Erkki-Sven Tuur: Solastalgia

The past few days have been full of indulging in new recordings, new-ish or less familiar composers, and hunting out recordings of various new works. Sadly, due to not being wealthy enough to just fly from Glasgow to Amsterdam, I was not able to see the premiere of Erkki-Sven Tuur's brand new work for piccolo and orchestra. The premiere took place on the 7th December in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and was co-commissioned by the Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Thankfully, the wonderful KlassikaRaadio stream their radio online so I was able to listen to it! Thank my stars!

The title Solastalgia comes from a term that was coined by Glenn Albrecht, and is derived from the Latin solacium (comfort) and the Greek -algia (pain); so naively pain in a place of comfort. So the idea essentially comes from the feeling of pain one gets at the change/destruction/desecration of somewhere that you have an emotional connection to. This subject matter ultimately shows the composer's intent when you notice the fact it is a concerto for piccolo - the metaphor of a songbird is quite a poignant move. It is overt that the composer is concerned about the change of the environment, be it on the personal level of fear for his rural home in Estonia or the larger problems facing the world. The composer's own programme notes detail his thoughts beautifully:

'Where I live, the impact of global climate change manifests itself in that winters are no longer winters and summers no longer summers. In my childhood it was ordinary for cars to drive to mainland on a 25 km ice bridge in the winter. There was a lot of snow. And summers were so warm that swimming in the sea was the most natural thing in the world. Today’s reality is that the difference between winter and summer equinoxes is often only 4-5 degrees. There is no place to hide from the ubiquitous environmental change caused by human activity.

An inexplicable anguish creeps into my soul when I see the vast areas of chopped down forests; the onslaught of oil palm plantations when I travel in Southeast Asia; when I read about gigantic ice blocks breaking off the mainland in Antarctica; the fields of garbage floating around in the ocean, etc. Why am I writing about this here? Do I have any solutions to offer? No, I don’t. And this composition won’t make the world a better place either. At best, it’s a lone voice in the wilderness – something that echoes the most burning conflicts of contemporary reality. The above was just to explain that I didn’t choose the title on a whim or due to the word’s peculiar sound...' -- Erkki-Sven Tuur programme notes

 What instantly appeals to me within the context of this piece is the fact it is almost an anti-Romantic concerto; namely it isn't a heroic victory, it isn't even necessarily salvation, but a lone figure disappearing out of significance. Its also intriguingly anti-Romantic in the way many Romantic/Nationalistic figures tended to celebrate nature or the wilderness; whereas this is fear for the environment itself.

The work starts from a rather beautiful shimmering place. Our soloist singing unashamedly enjoying itself within its wonderful home. However, as time progresses elements and ideas get more and more evocative and challenging; changing and mutating. The once content creature now struggles to survive, getting more animated and fractious at the loss of its familiar home. The energy and sheer strength of the orchestra becomes increasingly powerful, but the soloist keeps singing. The sheer expanse of the orchestration is exquisite and intensive. The driving rhythmic force really pushes the orchestral backdrop to a point of complete dominance where the soloist has only brief glimpses of respite. These moments of 'calm' never feel peaceful or like a resolution but more a point of complete desolation. The finale is eerie. The fog is clearing and almost nothing remains. Is this a prophecy or epiphany? Has the desolation of this 'home' happened or is it going to happen? Its hard to say the exact intent at this point, but all we know either way, the composer is desperate to voice his fear for the future and for the rural world in general.

The premiere was astounding. I was blown away by what I was hearing. Erkki-Sven Tuur is definitely a new period of his compositional life, and a part that I am truly excited to see where it heads. The Royal Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra were on particularly brilliant form and really bought the work to life. I can only imagine how wonderful it would have been to write for Vincent Cortvrint (piccolo), his mastery of the instrument and sheer tenacity in the premiere was glorious. What a wonderful performance, what a glorious piece; I can only congratulate everybody involved. And for those curious, you can hear the work on KlassikaRaaio here.

