At A Glance
Lotta Wennäkoski’s Om fotspår och ljus (Of Footprints and Light) was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic as part of its Helsinki Variations program, which asks composers to write new works based on a Helsinki-related piece composed before 1945. Wennäkoski drew from an unfinished opera by Ida Moberg (1859–1947), a path-breaking Finnish composer who studied with Jean Sibelius. Among other unusual percussion sounds, clicking shoe heels represent the echo of Moberg’s footsteps in the Helsinki streets.
Bay Area composer Mason Bates also harkens back to older music in his Piano Concerto, written for Daniil Trifonov and co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. The first two movements evoke the Renaissance and Romantic eras, while the finale is thoroughly contemporary, “alight with mercurial humor and lopsided grooves.”
Antonín Dvořák’s Fifth Symphony is actually a relatively early work, composed just before the breakthrough successes of his Sixth and Seventh symphonies. He wrote it after winning an Austrian State Stipendium—intended to assist young, poor, gifted musicians—and devoting himself full time to composing. An early commentator spoke of its “rustling woods, the song of birds, the fragrance of fields, and the strong breath of nature rejoicing.”
—After notes by Benjamin Pesetsky and James M. Keller
Bay Area composer Mason Bates also harkens back to older music in his Piano Concerto, written for Daniil Trifonov and co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. The first two movements evoke the Renaissance and Romantic eras, while the finale is thoroughly contemporary, “alight with mercurial humor and lopsided grooves.”
Antonín Dvořák’s Fifth Symphony is actually a relatively early work, composed just before the breakthrough successes of his Sixth and Seventh symphonies. He wrote it after winning an Austrian State Stipendium—intended to assist young, poor, gifted musicians—and devoting himself full time to composing. An early commentator spoke of its “rustling woods, the song of birds, the fragrance of fields, and the strong breath of nature rejoicing.”
—After notes by Benjamin Pesetsky and James M. Keller
