Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Hannu Lintu had in their Friday series concert two works that were based on operas. The first of them was Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten (The Soldiers) vocal symphony. It can be called a kind of advertisement of his opera with the same name. Composing the opera took such a long time and it turned out to be so difficult to produce that Zimmermann decided to make a sort of teaser on it to prove that it is not impossible to perform and it is also worth of performing.
Without doubt the music of Die Soldaten is not the easiest in the world to understand and I am sure I did not grasp all its finesse. The music was occasionally completely atonal, but on the other hand, at its best it was really impressive. At least to me the advertisement worked – I would love to go and see the whole opera if I happened to bump into it somewhere.
In addition to the orchestra Die Soldaten has six soloists, two of which made an especially big impression on me. Anu Komsi was unbelievable good as Marie. The role is extremely difficult to sing with huge jumps and different ways to use the voice, but she managed spectacularly all the difficulties. Her technique and voice deserve a deep bow.
The other star of the evening was Jeni Packalen in the role of Marie’s grandmother. I had an excellent seat to follow her and I was impressed. The composer had made the grandmother’s role in the lower end of the register and even though Packalen is a young woman, she got in her voice just the right tone of a mature woman. Stellar performance!
The second part of the evening was dedicated to Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Symphony No 6 ”Vincentiana”. The symphony is based on his opera Vincent, which tells about the artist Vincent van Gogh. I changed seat for this work to the side of the orchestra and I especially enjoyed watching the conductor Hannu Lintu and the percussions. Rautavaara has composed to this symphony a large amount of different percussions (I did not even recognize all of them by name) and among the wind instruments there was also something that looked like a duck whistle (at least that’s what it looked like from above).
In addition to following the musicians I, of course, also listened to the music. Rautavaara’s sixth symphony is surprisingly versatile. Personally I liked best the second part called “Crows”, that is based on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Wheatfield with Crows”. Especially its beginning was charmingly boisterous.
You can see the performance also in Yle Areena web site (should be visible also outside Finland), so I recommend to at least have a peek.
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