It is quite usual that there are tons of different type of concerts in churches around Easter like oratorios and passions. This time I travelled on Good Friday to Turku to the concert of Turku Philharmonic Orchestra. It was kept in the Turku Cathedral, which by its his history is probably one of the most memorable concert venues in Finland. The first church in the same place was built in the last few years of the 13th century.
The soloists
of the concert were tenor Markus Nykänen and baritone Arttu Kataja. The concert
also had two choirs: Chorus Cathedralis Aboensis and Chamber Choir of the Turku
Conservatory. The conductor was Tōnu Kaljuste.
The concert
was actually rather short, less than an hour. The first piece was a relatively
modern composition: ”Trisagion” by Arvo Pärt from the 1990’s. It was performed
for the first time in Ilomantsi and it is dedicated to the local Greek orthodox
parish. I was a bit sceptic beforehand about the piece, but it turned out to be
perfectly to my taste. The music was subtle and extremely emotional. For some
strange reason I kept on thinking about rough, but impressive nature (e.g.
Outer Hebrides) in the spirit of Scandic Noir. A great piece of music!
The second
part of the concert consisted of Giacomo Puccini’s “Messa di Gloria”. I assumed
beforehand that this would be more typical ecclesiastical music, but it was actually
rather operatic. Lots of times it
felt as if I was listening to a Puccini opera. The role of the soloists was not
significant, though, so you did not get any true feeling of operatic arias.
Nykänen did sing a bit more, but Katajala basically just popped in front of the
audience to sing a couple of lines. Fortunately they both sang really well, so even such short performances
were gratifying.
If the
soloists did not have a lot to sing, the choirs had a chance to shine and shine
they did as the true stars of this concert. Excellent preformance and definitely worth a trip to Turku.
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