Erkki-Sven Tuur - Flamma

A rare treat for me happened last night, the BBC Proms featured a Baltic composer. To be brutal, the proms have been rather lackluster this year, mostly because they have felt like they have been working to a formula; more than being genuinely 'bad' or 'lackluster'. Of course the quality of music has been extremely high, and the festival has successfully brought music to a huge collection of various audiences. A part of me however feels a small push of outlandish-ness would really make the festival extremely immense and truly enjoyable.

Anyways back to the point of my post. On Thursday 3rd August the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonic Bremen, under the exquisite baton of Paavo Jarvi, delivered a concert of Brahms, Mozart, and Erkki-Sven Tuur. The pairing I found rather magnificent, as Jarvi's conducting really comes to the fore with these composers, and Erkki-Sven Tuur has a truly witty and cheeky conversational quality to it; that is perfectly compliments Mozart.

Flamma was originally premiered by the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2011, and finally received its British premiere in the Proms. The work is rather typical of Tuur's 'current' period, with its nuanced skill of picking up a huge palette of textures, techniques, and timbres in a singular elegant work; which never resorts to gimmick. The gesturing and shape is vaguely reminiscent of Insula Deserta with its intricate textural gestures and rolling melismas leading into huge powerful climaxes. However Flamma is significantly more 'mature' or at least more obviously the work of a grand master. It is almost like Insula Deserta dosed up on caffeine and amphetamines, ultimately charging like a bull and feeling almost indestructible; definitely a quality Paavo Jarvi manages to pull out of the performance. 

The harmonic language is rich and potent, dissonances never sounding 'forced' and everything just flows. The periods of rich consonance ultimately sound dreamy or in a haze; like a small moment of transcendence from the clattering caused earlier. The score is truly intricate and really shows the composer's ability with such a huge palette. Having had the opportunity to compare the recordings of the Australian performance and Jarvi's performance in the proms, I can without a doubt say Jarvi really knew what to pull out of the score. This could be the result of performing later performances, the premiere is always hardest to produce a personal rendition as conductor; but Paavo Jarvi is really alive within the performance and I can only imagine the sound within the Albert Hall was glorious. 

Erkki-Sven Tuur, has had the privilege of appearing in the proms on multiple occasions, which is not surprising at all, I do hope however that the Proms would be daring to allow more from the Baltic to sneak their way into future festival. I say this now as CBSO have the wonderful Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla and that Paavo is a regular guest in the festival too. I can but live and hope. For those who missed the opportunity, you can listen here. Definitely worth a listen, either for the glorious roar of Tuur or the refined conducting of Paavo Jarvi.

Until next time.

Erkki-Sven Tuur: Piano Sonata

After a few manic weeks filled with a wedding, a 60th birthday, and a crazy number of hours in varying forms of transport I am back to being to write on the good ol' blog. So give to my cognitive muscles the chance to warm up again, and to look at something I have loved for a very long time, I decided to look at Erkki-Sven Tuur's piano sonata.

For the dedicated followers of this page, you will know I covered Erkki-Sven Tuur's string quartet about a year ago. For those curious, I definitely following this link to check it out. It is interesting to return to Erkki-Sven Tuur with this particular work, the piano sonata was written at almost the exact time as his string quartet and has many similarities in musical stance as his string quartet. There are, however, nuances that really make the sonata stand out as something rather remarkable.


The work was dedicated to Anne Tuur and was premiered in Tartu in 1986 by Kalle Randalu and within it the overall sonata shows a composer with a really unique ability to draw upon tradition and build something unique with it. Firstly the three contrasting movements have elements of the traditional piano sonata within them; the declamatory first movement which lays the foundations of the whole work, the still mysterious middle movement, and flying finale. But the connection goes much further than mere moods.

Within the first movement, we see the rolling harmonies building up gathering momentum before introducing a wildly contrasting still gesture. The two musical entities function as the A and B subject in the sonata, however Tuur takes it further than merely contrasting the opposing forces. The ultimate result is an extremely fluid juxtaposition where each gesture appears briefly before flitting off somewhere. The harmonic language and voice leadings ultimately clarify the nature of the different areas, as the mood of the whole sonata is extremely succinct upon itself. Like in the string quartet, this work has many similarities to minimalist music, but the brilliance of sound and repetitive gestures I believe are merely just a wonderful element of Tuur's music, regardless of the world around him. As the first movement moves along, the elements grow and lead to fascinating musical discourses between themselves, before calmly coming to a close in a rather serene manner. 

