Rochester and back to Finland

There was a second week in the US. After the warm and sunny Atlanta I spent a musically rewarding week in more Scandinavian climate with the Rochester Philharmonic. Rochester is a city with an interesting history linked closely to the Eastman Kodak Company. The Kodak Concert Hall dates from early 1920´s and is both huge and acustically excellent. The Eastman School of Music is one of the most prestigious music institutes in America and the Philharmonic are working closely with the students of the school. As most of the Northern American cities Rochester is in the middle of a change in the economical infrastructure. I had an opportunity to meet the most enthusiastic donors and members of the board and got the impression that there is a bright future for the orchestra.

The Rochester Phil is a modern ensemble with lots of energy and will. I had a chance to spend some time with these people and was impressed on how much they care about their orchestra and the audience. In the concert "Cantus Arcticus" by Einojuhani Rautavaara found a new home in the spacious acoustics of the Kodak Hall. That piece never fails to move the public. We played also Shostakovich 1st Symphony. I´ve conducted this piece a lot during the last 12 months and think it´s time to let it rest for a while now and take a closer look at his other symphonies. The 11th comes with the Indianapolis Symphony in March 2010 and I´m seriously planning to program 2nd, 3rd and 4th in Tampere.

Augustin Hadelich played a convincing and moving version of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. I´ve known about Augustin for a long time but this was the first time we played together. There is something very special in his musicianship and I´m glad we have plans for the future.

I´ve been back to Finland for six days now and I´m still in the middle of an excruciating jet lag. The seven hour time zone difference is the worst. Combining that with the Piano Concerto and Capriccio by Stravinsky can be dangerous. This week we had Alexander Toradze playing those pieces in Tampere. I always learn a lot when playing with him and also this time was quite fenomenal. Stravinsky´s neoclassical works are usually played without warmth and soul. But not this time. There is so much beauty and deepness of thought behind that graphic background and Alexander Toradze showed us how to make all that audible. I´m deeply grateful for that.

Henk Badings

Few weeks ago I performed with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic and harpist Lavinia Meijer. She is a talented and impressive harpist (there seems to be an increasing number of harp players making an international career: Xavier de Maistre, Emmanuel Ceysson and now Lavinia) and during the concert at the Concertgebouw she received the Dutch Music Prize. For her concerto she had chosen a piece by Dutch composer Henk Badings.

Badings (1907-1987) was born in Dutch East Indies and being largely self taught he developed an interesting and slightly syncretic style. I´ve been trying to find out about his career and life which seems to have been quite stormy and controversial though many conductors during his lifetime tried to champion his music. Luckily there seems to be some new recordings around.

I was positively surprised and delighted when I got the score of his harp concerto. Rehearsals and the concert made me convinced that Badings is a composer who needs more attention abroad. His style is light, harmonically interesting and everything is elegantly orchestrated. He also made use of overtone scales.

Finally this episode made me think of all those dozens composers from the 20th century who have or had a reputation and followers in their own countries but who are not very famous abroad. Maybe there was another composer at the same time who got more attention or maybe their champions forgot to play their music when they went abroad. Maybe there are not recordings or maybe the existing recordings are not good enough so that they could give a clear picture of a rare musical talent.

We have already good recordings of composers like Aarre Merikanto, Geir Tveitt, Allan Petterson, Percy Grainger, Henk Badings and Andrzej Panufnik, who were always too modern or too conservative for their own countries and time and whose fame diminished after their death. These composers and many others would deserve an international career, post mortem. This would of course mean that we conductors should sometimes let the classical, romantic or contemporary opening piece to go and replace it with something exciting and forgotten.

Atlanta and other stuff

Sorry....I haven´t been very active in blogging recently. That´s because I promised myself that I´ll blog only if I feel like that, not because I have to fill some void in the cyber space. I just loaded a new album by Leona Lewis and got the inspiration for few lines. Additional help for this monumental task is provided by the excellent merlot by Duckhorn Vineyards (Napa Valley)....

During the last month there have been many memorable concerts. Eine Alpensinfonie and Le Sacre du Printemps in Tampere combined with two unique Beethoven experiences. Corey Cerovsek played a deeply beautiful version of the Violin Concerto and Steven Osborne delighted the Tampere public with the 4th Piano Concerto. Once again it was great to work with Steven Osborne. We discussed the 4th concerto a lot: phrases, proportions, drama and tempi only to realise that there are no answers. These questions can only be solved by intuition, while actually making music. I think we solved a lot in the concert but there are certainly enough enigmas left for the next thirty years . I hope one day I have a chance to play a complete Beethoven cycle with Steven (...this is a hint for all the distinguished Vice Presidents of Artistic Planning)

There was also an interesting week in Amsterdam and Concertgebouw with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. This and a certain composer Henk Badings deserve a separate entry later.

I´ve just wrapped up a week with the Atlanta Symphony. A happy week. ASO is a brilliant orchestra and I was impressed by their flexibility and musicality. We played Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Shostakovich, each composer representing very well his own generation in Russian composing. I couldn´t help remembering one of my teachers, Ilya Musin, who once during one of his numerous master classes at the Sibelius Academy told us how Shostakovich (they were same age) used to show him the schetches of the First Symphony and how they played it together on the piano in the classroom of the St Peterburg Conservatory. For a musician the past is always near.

Atlanta was also one of the nicest cities I´ve been in the US. My friend, percussionist Colin Currie says Atlanta is a big-hearted city and he´s absolutely right. The culinary experiences were unforgettable.

Duckhorn is empty and I have go to sleep. Tomorrow flight to Rochester. More Shostakovich one....

Thanks ASO, Tai, Amy, Carol, Rebecca and Garrett!