HELSINKI, Finland – With the possible exception of Austin, TX, I don't think I've even seen a more musical city than Helsinki, Finland. Everywhere you go, you see people carrying music cases: on the street, in the Metro, drinking coffee in one of Helsinki's ubiquitous cafes. In the past half-century, this nation of 5.5 million souls has produced a steady crop of world-renowned composers (Einojuhani Rautavaara, Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg), conductors (Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osma Vänskä, Sakari Oramo) and musicians (Karita Mattila, Anu Komsi, Matti Salminen) way beyond one would expect of its diminutive size.
There are any number of reasons for this, but none greater than the life and work of Jean Sibelius, whose 150th birthday this year has prompted a nationwide celebration. As previously noted, for the Finns, Sibelius is much more than just a great composer. He is a national hero, responsible perhaps more than any other individual for establishing the modern Finnish identity. Reminders of his legacy are everywhere in Finland: streets and parks in Helsinki are named after him, plaques are affixed to apartments where he once lived and pubs where he once drank (and drank). In a park on the northern edge of Helsinki, a monument was erected to Sibelius in 1967, validating the composer's famous quip: "A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic." His longtime home Ainola, 30 minutes north of Helsinki, has been preserved as a shrine to his memory; he is buried on the grounds alongside his wife, Aino.
Sibelius is also the namesake of Finland's premier music conservatory, the Sibelius Academy, which has produced all of the aforementioned musicians, along with many others. On my first day in Helsinki, I stopped by the new and strikingly modern music center, the Musiikkitalo, for a lunchtime recital by Sibelius Academy students. The state-of-the-art complex houses a full-size concert hall, a second stage for orchestra rehearsals, an organ recital hall, a vocal recital hall, a black box stage, and the central facilities of the Sibelius Academy.
The recital was held in the Camerata: a spacious, subterranean cube clad in patterned wood lit from above by blue-violet lights. When I arrived, there were maybe a few dozen others, all of whom sat in complete silence while waiting for the concert to begin. (Finns are apparently as quiet as Americans are voluble.) There was something austere and reverential about the space, the Steinway grand sitting in the center of the stage like some kind of altarpiece.
Soprano saxophonist Nanako Toyooka opened the program with Fumimori Tanada's Mysterious Morning III (1996), which sounded like a messed-up version of Flight of the Bumblebee, with soundless notes, squeaks and squawks. Pianist Aija-Riikka Rannanmäki played a more conventional set of pieces by Scarlatti, Mozart and Chopin, all from memory. Most impressive was Rachmaninoff's Etudes Tableaux, Op. 39, No. 6, which started quietly but soon exploded into a Liszt-like torrent of notes. Ending the concert was another pianist, Ayane Matsuura, who brought a highly refined technique and intensity to music by Prokofiev and Scriabin. (More pics on the photo page.)
The following night, I returned to the Camerata for an all-Sibelius program by pianist Folke Gräsbeck. A noted authority on Sibelius, Gräsbeck has taught at the Sibelius Academy since 1983, and recently recorded all of Sibelius' extant piano music for BIS Records' Sibelius Edition. Coming in, I was totally unfamiliar with Sibelius' piano music, so I was surprised to learn that he wrote nearly 400 works for piano, including sonatas, miniatures, and arrangements of his symphonic works, many of which were discovered and premiered by Gräsbeck. Another of Sibelius' champions, Glenn Gould, once said: "Sibelius never wrote against the grain of the keyboard… In Sibelius's piano music everything works, everything sings – but on its own terms."
Over the course of two hours, Gräsbeck took us on a chronological journey through Sibelius' piano music, from his early student works, to his final active period in the 1920's. A particular highlight were the works from Sibelius' National Romantic period (1890-1906), particularly his own piano arrangement of Finlandia, overflowing with color and bombast. Sibelius ran the gamut of styles popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: from neo-classicism, to late romanticism and expressionism, to a final dalliance with modernism.
In between performances, Gräsbeck provided colorful insights – in a mix of Finnish and English – into Sibelius' evolution as a composer, as well his own experiences presenting this music over the past four decades. Suffice to say, it was a privilege to get introduced to this music by the one person who probably knows it better than anyone. (More pics on the photo page.)
On my third and final night in Helsinki, I returned once more to the Musiikkitalo for a concert by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Similar to the Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, the Musiikkitalo's Concert Hall has a "vineyard" design, with blocks of seats ascending at all angles from the central stage. But, as with the Camerata, the space has an ascetic, angular feel, almost industrial in its lack of ornamentation. It was as if the architects designed it so there would be absolutely nothing to distract from the music.
The Helsinki Philharmonic has a long and rich history: founded in 1882, it is the oldest permanent orchestra in Scandinavia. It has a particularly strong pedigree with the music of Sibelius, having premiered nearly all of Sibelius' orchestral works between 1892 and 1923, usually with Sibelius himself conducting. (In more recent seasons, the rival Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra has taken over the new music mantle, premiering more than 500 works by Finnish composers since 1977.)
Led by their music director John Storgårds, the orchestra began with Stravinsky's youthful Scherzo Fantastique, Op. 3 (1909): pleasant, light, cheerful, not particularly memorable. That was followed by the Finland premiere of Ich denke Dein… (I Think of You), a song cycle by Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson, based on poems by Rilke, Goethe and others. Written for the Swedish soprano Lisa Larsson, who performed it here, the music was generally melodic and lyrical, though hard to fully appreciate without knowing the German texts (translated into Finnish in the program.) As expected, the crowd gave both Martinsson and Larsson a warm – if not particularly enthusiastic c – ovation. Hey, what do you want: it's Finland.
After intermission, Storgårds served up the main course: Sibelius Symphony No. 1, premiered by this orchestra in 1899, when Sibelius was 33. For a first symphony, it feels remarkably mature and assured, as if Sibelius had thought a long time about what he wanted to say in this most daunting of musical genres. (Sibelius would go on to complete 7 symphonies, regarded by many as the most accomplished set since Beethoven's.) Stogårds seemed a bit aloof at the start, but quickly worked up a sweat as the symphony progressed. The orchestra responded in kind: the brass was crisp and sharp, the strings swelled with emotion. Clearly, these musicians felt this music deep down in their bones, caught up in its raw, mysterious power. An overwhelming experience, and a fitting way to close out an inspiring two weeks in this unlikely musical corner of Europe, as warm with artistic inspiration as the nights are cold.
More pics on the photo page.