Aufbruch

To kick off our collaboration with John Storgårds, our new Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor will not only be at the podium but will also lead the orchestra as a soloist on the violin. Since the conductor’s traditional role at the podium is set aside, this requires a different kind of musical communication and sensitivity from the ensemble—an enrichment for all involved.

Helena’s Song by Sebastian Fagerlund was premiered in Helsinki in 2023 by Storgårds and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and incorporates material from Fagerlund’s opera Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata). The opera is based on Ingmar Bergman’s film of the same name, which depicts a complicated mother-daughter relationship culminating in a potentially final rift.

Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major, one of the twelve famous London Symphonies, was composed in Vienna or Eisenstadt in 1793 and premiered in the English capital early the following year. Already received with great enthusiasm by London audiences, the symphony—in which Haydn incorporated clarinets for the first time—has maintained a firm place in the repertoire to this day as a masterpiece of the Viennese Classical period.

This formal clarity and memorable melodic lightness stand in stark contrast to Sergei Prokofiev’s somber, introspective Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor, Op. 111. It is marked by the catastrophe of World War II and stands in stark contrast to its poignant predecessor, Symphony No. 5 — it is dedicated to the countless victims of the “Great Patriotic War.” Before a damning resolution by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) finally crushed his artistic will shortly thereafter, the composer, increasingly marked by illness and psychological strain, used an erratic, cynical sound aesthetic to create an emotional musical testament independent of the cultural policies of the time.

Jascha Krams, Program Committee