Kaija Saariaho - Total Immersion day at The Barbican/Royal Opera House, London, 7 May 2023

In memoriam: Kaija Saariaho, 14 October 1952 - 2 June 2023, RIP

 

A wonderful deep dive into the soundworlds of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which in the days since these three broadcasts has turned into a career-summing memorial.  After a lifetime investigating the confluence of spectralist music and electronics, Saariaho leaves behind a stunning catalogue of innovative music in lots of different forms.  So here's the three broadcasts of music from the Total Immersion day that took place in London last month, plus a little bonus at the end from an earlier concert in Glasgow.

In the first broadcast, Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Du Cristal, Notes On Light, Saarikoski Songs and Circle Map.  Also included here are excerpts from the day's chamber music concert, performed by students of the Guildhall School, with Changing Light, Spins And Spells and Calices zooming in on the engrossing granularity of these smaller-scale works.

Kaija Saariaho's most recent opera Innocence is a multi-lingual narrative tying together a wedding and a school shooting, and this UK premiere took place over in Covent Garden and was tied in with the Total Immersion concert broadcasts.  Lasting nearly two hours, I'm afraid this one is all in one track as I had no recording timings to refer to for even attempting to break it up into sections.  But even without being able to follow the libretto, it's a weighty, moving work that's well worth a listen.

Lastly, we return to The Barbican to hear the BBC Singers perform another UK premiere, the ecological song cycle Reconnaissance (Rusty Mirror Madrigal).  This is paired with two of Saariaho's most famous vocal works, Nuits Adieux and Tag Des Jahrs, and the broadcast is completed with more chamber music.  The bonus I've added on at the end comes from a recent concert in Glasgow that was broadcast around the same time, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Saariaho's Laterna Magica.

Enjoy these recordings of a composer who leaves behind some truly spellbinding music.

Broadcast 1 link

Broadcast 2 link

Broadcast 3 link

pw for all: sgtg

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

Vista

BBC Proms 2022: BBC Philharmonic plays Aho, Saariaho & Shostakovich (4 Aug 2022)

Another Proms highlight, this time pairing a couple of Finnish composers with Shostakovich's final symphony.  For the opening work, the BBC Philharmonic were joined on theremin by Carolina Eyck, for whom the theremin concerto Eight Seasons was originally written.  Kalevi Aho (b. 1949 in Forssa) was inspired by some of the shamanistic aspects of Sami culture, tying this in to the 'conjuring music from thin air' aspect of the theremin.  The instrument blends in beautifully with the orchestra, making full use of its dynamic and tonal range; as an 'encore' of sorts, Eyck gives the audience a demonstration of the theremin's capabilities.

Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952, Helsinki) has featured on SGTG a few times before (see below), so I always love hearing more from her.  The two-part Vista was inspired by a drive along the Californian coast, and saw Saariaho consciously varying her usual techniques with great sweeping atmospherics in the first section and driving energy in the second.  To close the programme, the orchestra give a cracking rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15, its sombre melancholy balanced by frequent flashes of wit.

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pw: sgtg

Kalevi Aho at SGTG:

Solo XV

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

Kaija Saariaho - Private Gardens (1997)

Typically ear-bending brilliance from Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, in a collection of solo works from the 1990s.  Much like her other music featured here before (links below), sound manipulation plays a central role throughout, with every piece having "...and electronics" appended to the instrument of choice.

First up is sixteen bewtiching minutes of Lonh (1996), sung by Dawn Upshaw, with her soprano voice (and some spoken fragments and whispers in there too) emmeshed in the web of electronic sound.  Both from 1992, the three-part Près is an envigorating journey for solo cello and subtler manipulation, and NoaNoa combines regular flute playing with associated sounds of rustling, breathing and voice.  To round out a highly recommended collection of journeys into sound, the percussion cycle Six Japanese Gardens (1993-95) takes its inspiration from a visit to the gardens of Kyoto, and (again using voice as well as instrument) is by turns meditative and ritualistic.  Don't miss this one - as with all of Saariaho's music that I've heard, it just sounds so damn good.

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pw: sgtg

Kaija Saariaho at SGTG:

Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa

Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen

Überzeugung, Nuits Adieux

The Norwegian Soloists' Choir / Oslo Sinfonietta - As Dreams (2016)

On the album cover above, you can just about make out the full quote from The Tempest that this choral collection takes its name from.  The introduction to the liner notes sets out how these seven pieces are meant to be linked: "they are permeated not only with their own era, but with times that we can imagine lie in front of us."  The five composers chosen are all known for their transformative, spellbinding sound, and make for a bewitching hour of choral music, sometimes accompanied, sometimes acapella.

The two works by Per Nørgård that make up a third of the runtime are my definite favourites here.  His Drømmesange (Dream Songs), with the choir accompanied by steady percussion, is an accessible start to the programme, with its gently lilting, folky melodies; Singe die Gärten, mein Herz is taken from his 3rd Symphony.  From there, there's a good mix of shimmering, atmospheric material (Alfred Janson's Nocturne; Kaija Saariaho's Überzeugung) and more avant-garde ventures into fractured phonemes (Helmut Lachenmann's Consolation II, Iannis Xenakis' Nuits and the closing Nuits, Adieux by Saariaho).  A highly recommended immersion in 20th-21st century choral music.

link

pw: sgtg

Kaija Saariaho - Graal Théâtre, Solar, Lichtbogen (2002)

Some more Kaija Saariaho, as promised when I put up the other album of her music that I have.  This 2002 release was recorded the year previous.  First up is Graal théâtre (1997), a two-part violin concerto, followed by Solar (1993), an ensemble piece with small parts for two synths, one playing quarter tone metallic bells sounds and the other fleshing out the piano and percussion. 

Lastly, the highlight of this programme for me is definitely Lichtbogen, or arc of light, inspired by seeing the Aurora Borealis in the Arctic sky.  This one dates from 1986 when Saariaho was working much more deeply with computer software manipulations of sound.  It's a stunning, 16-minute haze of shifting light and texture, especially as it goes on and the sound gets more and more eerily transformed.  Recommended, as are the other two works on the album.  Another great example of this composer's unique sonic signature.

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Kaija Saariaho - Du Cristal...À la Fumée, Nymphéa (1993)

Two sumptuous orchestral works by Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952, Helsinki) here for your delectation, from her most textural and spectral era in the late 80's.  Du Cristal and ...À la Fumée (1989-90) are regarded as sequential to each other, and usually performed together, making the full title 'From crystal... into smoke', inspired by the writings of French philosophere Henri Atlan, and a teasing description of how this brilliant diptych sounds.  Ligeti is often cited as an obvious influence, but the huge banks of subtly shifting orchestral sound and underlying percussive thunder of Du Cristal very much has Saariaho's own stamp on it, as does ...À la Fumée where flute and cello take the lead.

The supporting work on this 1993 release is Nymphéa (1987), performed by the legendary Kronos Quartet.  The scratchy, scraping aural landscape is further transformed by electronic manipulation and by the musicians whispering words from Tarkovsky's poem 'Now Summer Is Gone'.  A gorgeous, fascinating release all round, and an ideal entry-point into Saariaho's sound world at this period in her career.

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