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Andres Mustonen, conductorSoile Isokoski, sopranoJenny Carlstedt, mezzo-sopranoMati Turi, tenorJaakko Kortekangas, baritoneTuomas Pursio, bass-baritoneDominante & Murtosointu, coach Seppo Murto

Franz Liszt: Christus 170 min PART I: Christmas Oratorio 1. Introduction 2. Pastorale und Verkündigung des Engels (Pastorale and Annunciation) 3. Stabat Mater speciosa 4. Hirtenspiel an der Krippe (Shepherds’ Song at the Manger) 5. Die heiligen drei Könige (The Three Kings)

INTERVAL 15 min

PART II: Post Epiphaniam (After Epiphany) 6. Die Seligpreisungen (The Beatitudes) 7. Pater noster (The Lord’s Prayer) 8. Die Gründung der Kirche (The Foundation of the Church) 9. Das Wunder (The Miracle) 10. Der Einzug in Jerusalem (The Entry into Jerusalem) PART III: Passio et Resurrectio (Passion and Resurrection) 11. Tristis est anima mea 12. Stabat Mater dolorosa 13. Osterhymne (Easter Hymn) 14. Resurrexit

Interval at about 8.15 pm. The concert ends at about 10.30 pm. Broadcast live on YLE Radio 1 and the Internet (yle.fi/rso).

FRIDAY SERIES 10 Johannes Church fri 25 March 2011, at 7 pm

CHURCH MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Franz Liszt (1811–1886): Christus

The Oratorio Christus is scored for a large band of soloists, choir and instruments and assigns an active role to the orchestra. Despite this massive line-up, the music is engrossed and pure in spirit and leaves the listener in no doubt of its composer’s identification with his topic and his spiritual frame of mind. The oratorio is in three parts subdivided into a total of 14 shorter movements.

Part I, the Christmas Oratorio, describes the birth of Christ in five movements. In the or-chestral introduction Liszt paints pastoral scenes, drawing on the Gregorian chant Ro-rate coeli. The interval of a fifth featuring in this serves as the core of the whole oratorio, bind-ing many motifs together. In the Pastorale the angel brings the shepherds the joyful message and the soprano, tenor and choir join in the Annunciation. Stabat Mater speciosa is a sort of sunny sister hymn to the grief-packed Stabat Mater dolorosa and in it the choir, accompanied on the organ, paints a picture of Mary and the babe lying in the manger. The Shepherds’ Song at the Manger is again a purely orchestral move-ment in which the woodwinds underline the pastoral mood. Part I ends with a march build-ing up to a mighty climax announcing the arriv-al of the Three Kings.

Compared with the mainly pastoral Christ-mas Oratorio, Part II, After Epiphany telling of

Christ’s work and entry into Jerusalem covers a wider field. The Beatitudes (“Blessed are”) fea-turing alternation between the baritone and choir and the following Lord’s Prayer for choir and organ are based on the Sermon on the Mount. Movement 3, The Foundation of the Church, is for choir and orchestra. In movement 4 the orches-tra is assigned the leading role as the music de-scribes the storm and Christ walking on the water. Like Part I, After Epiphany culminates in splendour with the Entry into Jerusalem.

Whereas Parts I and II of the oratorio are clearly tonal, Part III, Passion and Resurrection, gives way to dense chromaticism, especially in the first two movements. Tristis est anima mea depicts Christ praying in the Garden of Geth-semane. The longest movement in the oratorio is Stabat Mater dolorosa, in which Mary grieves her son’s fate. Next comes the shortest move-ment, the Easter hymn O filii et filiae sung by the women and lasting only a couple of minutes. The oratorio ends on an uplifting, jubilant note in the movement Resurrexit describing the Res-urrection – a movement incorporating motifs from previous ones.

Abridged programme notes by Kimmo Korhonen

Andres Mustonen

Baroque violinist, composer, expert on early music and founder and conductor of the Hor-tus Musicus early music ensemble, Andres Mustonen is one of Estonia’s best-known mu-sicians. He does not, however, confine himself exclusively to early music, surprising audienc-es and critics with his distinctive approach to European repertoire ranging from Monteverdi, Mozart, Meder, Haydn, Bach and Beethoven to Brahms, Schubert and Mendelssohn. Nor are Takemitsu, Prokofiev, Glass, Kancheli, Taven-

er and Estonian experimental music strangers to him. Mustonen has premiered a number of works by Pärt, who has dedicated such works as Arbos and An den Wassern zu Babel to him. Mustonen has collaborated with countless top European soloists, such as Gidon Kremer, Oleg Kagan, Alexei Lyubimov and Monica Groop. For years he has also been a much sought-after guest at music festivals the world over – Berlin, Tel Aviv, Glasgow, Moscow, Boston, Kobe, etc.

