Finnish music festivals look east
Strong St. Petersburg presence anticipated as Naantali, Turku, and Helsinki Festivals all take their top attractions from Russia
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By Vesa Sirén in St. Petersburg
Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Juri Temirkanov raises his baton and the musicians of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic deliver up that rich, warm sound of theirs. Now we are in St. Petersburg, but in August this excellent orchestra will be in Finlandia Hall, opening this year’s Helsinki Festival.
Let us now take a longish walk or a laborious, grid-locked taxi-ride from the Philharmonia Grand Hall to the Mariinsky Theatre.
Here we find Valery Gergiev putting the finishing touches to a new production of Mihail Glinka’s A Life for the Czar, to be presented this weekend on the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
The Glinka celebrations will continue from July 2nd in Finland, when Gergiev conducts the same work at the opening of the Mikkeli Music Festival. The Mariinsky Orchestra will be featured extensively during the week-long event.
Many Finnish summer festivalswill be bringing their main attractions in from the East this year. The Mariinsky Theatre ensemble will also be appearing in Turku with a production of Shostakovich’s The Nose and an open-air concert performance of Bruckner’s 7th Symphony.
The Helsinki Festival, meanwhile, will be accompanying its Petersburg offering with appearances by a recital by baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and by violinist Vadim Repin, who will be soloist on the Brahms Violin Concerto at a concert by the talented European Union Youth Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier. Naantali has a piano recital by Grigori Sokolov on its bill, and the entire festival winds up with a three-day "Jubilee Celebration Cruise" to St. Petersburg. The Naantal Music Festival marks up its 25th birthday this year.
Up in Kuhmo, at the estimable Chamber Music Festival there, the Borodin Quartet and cellist Natalia Gutman are once again among the regulars, along with a good many other "wonders of the East".
So what is the attraction of all these artists from Russia? Why do we have so many more musicians coming in from that direction than from our other neighbouring countries?
Risto Nieminen, Artistic Director at the Helsinki Festival, has made this year’s Baltic Sea theme rather "east-heavy".
"There are a lot of first-class performers in Russia and the music education system has traditionally been outstanding. This shows up particularly in places like the Mariinsky, where the soloist coaching produces world-class vocal stars in just the same fashion as the Finns turn out top-flight conductors."
The Mariinsky Theatre visited the Helsinki Festival last year, and this time it is the turn of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
"We last had the Philharmonic with us in 2000, and we decided there and then that Temirkanov and the orchestra were just the sort of people we wanted to stay in close contact with", enthuses Nieminen.
He points out that the apparent Russian leanings at the Festival are partly coincidence. Hvorostovsky and Repin both live in the West these days, as do many other Russian star musicians.
"Besides, I chose them for what they can do, and not for where they come from. When artists live in the West, being geographically close to Russia is no longer much of a financial benefit to a Finnish concert organiser. Everybody travels by plane anyway."
Things are rather different with the orchestras who are resident in St. Petersburg. The Philharmonic and the Mariinsky Theatre come from so close at hand that there are inevitable savings in travel expenses, and Nieminen admits that it is less expensive to book and bring in an outstanding orchestra from next door than one from Central Europe.
In the old days, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, you could secure the services of the very best for even less money down. The train from Leningrad brought in the likes of Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, and Svyatoslav Richter on a fairly regular basis. Arrangements at the Finnish end were often in the hands of the country’s largest booking operation, the Fazer Concert Agency.
"On the Soviet side, everything went through Goskonsert, who had sole rights on the artists. All the negotiations were made through them, and the telex machine would spit out very attractive offers from Moscow", recalls Tuula Sarotie, who headed the Fazer Concert Agency in the 1980s.
Under the old regime, the artists had to take their performance fees - in cash, in plastic bags - to the Soviet Embassy in Tehtaankatu. Goskonsert withheld as much as 90% of the artists’ fees.
"We’d often surreptitiously slip the Russian guest artists a brown envelope so that they would at least get something for their pains", reveals Sarotie, who these days is Executive Manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
"And they were absolutely tickled pink when they could come to Finland. For many of them, Finland was the only place in the West they were allowed to visit, at least to begin with."
And what about now? Yuri Temirkanov admits that Finland still holds a very special place in his heart. "Finland for me means my youth, when I was not permitted to travel anywhere else outside the UUSR. And that memory comes back to me every time I come to Finland - as a normal, unfettered citizen these days - to give a concert", he says firmly.
