GUEST CONCERT

The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s 25th International Sibelius Festival will take place at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti from 29 to 31 August 2024, crowning the four-year term as the festival’s artistic director of Dalia Stasevska, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s principal conductor. The festival will feature all seven of Sibelius’s symphonies and Luonnotar under her baton.

The Lahti Symphony Orchestra will open the festival on Thursday 29 August with Symphonies Nos 1 and 2, while the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s guest concert on Friday 30 August will include Symphonies Nos 3 and 5 and Luonnotar, with the South African soprano Golda Schultz as soloist – her first appearance in Lahti. The final concert on Saturday 31 August will feature Symphonies Nos 4, 6 and 7. As usual, all the orchestral concerts will be preceded by a pre-concert talk.

The orchestral concerts will be complemented by a narrative runic singing concert by the Pajolaine Folk Song Duo on Friday and a chamber music concert on Saturday afternoon, in which the legendary actress Seela Sella will read Aino Sibelius’s letters and Vilina Rainisto will perform a selection of Sibelius’s piano music.

Iceland’s most acclaimed contemporary composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir has succeeded in fulfilling an artist’s dream: developing a recognisable style and having her works performed by the world’s major orchestras, from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The three-movement symphony AIŌN is her most ambitious work to date – a cosmically rippling field of energy in which time, place and movement merge into an inexorable mass of sound on its journey to the listener’s consciousness.

Gustav Mahler, one of the last giants of Romanticism, began his series of symphonies with a work ‘only’ an hour long. But it still bears all his trademarks: sarcastic dances, powerful outbursts, natural landscapes whispering in the distance and the sounds of inner struggles. All this, of course, as experienced by the solitary hero, Titan.

For almost 200 years, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth and last symphony has been played wherever major events are celebrated with music: at the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Tiananmen Square, at the opening of the Olympic Games, at New Year celebrations. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s symphony concert season, too, ends in the grandest possible way when the finest Finnish vocal soloists, a big symphony choir and principal conductor Dalia Stasevska perform the ‘Ode to Joy’.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem was written in memory of the writer and philosopher Alessandro Manzoni. This great work was expected to continue the Requiem Mass tradition with its devotional, funereal atmosphere, but Verdi could not go against his nature. The issue of death drew the Italian master towards the dramas of Aida, Rigoletto and La traviata – the larger-than-life pathos of tragedy. His Requiem turned out to be too religious for the opera house and too ostentatious for the church. Yet the touching arias, moving choral scenes and eternal questions about life in the inimitable style of Italian opera are perfectly suited to the concert hall.

The final concert of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s season crowns Dalia Stasevska’s successful tenure as principal conductor with impressive contributions from top Finnish soloists and a large choir.

For almost 200 years, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth and last symphony has been played wherever major events are celebrated with music: at the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Tiananmen Square, at the opening of the Olympic Games, at New Year celebrations. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s concert season, too, ends in the grandest possible way when the finest Finnish vocal soloists, a big symphony choir and principal conductor Dalia Stasevska perform the ‘Ode to Joy’.

What on earth is happening in Moominvalley? Lauri Porra’s narrative work Seasons in Moominvalley takes a peek into Moominvalley, especially when the Moomins are not at home. The work is a feast for the eyes as well as the ears: the animation projected on the screen is by Carlos da Cruz, an illustrator renowned for his humorous touches, and the narrator is Alma Pöysti, the actress who won a Jussi Award for her role as Tove Jansson.

Judith Weir, appointed Master of the King’s Music in 2014, turns tradition into something fresh and highly enigmatic. Written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soprano Dawn Upshaw, Natural History is a suite of orchestral songs in which animals, nature and humans live in perfect harmony. In the ancient Chinese Taoist texts, this is entirely possible.

Nature also gives rise to neo-impressionist orchestral colours in a piece by the Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi. Wildwood is inspired by oak trees, their roots penetrating the ground and their branches reaching for the sky.