he would not have been writing ambitious orchestral music just for the fun of it. Even though he was a court composer to Emperor Leopold II, the court only commissioned him to write inconsequential dance music. It is therefore likely that the trio of symphonies written in summer 1788 (the two others being the Symphony in E flat major KV 543 and the Symphony in G minor KV 550) was intended for a specific concert or event. Music scholars disagree on whether Mozart actually heard the C major Symphony before his death. Perhaps it was performed in Vienna immediately after its completion, or perhaps in Leipzig in 1789. We do not know for certain. 

This is the most extensive and most grandiose of Mozart’s symphonies. The subtitle ‘Jupiter’ was probably attached by English impresario J.P. Salomon. The work is full of light and joie de vivre, and as a technical achievement it far outpaced all of Mozart’s contemporaries. 

The first movement (Allegro vivace) is characterised by its ceremonial opening gesture and an allusion to the humorous concert aria Un bacio di mano KV 541. The slow movement (Andante cantabile) introduces darker tones, not as a tragic narrative but simply as a contrast to the otherwise lucid music. The Minuet (Allegretto) is a carefree interlude, while the finale (Molto allegro) contains one of the most magnificent counterpoint passages ever devised in European classical music, with five themes seamlessly superimposed. 

Violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his artistic freedom and fresh approach to repertoire. Kuusisto is Artistic Director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Co-Director of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony and Chief Conductor Designate of Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra from April 2028. 

He frequently appears as a soloist and guest conductor with major orchestras worldwide, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. An enthusiastic advocate for contemporary music and improvisation, he collaborates with artists from diverse backgrounds and engages in projects that blur conventional boundaries between genres.

Kuusisto performs on the Antonio Stradivarius violin, “ex-Sandars”, Cremona 1695, generously loaned by the Anders Sveaas' Charitable Foundation, ASAF.

Kirill Gerstein has emerged as one of today’s most compelling pianists. A searching and versatile artist, his repertoire spans Baroque suites, Classical concertos, contemporary works, jazz, and cabaret. He has performed several times with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gerstein’s path began at fourteen, when he became the youngest student ever admitted to the Berklee College of Music. His international breakthrough came in 2001 with Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 alongside the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, followed by First Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition.

A true champion of contemporary music, Gerstein has commissioned and premiered works by composers including Timo Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen, and Brad Mehldau. He gave the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s Piano Concerto in 2019 and has since performed it more than sixty times. Gerstein is Professor at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin and at the Kronberg Academy.

Kirill Gerstein appears by arrangement with Enticott Music Management in association with IMG Artists

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.