Valery Gergiev was kept on an even tighter rein. After he won the Herbert von Karajan Competition in 1977, his movements were heavily restricted. Close links with Finland were forged immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union, however, and he is now a regular summer visitor and is in fact the long-serving Artistic Director of the Mikkeli Music Festival, which wisely snatched at the opportunity when the maestro offered his services in 1993.
The past and memories of how things were are particularly important to those Russian artists who were given a helping hand from Finland during the Soviet era. The Fazer Concert Agency stubbornly bombarded Goskonsert with requests to get the brilliant pianist Aleksei Lyubimov to come and perform here.
Lyubimov was not permitted to travel outside the country, and one after another the invitations were turned down on grounds that the pianist was "indisposed" or "extremely busy". But eventually the resistance was worn down, and Lyubimov made it to Finland.
And he still comes here. This year, too, Fazer will be bringing in Lyubimov, Grigori Sokolov, and the Borodin Quartet. However, the arrangements have changed beyond all recognition from the Soviet era.
"These days the stars who come from next door are citizens of the world, and will as likely as not have two passports and dual nationality. The majority actually live in the West, and there is no difference in the way we book them from the arrangements for any other artist", notes Märta Kuokkanen, who has worked for Fazer since 1984.
Why is it that Fazer brings in so many more artists from Russia than from our other neighbouring countries?
"With such a huge population, Russia naturally produces more world-class performers than can be found from the Nordic Countries. And when you add in the long traditions and the first-class music education system in the East, there’s really nothing strange to it", says Aino Turtiainen, the current Director of the Fazer Concert Agency.
It’s certainly a good thing that Finnish audiences can enjoy top-flight artists from directions east. But it might be that the Scandinavian imports have been a little on the light side as a result.
Helsinki Festival is this year helping to balance things by bringing over the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic for a concert featuring music by Hillborg, Sibelius, and Bruckner. At the Korsholm Music Festival, Artistic Director John Storgårds puts his faith in Scandinavian compositions and performers, and the programme is crowned by a world première performance of the new Violin Concerto "Songs of Seasons" by Sunleif Rasmussen of the Faeroe Islands.
Certainly none of the "wonders of the East" can match anything like that this summer. Temirkanov, Gergiev, and their St. Petersburg colleagues are specialists in the works of the Russian Romantics, and they only show a passing interest in music later than Shostakovich.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.5.2004
Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Juri Temirkanov raises his baton and the musicians of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic deliver up that rich, warm sound of theirs. Now we are in St. Petersburg, but in August this excellent orchestra will be in Finlandia Hall, opening this year’s Helsinki Festival.
Let us now take a longish walk or a laborious, grid-locked taxi-ride from the Philharmonia Grand Hall to the Mariinsky Theatre.
Here we find Valery Gergiev putting the finishing touches to a new production of Mihail Glinka’s A Life for the Czar, to be presented this weekend on the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
The Glinka celebrations will continue from July 2nd in Finland, when Gergiev conducts the same work at the opening of the Mikkeli Music Festival. The Mariinsky Orchestra will be featured extensively during the week-long event.
Many Finnish summer festivalswill be bringing their main attractions in from the East this year. The Mariinsky Theatre ensemble will also be appearing in Turku with a production of Shostakovich’s The Nose and an open-air concert performance of Bruckner’s 7th Symphony.
The Helsinki Festival, meanwhile, will be accompanying its Petersburg offering with appearances by a recital by baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and by violinist Vadim Repin, who will be soloist on the Brahms Violin Concerto at a concert by the talented European Union Youth Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier. Naantali has a piano recital by Grigori Sokolov on its bill, and the entire festival winds up with a three-day "Jubilee Celebration Cruise" to St. Petersburg. The Naantal Music Festival marks up its 25th birthday this year.
Up in Kuhmo, at the estimable Chamber Music Festival there, the Borodin Quartet and cellist Natalia Gutman are once again among the regulars, along with a good many other "wonders of the East".
So what is the attraction of all these artists from Russia? Why do we have so many more musicians coming in from that direction than from our other neighbouring countries?
Risto Nieminen, Artistic Director at the Helsinki Festival, has made this year’s Baltic Sea theme rather "east-heavy".
"There are a lot of first-class performers in Russia and the music education system has traditionally been outstanding. This shows up particularly in places like the Mariinsky, where the soloist coaching produces world-class vocal stars in just the same fashion as the Finns turn out top-flight conductors."
