Aurora: Turku Ensemble

Sept papillons was the first work Kaija Saariaho wrote after her opera L’Amour de loin (Love from afar). The composer wrote part of it during the rehearsals for the opera in Salzburg. There is a palpable desire to find a new world that has nothing to do with grand opera, either stylistically or linguistically. Saariaho moved on from the opera’s long timelines and eternal metaphors – love, longing and death – to these seven miniatures, which explore the fragile and ephemeral movement of the butterfly in flight and in being, with no beginning and no end.

Sept papillons was commissioned by the Rudolf Steiner Foundation and first performed by Anssi Karttunen in Helsinki in September 2000.

Dimitri Shostakovich wrote fifteen string quartets, of which the eighth is probably the best known and most performed. The composer wrote the quartet in three days during his 1960 visit to Dresden, which was completely destroyed in World War II. Shostakovich dedicated the work to the victims of fascism and war. There is much speculation as to what the composer really meant by this dedication. Solomon Volkov, in his memoirs of Shostakovich, states that one would have to be mentally blind and deaf not to understand that the dedication referred to Shostakovich’s own pain at Stalin’s totalitarianism. Shostakovich is also said to have been contemplating suicide at the time of the quartet’s composition and that the Eighth Quartet would be very intimate and autobiographical, reflecting the composer’s tragic state of mind at the time. The composer’s own initials DSCH (notes D, E flat, C, H) are also used in the motifs of the quartet.

Mark A. Popkin was an American bassoonist who had a distinguished career in several American orchestras and, above all, as a chamber musician with the Clarion Wind Quintet and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has arranged numerous works for wind quintet. Popkin’s skilfully written arrangement for wind quintet of Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet captures the character of the original work perfectly, but also creates a world of sound all its own, opening up new colours and dimensions to Shostakovich’s tragic music.

Sinfonia concertante is a form of art music that emerged during the classical period, combining the established forms of the symphony and the orchestral concerto. A sinfonia concertante usually features two or more soloists who play the main melodic material of the work, with the orchestra accompanying and supporting the soloists.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed several works in the sinfonia concertante style, not all of which have survived in their entirety. The Sinfonia concertante K.364 of 1779 for violin, viola and orchestra is probably the best known of his works in this genre.

Mozart pours into his work an extraordinary wealth of melodic and tonal textures which, in keeping with the composer’s skill, flow effortlessly like ripe fruit for the listener to pick. Mozart’s work circulated for a long time as copies of the manuscript until 1802, when a printed version appeared.

Only six years later, in 1808, a version of Mozart’s work was published by an anonymous arranger for strings under the title Grande sestetto concertante. The anonymous arranger has very imaginatively and skillfully arranged both the orchestral parts and the solo parts of the two original works for only six players in a meaningful and logical way. Even the solo cadenzas of the original work, which are performed only by the soloists without orchestral accompaniment, have been cleverly arranged by the arranger for all the players in the sextet to play together.

We are not aware that the Grande sestetto has previously been performed in Turku, and perhaps only once before in Finland, at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, so it is most likely that we will hear the Turku premiere today! Just like that for once!

Turku Ensemble wishes you an enjoyable concert and success to the new Aurora concert series organised by the Turku Music Festival!

Harri Sippel, Chairman
Turku Ensemble