The second movement, is where the elements of genius begin to shine. The slow movement firstly begins by hammering out motivic fragments from the previous movement and allowing the resonance of the overtones to define the response. The musical material within the second movement are completely connected with each other simply by exploring the capacity of one modal area. The result is mesmerising, but for me what is of particular curiosity is the wonderfully Beethovian nature of the sonata. It begins to show itself within this movement, as upon listening you can instantly feel its connection to the first movement. From this we can also draw other comparisons, mostly through the connection of harmonic evolution and motivic composition. 

The finale flies. The rolling arpeggios, contrasted by the flourishes and fragments within the left hand produce an extremely intensive and powerful dialogue. The fluidity of the gestures continues from previous movements producing a truly liberating musical landscape. As the movement progresses the material evolves further and further, exploring whole new regions which previously had not been visited. The sheer might of the piano writing begins to come to the fore with the growing power of the material. The result is a truly magnificent finale. 


Overall the sonata is simply fantastic. There is a sheer brilliance to it which few other composers can muster. Erkki-Sven Tuur takes it all within his stride. The sonata has a wonderful ability to tap into the fertile ingenuity of the tradition, but managed to bring his own personal spin to it, in the only way Erkki-Sven Tuur can. Having looked on his website it is uplifting to see so many professional recordings of the sonata, because the work is a truly glorious work and really needs to become connected with the canon. You can listen to the work below. So sit back relax, and I'll be back with more soon.

 

Erkki-Sven Tuur: String Quartet

I had been tossing and turning thinking about what piece to show this week, and I came to the decision that actually its about time I discuss this figure. Erkki-Sven Tuur (1959*) is quite the Estonian giant and is important to Estonia for two major reasons; his musical eclecticism and sheer vibrancy. He first started his musical career in the progressive rock band Spe heavily influenced by Frank Zappa, and Emerson Lake and Palmer. Shortly after this period he dove into 'classical' composition. He studied with Jaan Raats and Lepo Sumera and studied electronics in Karlruhe, Germany.

His music has a great vibrancy and energy and is never afraid to include various musical devices or strategies into pieces like bringing serialist language in combination with minimalistic repetitions and cycles. Even though the string quartet (1985) is not the strongest piece by Erkki-Sven Tuur, I felt compelled to talk about this one first, as it was the first piece of his I found. The colour and clarity of the two movement work really struck me.

The two movements are very direct episodic movements, with the first being about half the length of the second movement. The first movement closely resembles a rondo or ritornello form loosely following this shape:

A - B - C - B1 - C1 - A

A - is a monophonic texture with the quartet musically playing in unison, the harmony is vaguely tonal, but contradicts itself as it is never clearly Bb major or Eb major for example.

B - is a more animated episode with driving arpeggios in the violins while the viola and cello wait before interacting with it.

C - is a still moment, with the cello playing a harmonic glissando to colour the circling notes in the other three instruments.

The directness is treated remarkably as  it never feels predictable.

The second movement is far more extensive in its evolution, but follows a similar basic shape to the first movement. It vaguely references the same kind of shape, but feels more elegant in its construction. The second movement is as follows:

A - B - A1 - B1 - C - B2 - A2 - Reiteration of opening material of 1st movement.

A - is growing tremolandi 

B - is a burst of circling notes, combined with an arpeggiated gesture

C - is a sustained chord of Db, F,G,Ab.

It is a wonderful and approachable work, which made me fall in love with the composer's work. In larger scale works like the symphonies or concerti, the pieces are far more profound and elegant; this is by no means a condescending message for his chamber works like this quartet. It is hard not to love his work. You can hear the string quartet here  and you can find out more about Erkki-Sven Tuur here; alternatively you can find him on twitter.

See you next time, when I am likely to come back to wittering about lovely Lithuanians.