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Soile Isokoski

Soile Isokoski is one of the sopranos most in demand on the musical scene today, and one familiar to audiences at the world’s most fa-mous opera houses and concert halls. Winner of the Lappeenranta Singing Competition in her native Finland in 1987, she soon went on to take the second prize in the BBC Singer of the World competition and the first prize in the Elly Ameling and Tokyo International Singing Competitions. She made her Finnish Nation-al Opera debut as Mimi in La bohème and has since appeared at such illustrious opera houses as the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Milan, the Opéra Bastille in Paris, Covent Garden in Lon-

don and the New York Metropolitan. She is al-so a regular guest at many music festivals, such as Salzburg, Savonlinna and Edinburgh and works with numerous celebrated conductors, among them Esa-Pekka Salonen, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Valery Ger-giev and Zubin Mehta. Soile Isokoski’s exten-sive repertoire also includes Lieder, which she has performed with her regular accompanist, Marita Viitasalo. She can be heard on a number of opera and oratorio discs and in September 2008 was awarded the honorary title of Kam-mersängerin in Vienna.

Jenny Carlstedt

In 1999 Jenny Carlstedt was awarded the sec-ond prize in the Lappeenranta Singing Compe-tition in her native Finland. Prior to this she had studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsin-ki and was at the time a pupil of Rudolf Pier-nay at the Guildhall School of Music & Dra-ma in London. She has also been awarded the Susan Longfield and Harold Rosenthal prizes. Music of the Baroque has always been among her favourites, and she has an extensive ora-torio repertoire. In addition to engagements in the Nordic countries she has performed at

the Wigmore Hall in London, been the soloist with Helmut Rilling’s Bach Collegium on tour in Italy and Germany, in Singapore and else-where. As a member of the solo ensemble of Oper Frankfurt since autumn 2002 Jenny Carl-stedt has sung such roles as Hansel in Humper-dink’s Hansel and Gretel, Varvara in Janácek’s Kát’a Kabanova, Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Angelina in Rossini’s Cinderella, Siebel in Gou-nod’s Faust and Pauline in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades.

Mati Turi

Mati Turi studied singing with Jaakko Ryhänen and qualified as a choral conductor at the Esto-nian Academy of Music. He has been singing in the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir since 1992 and has been the soloist with many celebrated orchestras, such as the National Or-chestras of Estonia and Latvia, the Israel Cham-ber Orchestra, the Malmö Symphony Orches-tra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He

has also performed in many oratorios, such as the Bach Passions and B Minor Mass, Han-del’s Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Among the roles in his operatic repertoire are Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio, Cassio in Verdi’s Otello, Paul in Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Alwa in Berg’s Lulu. In autumn 2011 Mati Turi makes his debut at the Nether-lands Opera as Wagner’s Siegfried.

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Jaakko Kortekangas

At the age of 23 Jaakko Kortekangas departed for the International Opera Studio in Zurich af-ter studying with Matti Lehtinen at the Sibel-ius Academy. He has appeared in many Europe-an countries, at the opera houses in such cities as Zurich, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Genoa and Paris, and given concerts in New York, Tokyo and other metropolises. Before returning to Finland in 1999 and going freelance, he spent 10 years as a member of the opera ensemble

in Freiburg, Germany. Since winning the Lap-peenranta Singing Competition in 1989, he has made regular appearances at the Finnish Na-tional Opera and as the soloist with many or-chestras. His repertoire includes roles in such operas as Verdi’s Don Carlo, Britten’s Billy Budd, Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Verdi’s La traviata and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

Tuomas Pursio

Tuomas Pursio studied singing at the Sibel-ius Academy, at the International Opera Stu-dio in Zurich and privately with Tom Krause, László Polgár and Jukka Rasilainen. In 1996 he won the first prize for men in the Lappeenran-ta Singing Competition and took up his first ap-pointment as a member of the solo ensemble of the Deutsche Opera am Rhein in Düsseldorf. Since then he has been an ensemble member of the Erfurt Theatre and subsequently joined the ensemble of the Leipzig Opera. Guest engage-ments have taken him to the Berlin State Opera, Tokyo, Zurich, the Hanover State Opera, the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Lausanne. At home in

Finland he has been the soloist with the Finn-ish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Tapiola Sinfo-nietta, and at the Finnish National Opera and the Savonlinna Opera Festival. In addition to choral works by Mozart, Verdi, Haydn and Bach his repertoire includes Escamillo in Bizet’s Car-men, Figaro in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figa-ro, Amfortas in Wagner’s Parsifal and Orest in Strauss’s Elektra. He has worked with Riccar-do Chailly, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, John Storgårds, Franz Welser-Möst and many other distinguished conductors.