The Mariinsky Theatre visited the Helsinki Festival last year, and this time it is the turn of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
"We last had the Philharmonic with us in 2000, and we decided there and then that Temirkanov and the orchestra were just the sort of people we wanted to stay in close contact with", enthuses Nieminen.
He points out that the apparent Russian leanings at the Festival are partly coincidence. Hvorostovsky and Repin both live in the West these days, as do many other Russian star musicians.
"Besides, I chose them for what they can do, and not for where they come from. When artists live in the West, being geographically close to Russia is no longer much of a financial benefit to a Finnish concert organiser. Everybody travels by plane anyway."
Things are rather different with the orchestras who are resident in St. Petersburg. The Philharmonic and the Mariinsky Theatre come from so close at hand that there are inevitable savings in travel expenses, and Nieminen admits that it is less expensive to book and bring in an outstanding orchestra from next door than one from Central Europe.
In the old days, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, you could secure the services of the very best for even less money down. The train from Leningrad brought in the likes of Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, and Svyatoslav Richter on a fairly regular basis. Arrangements at the Finnish end were often in the hands of the country’s largest booking operation, the Fazer Concert Agency.
"On the Soviet side, everything went through Goskonsert, who had sole rights on the artists. All the negotiations were made through them, and the telex machine would spit out very attractive offers from Moscow", recalls Tuula Sarotie, who headed the Fazer Concert Agency in the 1980s.
Under the old regime, the artists had to take their performance fees - in cash, in plastic bags - to the Soviet Embassy in Tehtaankatu. Goskonsert withheld as much as 90% of the artists’ fees.
"We’d often surreptitiously slip the Russian guest artists a brown envelope so that they would at least get something for their pains", reveals Sarotie, who these days is Executive Manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
"And they were absolutely tickled pink when they could come to Finland. For many of them, Finland was the only place in the West they were allowed to visit, at least to begin with."
And what about now? Yuri Temirkanov admits that Finland still holds a very special place in his heart. "Finland for me means my youth, when I was not permitted to travel anywhere else outside the UUSR. And that memory comes back to me every time I come to Finland - as a normal, unfettered citizen these days - to give a concert", he says firmly.
Valery Gergiev was kept on an even tighter rein. After he won the Herbert von Karajan Competition in 1977, his movements were heavily restricted. Close links with Finland were forged immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union, however, and he is now a regular summer visitor and is in fact the long-serving Artistic Director of the Mikkeli Music Festival, which wisely snatched at the opportunity when the maestro offered his services in 1993.
The past and memories of how things were are particularly important to those Russian artists who were given a helping hand from Finland during the Soviet era. The Fazer Concert Agency stubbornly bombarded Goskonsert with requests to get the brilliant pianist Aleksei Lyubimov to come and perform here.
Lyubimov was not permitted to travel outside the country, and one after another the invitations were turned down on grounds that the pianist was "indisposed" or "extremely busy". But eventually the resistance was worn down, and Lyubimov made it to Finland.
And he still comes here. This year, too, Fazer will be bringing in Lyubimov, Grigori Sokolov, and the Borodin Quartet. However, the arrangements have changed beyond all recognition from the Soviet era.
"These days the stars who come from next door are citizens of the world, and will as likely as not have two passports and dual nationality. The majority actually live in the West, and there is no difference in the way we book them from the arrangements for any other artist", notes Märta Kuokkanen, who has worked for Fazer since 1984.
Why is it that Fazer brings in so many more artists from Russia than from our other neighbouring countries?
"With such a huge population, Russia naturally produces more world-class performers than can be found from the Nordic Countries. And when you add in the long traditions and the first-class music education system in the East, there’s really nothing strange to it", says Aino Turtiainen, the current Director of the Fazer Concert Agency.
It’s certainly a good thing that Finnish audiences can enjoy top-flight artists from directions east. But it might be that the Scandinavian imports have been a little on the light side as a result.
Helsinki Festival is this year helping to balance things by bringing over the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic for a concert featuring music by Hillborg, Sibelius, and Bruckner. At the Korsholm Music Festival, Artistic Director John Storgårds puts his faith in Scandinavian compositions and performers, and the programme is crowned by a world première performance of the new Violin Concerto "Songs of Seasons" by Sunleif Rasmussen of the Faeroe Islands.
Certainly none of the "wonders of the East" can match anything like that this summer. Temirkanov, Gergiev, and their St. Petersburg colleagues are specialists in the works of the Russian Romantics, and they only show a passing interest in music later than Shostakovich.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.5.2004
VESA SIRÉN / Helsingin Sanomat
vesa.siren@hs.fi