CHURCH CONCERT @ RIISTAVESI: ECHOES FROM WITHIN

Thursday 11.04.2024 at 6pm

At Riistavesi Church

Kuopio Symphony Orchestra
Kalle Kuusava, conductor
Ananta Diaz, bassoon

Edvard Grieg: Holberg Suite Prelude
Pehr Henrik Nordgren: Cronaca part 3
Antonio Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto in E minor RV484
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: String Symphony No 6 in E flat major

Church acoustics are the best and sound-supporting environment for the gentle tones of a string orchestra. When the program is chosen carefully, the beautiful and heavenly can be combined with grittier and more angsty music. So it plays the whole gamut of life.

In the music of Pehr Henrik Nordgren (1944–2008), the music reflects the Ostrobothnian landscapes, especially the mental landscape. Faith, doubt, cutting disappointments take on a form that sounds out fervently in his works. Cronaca is a piece for string orchestra that attracts the listener’s attention with versatile sound worlds and bold compositional solutions. The word cronaca is Italian and means story, narrative or chronicle. What story does this work tell you?

The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s (1843–1907) string orchestra suite “From Holberg’s Time – Suite in the Olden Style” that opens the concert is a tribute to the writer Ludvig Holberg. The series combines the expression of the Baroque and Romantic periods. The fast-paced Introduction is a perennial favorite with audiences.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), who worked as a music teacher at a girls’ school in Venice, was a prolific composer, and he is best known for the series of violin concertos “The Four Seasons”. Not all of his works enjoy the same popularity, but the bassoon concerto in E minor is a good candidate for this top list. The bassoon soloist weaves fast patterns over the dancing theme of the first part. Lively and emotional expression alternate naturally, until the finale measures the speed of the soloist’s fingers. The soloist of the concert is Ananta Díaz Martinez, associate principal of the bassoon at the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s (1840–1893) string serenade is the most central string orchestra repertoire of the Romantic period. The composer’s hallmarks, themes with overwhelming emotions, sensitivity and a certain tasteful sensitivity are present in this versatile half-hour work.

A completely different atmosphere is brought by Felix Mendelssohn’s (1809–1847) String Symphony No. 6 in E flat major, a piece dating to a time when the composer was merely 11 years old. Young Mendelssohn amazed his contemporaries with his skills as a composer and violinist. The string symphony is not a precocious work, but a full-scale composition that progresses in cheerful moods. The melodic certainty and the knowledge of the instruments speak volumes about his talent: Mendelssohn became one of the most important composers of the Romantic period, whose actual symphonies and the violin concerto in E minor are the most important repertoire of orchestras.

Produced by the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra in cooperation with the Lake Kuopio parish
Free entrance