New York Philharmonic arrange a "Suomi Week"

By Vesa Sirén in New York
     
      "Le remords me brûle, le remords me brûle, le remords me brûle!"
      The stellar Finnish soprano Karita Mattila made her soloist debut with the New York Philharmonic last Thursday in the first of three concerts. She had agreed to the begging letters from the Philharmonic on condition that the programme would include Kaija Saariaho’s song-cycle Quatre Instants (Four Instants), which was written for her and dedicated jointly to Mattila and Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
      The cycle oozes with erotic longing and shame. It leaves a powerful impression even in the visually and acoustically bleak Avery Fisher Hall.
      When the performance was over, Mattila the performer was scarcely likely to have felt burning pangs of remorse. This was the first performance in the United States of an important Finnish work, and she carried it off well.
     
The New York Philharmonic were under the baton of visiting conductor Sakari Oramo, who made his first acquaintance with the orchestra two years ago and was immediately invited back for a return appearance.
      On that first occasion, a mobile phone in the pocket of one orchestra member happened to ring in the middle of the concert, and Oramo spun round to the audience to tell them this was not a part of the work on display.
      This time, however, the mobile phones remain mute and switched off. Mattila is given free rein to sing Saariaho’s material; it would be hard to imagine a more intensive, more beautiful, or a wilder contemporary composition.
     
The three Avery Fisher concerts last week were almost entirely Finnish in hue. In addition to the Mattila/Saariaho pairing, Oramo also conducted Jean Sibelius’s 1913 tone poem The Bard on all three nights. This, too, was a première, at least for the New York Philharmonic.
      But one must ask, what on earth was Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony (Op. 58) doing in this company?
      "He’s an example of an Eastern Finnish composer", quipped Zarin Mehta, the New York Philharmonic’s President and Executive Director, at the post-concert party on Thursday.
     
"The Finnish Week" emerged more or less by chance.
      "We wanted Karita Mattila to make her debut at long last with us, and it was Karita herself who suggested the Saariaho song-cycle. It all fitted together very nicely", says Zarin, the influential brother of conductor Zubin Mehta.
      "We also wanted Oramo to come back, and the weeks that were free happened to coincide in such a way that the pair could be put into the same concert. And I would like to see the cooperation continue with both of them", says Mehta.
      Oramo, too, was satisfied with the way things fell out. Everything was a good deal easier than it had been two years ago, in December 2002.
      "This orchestra came with a reputation of being carnivorous towards conductors: they eat them for lunch. Last time around, one of the violins came up and told me I ought to be ashamed of my tempi in the Smetana [the 2002 programme included "Vltava" and "Šárka" from Má vlast], because even he, as a good violinist, couldn’t keep up."
      There was no insubordination in the ranks last week.
      "The group has got rather younger since then, and the attitude has improved with it", reckons Oramo.
     
These days the invitations for Sakari Oramo’s services are coming in thick and fast. Nevertheless, he concentrates his time mainly on his two official charges, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony, which he took over from Sir Simon Rattle as music director in 1999.
      "I’ve got just the two guest appearances this season, this one to New York and then a return visit to the Berlin Philharmonic", he explains.
      Next year will be equally restrained: in addition to commitments in Birmingham and Helsinki, Oramo will only be performing with the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and with the Orchestre de Paris. At least, that’s the situation for the time being.
      This "for the time being" clause has helped to prompt rumours that Oramo might be about to surrender his Birmingham job.
      "I have no plans for that. We’re just reaping the harvest after some financially difficult years. We recently recorded Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony for the Warner label, for instance. I’m not going to stay in Birmingham for ever, but I’m not in any hurry to leave, either."
     
His continued tenure with the Finnish RSO will depend on the fate of the Helsinki Music House. If, after all the to-ing and fro-ing, this planned venture in the centre of Helsinki comes to nought, Oramo might vote with his feet if the orchestra is left to play in the acoustically dire Finlandia Hall.
      "But you have to remember that the Administrative Council of YLE [The Finnish Broadcasting Company] have so far taken a positive view of stumping up 25% of the cost of the Music House", says Sakari Oramo positively.
     
Like the conductor, composer Kaija Saariaho has had her share of mutterings from the New York Philharmonic musicians.
      When the orchestra gave the first performance of her Oltra Mar (a work that the NY Philharmonic had also commissioned) exactly five years ago in November 1999, some of the musicians had complained about her style of writing for strings.
      "They were on board this time from the very beginning. No problems at all", the composer reported.
     
Since we are in New York City, the opinions of the music critic of one large daily broadsheet have a considerable influence on how the concert is viewed.
      So what exactly did the New York Times have to say in its Saturday edition?
      Among other things, Anthony Tommasini observed that "as the Philharmonic, now with plenty of time on its hands, thinks about Lorin Maazel's successor, Mr. Oramo should be on the short list".
      This closing remark came after a number of glowing references to the "mercurial and shimmering performance that he drew from the Philharmonic" in the Sibelius work, and to the way he negotiated the potentially "meandering" nature of Manfred with a "masterly controlled, clearly shaped, rhapsodic, and exciting account". Not bad, not bad.
     
More plaudits were forthcoming for Mattila, too, and not simply of the "looked more glamorous than many film stars with her striking blonde hair" variety, but in reference to her ability not just to sing the Saariaho but also to act it and to convincingly get inside the wildly oscillating shifts of mood.
      It would appear, therefore, that the New York Philharmonic’s "Suomi Week" can be chalked up as another chapter in the international media saga about the great musical miracle of a small country a long way away.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 14.11.2004

More on this subject:
 Oramo puts the icing on a Finnish party cake

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Karita Mattila is most successful Finnish artist in sales of classical music (1.9.2004)
  Karita Mattila: One very feisty, down-to-earth diva (9.12.2003)
  Sakari Oramo to take up baton with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (20.3.2001)
  Kaija Saariaho and Prisma - a door into the world of a colourist composer (16.12.1999)

Links:
  Kaija Saariaho (Finnish Music Information Centre)
  Kaija Saariaho (Virtual Finland)
  Karita Mattila (Virtual Finland)
  Sakari Oramo, Music Director (CBSO)
  Sakari Oramo at the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra