Blog: Building Heterochrony 3

Photo: Heli Sorjonen

In her series of blogs, TMF’s Artist-in-Residence gives the audience a closer look at the background to her 2024 concert trilogy and her process in preparing it. In the third issue, Barrière discusses Another Heart, which will be performed at the Turku Concert Hall on 22nd August.

The Other Heart, the final stop of our journey, is a dramatized experience of the symphonic concert, tying together four pieces from different time periods.

Experimenting with dramaturgy with the symphony is one of my favorite ways to approach programming. It’s something that is rarely done, but I feel has much potential to renew the concert experience.

In the first half, a narrator will make us look at the pieces through the eyes of the critics of the premieres of the programmed pieces. The fantastic actor Akseli Kouki will act as our host and help us build a red thread through this journey.

Although generally well-received, these composers were still considered as exceptions and were still fully subject to the misogynist eye of critics who clearly looked down at women and always felt forced to use men and their achievements as a yardstick for quality.

Louise Farrenc (1804–1875), whose overture will open the concert, was an exceptional case – she was the seed of my passion for the topic of forgotten composers, and I hope with this short account of her life, and more importantly, her music, you’ll understand why. Celebrated in her lifetime as a great composer and pianist, admired by the likes of Schumann, Berlioz or Hummel. Louise Farrenc was supported by her family and exceptionally, her husband, who quit his own career to start a publishing company to distribute his wife’s works. This level of support was practically unheard of at the time, which makes it even more shocking that her works disappeared.

Farrenc stopped composing when she lost her daughter, focusing on her teaching (as the first woman in the Paris Conservatory). After her passing, she was quickly forgotten, encyclopedias removed the title ‘composer’ from her entry only eight years after her passing. And so the three lively, original symphonies she left behind, two orchestral overtures, countless chamber music and piano pieces… They were all forgotten. Her music is so seldom played in Finland, that in 2021 I might have been the first person to program her imposing second symphony, first in Vaasa, and twice after that in Helsinki and Pori. The music is truly inspired, and although in a quite strictly post-romantic form, the harmonies still are (truly) delightfully surprising.

The Overture n. 2 brews with drama with its pointed rhythms and continuous bassline, not to mention painful clashing chords. After this stately introduction, a surprising scherzo full of humor begins, starting almost as a whispered rumor spreading to the full orchestra in all its glory, unleashing untamed, contagious energy.

Augusta Holmès (1847–1903), an Irish, French-naturalized composer was very successful in her time as well. She is also a great example of the resourcefulness female artists had to use to practice their art. Holmès, conscious she would have to forfeit her family fortune if she got married, decided to keep her share of her family fortune to publish her works, hire orchestras to play her music. Andromède is a stunning example of her writing and is based on a poem she wrote herself depicting the myth of Andromeda.

The stage is set from the start, when the trombones summon us and the rumbles of a storm linger in the low strings…until they lead us into a full-blown race. Desperate lyricism with long romantic phrases turns into an urgent plea. The brass fight . A moment is taken by the violins to make us hear Andromeda’s plea, marked ‘piangendo’, “crying”. Time is suspended in string tremoli and celestial harp arpeggios, announcing the arrival of Perseus coming to save Andromeda. The pointed rhythm from the start returns now as a heroic theme, fighting with the darkness of the bassline – but Perseus comes out victorious! The orchestra joins forces in building a grand tutti because all elements have come together, Andromeda is saved and a new grand romance is born, leading to a proper Hollywood slow-motion theme celebrating Andromeda and Perseus now joined as lovers. In the end the orchestra fades away, illustrating Andromeda now in the Northern sky as a constellation next to Perseus. Holmes ends her poem calling all human souls to believe in freedom in difficult times, as Poetry and Love will one day take us all to the sky, among the stars.

You might all already know that Outi Tarkiainen (b. 1985) started her musical journey as a jazz saxophonist. It is through that unique lens, that Tarkiainen entered the world of what we drily call ‘contemporary music’. This background has enhanced her ability to view the orchestra as a palette of colors. As she has risen to the summit of her field, Tarkiainen has taken an increasingly feminist approach to composing, taking much of her inspiration from the experience of motherhood.

The Ring of Fire and Love is no exception, referring to the ‘ring of fire’ when the child starts exiting their mother’s body. The expression ‘ring of fire’ also refers to the Pacific belt, the area which has the most recorded seismic activity and volcanic eruptions.