Seppo Murto

Seppo Murto obtained his organ diploma at the Sibelius Academy in 1980 and gave his de-but concert in Helsinki the year after, follow-ing it with a diploma in choral conducting in 1983. He has been the Artistic Director of the Dominante, Suomen Laulu, Akateeminen Lau-lu, Chorus Cathedralis Aboensis and Viva Vox choirs and since the beginning of 2003 of the Murtosointu Chamber Choir founded by him. He has also been active in the mixed-choir sec-

tion of the Finnish Amateur Musicians’ Asso-ciation and Artistic Director of the Choral Es-poo Festival. He has made guest appearances as conductor of the North German Radio Choir, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, the Vantaa Pops Orches-tra and the Tapiola Sinfonietta. Seppo Murto has been Music Director of Helsinki Cathedral Parish since 1985 and teaches at the Sibelius Academy.

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The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO), the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Com-pany (YLE), celebrated its 80th anniversary in autumn 2007. Its Chief Conductor is Sakari Oramo, who assumed the post in 2003 after nine years as its conductor.

The Radio Orchestra of ten players founded in 1927 grew to a full-size symphony orchestra in the 1960s. Its chief conductors have been Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt, Paavo Berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif Segerstam and Juk-ka-Pekka Saraste.

Contemporary music is a major item in the repertoire of the FRSO, which each year pre-mieres a number of YLE commissions. All in all the FRSO has so far premiered more than 500 works. Its programme for the 2010/11 season features six world and many Finnish premieres.

The FRSO recordings now number over 100, on the Ondine and other labels. One historic gem is the Andante festivo conducted by the composer, Jean Sibelius, at the Helsinki Con-servatory (now the Sibelius Academy) Hall. This recording is the only known document of Sibe-

lius in the role of conductor. With Sakari Oramo the FRSO has record-

ed music by Bartók, Hakola, Lindberg, Kaipai-nen, Kokkonen and others, and the debut disc of the opera Aslak Hetta by Armas Launis. Its discs have won many prestigious distinctions, such as Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine awards. Its most recent honour, a MIDEM Clas-sical Award, was for the recording of the Lind-berg and Sibelius Violin Concertos with Lisa Ba-tiashvili as the soloist in 2008. Another record-ing of Lindberg’s orchestral pieces was select-ed as the record of the year 2008 by the New York Times.

The FRSO has been on major tours all over the world and given more than 300 concerts abroad. It has visited Japan four times. During the 2010/11 season it will be visiting Edinburg, Frankfurt, Zurich and Dortmund.

All the FRSO concerts, both in Finland and abroad, can be heard on the FRSO’s home chan-nel, YLE Radio 1. They are usually broadcasted live and can also be heard worldwide via the In-ternet (yle.fi/rso).

Murtosointu

The Murtosointu chamber choir dates from January 2003 and at present consists of some 30 singers, most of whom have previously sung in Dominante, the Tapiola Chamber Choir or some other choir. Its Artistic Director is Sep-

Dominante

Dominante is a students’ mixed choir conduct-ed since 1981 by Seppo Murto. Its repertoire covers all kinds of music from the 16th cen-tury to the present day and it has performed great choral and orchestral works in partner-ship with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orches-tra, the Tapiola Sinfonietta, the Lahti Sympho-ny Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic and other orchestras. In 2003 YLE Music voted the

recording made by the Lahti Symphony Orches-tra and Dominante of Erkki Melartin’s opera Aino Record of the Year. Also in that year the choir won the first prize for mixed choirs, the audience prize and the prize for the best per-formance of Veljo Tormis’s Curse Upon Iron at the international competition in Trelew, Argentina.

po Murto and it has a varied repertoire rang-ing from Palestrina to contemporary Finnish music. Murtosointu collaborates actively with Dominante for large-scale choral & orchestral productions.