Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra and Mariinsky Orchestra Brass Quintet

Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) was and remains to this day Norway’s greatest composer, and the piano concerto he composed at the age of twenty-five is one of the most frequently performed works in the international repertoire. The concerto received the blessing of Franz Liszt, who (as he loved to do) played a work completely and utterly unknown to him directly from the score, approved the music and gave his support to the young composer. Himself a recital pianist (his recordings remain, made in the very first years of the 20^th century), Grieg was subsequently to perform the concerto several times. Unfortunately, this work remained the only experiment of its kind: the Second Piano Concerto, commissioned by Peters publishing, was never completed by the composer.
In common with the Romantics, the concerto begins with the soloist – a lyrical hero. Grieg, who had just turned to national romanticism, imbued this first solo with a vivid national flavour, writing it in the harmony widespread exclusively in early 17^th century Scandinavian folklore (in minor key, omitting the fifth degree). In turn, the main theme of the finale is halling Norwegian dance. In the combination of lyricism and northern colour, we have the secret of the concerto’s unfading allure. And also in the abundance of musical themes, in as much as the young composer did not consider the use of “wise economy”.
Anna Bulycheva

Ole Olsen (1850–1927) is Norway’s long forgotten Arctic composer. Olsen was born in Hammerfest, in the very north of Norway, where he started his musical career as a little boy. He was a drummer – escorting police officers who had announcements to make. When people heard Ole’s drum, they knew that something important would be announced. Olsen left the High North as a young man, first for Trondheim, later for Leipzig, Germany, where he studied music from 1870 until 1874. Here he developed an interest for opera, and started the work on his best known opera, Stig Hvide. He returned to Norway, first to Tromsø, then to the capital Christiania (Oslo), where he worked as teacher, composer and conductor. In 1884 he became the conductor for The Staff Band of the Norwegian Armed Forces (Forsvarets Stabsmusikkorps). In 1886 extracts from Stig Hvide, and his most well know composition Asgaardsreien – a symphonic poem, were performed in Copenhagen – and well received. The symphony had been premiered in Leipzig in 1879. In 1891 Olsen’s music was featured in a full concert in Berlin, by Berliner Philharmoniker. Olsen was the rest of his life a celebrity in Oslo, a friend of Edvard Grieg and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnsson. He was seen as an ambassador for military music. Olsen did not write many compositions for wind-soloists and orchestra, and his concertino for trombone, to be performed at Mariinsky Hall, has been forgotten since he wrote it in 1886. It will have its world premiere in St Petersburg. This concert, with international trombone star Christian Lindberg performing, will work as the reintroduction of Ole Olsen on the international music scene.

Christian Lindberg began to compose at the age of six, while at the age of sixteen he started studying harmony, counterpoint and composition professionally and, two years later, he wrote his first work for brass quintet which was such a disappointment to him that resolved never to compose music again. At the same time he was studying the trombone, which brought him international acclaim. At the age of thirty-nine, Lindberg, persuaded by his friend Jan Sandström, broke his vow never to compose. To the composer’s surprise his first piece, Arabenne, was a great success.
Condor Canyon is dedicated to Lindberg’s friend Lennart Stevensson. According to the composer, “at one time the piece had the working title Friends of the Cloud, inspired by a poem by Baudelaire. The six brass instruments are like large birds that have problems taking flight. But once they are up in the air these birds fly higher than all the others. There are six motifs altogether, one for each instrument. At the start of the work these themes are energetic and tense, while towards the end nothing hinders their development, just as nothing can hinder a bird flying high in the sky in full freedom.”
Iosif Raiskin

“Total submission before fate, or, what is the same thing, the inscrutable designs of Providence...” This note from sketches for Tchaikovsky’s own programme for the first movement of the composer’s Fifth Symphony could, in essence, be used to refer to the entire symphony. What a contrast with Beethoven’s inflexible resistance to fate! “I will seize fate by the throat. It will not wholly conquer me!” (from a letter written by Beethoven dated 16 November 1801). In both Beethoven and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphonies the two composers’ different views of the world are expressed in utterly certain terms. It was not by chance that Tchaikovsky wrote of his preceding Fourth Symphony to Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev that “In essence my symphony imitates Beethoven’s Fifth … and if you haven’t understood me, it follows only that I am not Beethoven, a fact which I have never doubted.” Beethoven defeats fate in his titanic struggle against it. Tchaikovsky alone, with his troubled and permanently reflective soul, did not have the energy to resist his cruel fate; in the finale Tchaikovsky offers another “recipe”: “Join society… Enjoy other people’s happiness.” The ten years that separate the Fifth Symphony from the Fourth were filled with bitter and at times extremely bleak anguish in Tchaikovsky’s life – both deeply personal and caused by political turmoil in the 1880s.
The first performance of the Fifth Symphony took place in St Petersburg on 5 November 1888 under the baton of the composer.
Iosif Raiskin