The whole piece, from its start, is constructed around eruptions. As these eruptions calm down, a melancholic melody played by a muted trumpet comes out, as if it had always been playing, with the harp and celesta giving it a celestial glow, until string waves (contractions or seismic tremors) start building up, preparing for a new eruption. This process repeats several times, at different intensities. We are ushered into the silence by the trumpet, perhaps representing the first screams of a child being born, music to the ears of a mother, reassured that her child is well and can now start their journey of life.

It was no coincidence that The Ring of Fire and Love and Adriana Songs by Kaija Saariaho ended up on this same program, as they are two works where women let the experience of motherhood inspire their musical thinking, something that is still rare to this day. Tarkiainen and Saariaho aren’t unknown composers, but their artistic vision, which here very literally relates to their experience of womanhood, is something I wanted to highlight.

Kaija Saariaho’s second opera Adriana Mater is in my opinion one of her most underappreciated works. In 2006, the world wasn’t perhaps ready for its gruesome tale: Adriana is a young woman in a village preparing for the arrival of war. Refka, her older sister, is her fierce protector – but she doesn’t manage to protect her from Tsargo, whom Adriana feels compelled to listen to and try to reason with. One night, Tsargo forces himself on Adriana. Despite her sister’s insistence, she decides to keep the child, resolved to turn this trauma into a strength, and fostering good into the world. 18 years later, the war is over and Yonas, now an adult, discovers how he came to the world and decides to find his father and kill him. But once he faces him, he discovers a blind old man, all too conscious of his sins and condemned to live to face all the horrors he caused during the war. Yonas cannot muster the courage to kill him and runs away. When he gets back to his mother, he apologizes for not getting their revenge, but Adriana is just relieved that she has brought up a good man – now they can enter a journey of forgiveness and peace.

In the first movement of Adriana songs, “Jardin d’automne” (‘Fall garden’) we discover Adriana: she is fierce, yet sensitive. Everything around her is poetry, yet she also seems always aware of ever looming danger and the threat of war. This threat is personified by the character of her attacker Tsargo.

I made the decision to add an interlude after this movement, and that is the scene of Adriana’s rape in the opera. It is some of Kaija’s most powerful orchestral music, and its absence from this suite felt like a gap. With some slight reorchestration, staying as faithful to the original as I could, I am hoping adding this music adds an additional dimension to this suite, stepping into a time where we should no longer be looking away at the (too) many violences people, but women in particular, suffer from. In Kaija’s spirit of naming the movements after lines of the opera, this sub-movement was named after Tsargo’s last line before committing rape: “Sur ton corps je passerai” (‘on your body I shall pass’). The sheer violence of the music with repeated loud dissonant chords can almost be felt in the body, as the whole orchestra unites to depict the indescribable.

The central musical idea of the opera was Kaija’s experience of seeing the heartbeat of her children at the first sonograms. This turned into a polyrhythm, which incredibly, turned into the whole structure of the opera and how all tempi relate. This image inspired librettist Amin Maalouf immensely, and a whole scene was dedicated to this image.

This scene is exposed in the second movement of Adriana Songs, “Je sens deux coeurs” (I feel two hearts), where Adriana talks to her unborn child, wondering what kind of man he will be. For the first time, we see her being more hesitant, as she wonders if she made the right choice by keeping this child, but her signature melancholia is always present, accompanied by the two heartbeats as an ostinato, both always following the intensity of her emotions.

The third movement, “Rages” is a purely orchestral movement. In the opera, it corresponds to the beginning of Act II – 18 years later, when Adriana’s son Yonas has grown up and wants to avenge his mother for the way he came into the world. The movement is full of the anxiety of this barely grown up man wrestling with all the emotions brought up by such shocking news, the fast tempo invokes running and an intermittent slowing of the pulse is caused by Yonas’ need to catch his breath. All the emotions are very much at the surface. The broken brass chords seem to symbolize Yonas’ mental state, whereas the strings’ pointy rhythm are sharp reminders of the truth and lies surrounding him.

The last movement, “La vie retrouvée” (‘Life rediscovered’) is a rewriting of the end of the opera. Adriana, now reassured that her son isn’t a killer like his father, sings about the relief she experiences and invites us into a future of forgiveness and hope. Adriana has found her fire again, and now has the support of her son. The melancholia of this movement showcases once more Kaija’s flawless vocal writing with the support of her masterful orchestration, blending colors that are always so distinctly recognizable while always reinventing herself.

Having worked with her on the role for the opera a year ago, I know that Fleur Barron’s rendition of Adriana is truly breathtaking, I cannot wait for us to share this moment.

This is where the path of Heterochrony ends for now… I hope this offered interesting insights to those of you who were courageous enough to make it this far!

Do not hesitate to contact us with any questions!

Most importantly, welcome to the Turku Music Festival, we hope to see you there!