Rakastava (a Finnish word meaning "lover"), is a three movement suite for string originally written in 1893 by Sibelius (1865-1957), himself a concert class violinist, as his entry for a competition in setting to music the folk poetry of a Finnish poet Elias Lönnrot in the form of a male chorus but was later abandoned. After that he added a string accompaniment to it and it became the piece we have today. According to the Programme Notes, the first movement is supposed to be to be "an intense expression of first love with moments of rapt passion and passages of sublime tenderness". The second movement is one of the most beautiful string passages ever written by the composer whilst the third depicts the sorrows of a heart-breaking farewell. I understand that this piece has previously been done by the HKPO in 1996 under Yip Wing-Sie but I never heard that. The piece was wonderfully performed with both tenderness and verve.
We next had the very leisurely and light hearted Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 in A K210 ( in Allegro aperto, Adagio and Rondeau (Tempo di Menuetto), nicknamed TheTurkish (because of the imitative bow tapping rhythm of the violin strings á la marche militaire Turque), written by Mozart (1756-1791) as the last of a series of 5 violin concertos he composed between 1773 and 1775 and set a sample for later composers like Mendelsohn, Brhams and Tchaikovsky. Playing the soloist and at the same time conducting the HKPO, he managed to give Mozart's music a bounciness which I believe Mozart would have loved. He appeared in a black shirt over which hung what appeared a loose long Indian style black soft silk shirt-like but pocketless jacket with a patterned white band at the lower hem and also upon the cuff of the sleeves which he would half roll up to elbow level during his rhythmic performance. One can see he played with obvious delight as he bobbed his casually disheveled chestnut-color hair up and down and from side to to side and tapped his left foot sometimes quite audibly in moments when he appeared lost in the music but otherwise according to the mood and rhythm of the music. A most lively Mozart! The song of his violin is both bright and mature. I checked on his background from the Programme Notes and learned why. His was playing a borrowed Giovanni Baptista Guadalgnini violin of 1752 and is said to love to jazz like improvisation and to mix genres, including film and "movement" whatever that means and has played imprivisory electronic music with Austrian multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger and the Finnish accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen and had also directed from the violin various Australian, Austrian, English, Scottish and Irish chamber orchestras. Early last year, he directed the Britten Sinfonia in a major tour of UK and Holland. I really love the final movement with it solemn marching rhythm constantly dialoguing with lone voice of the always frolicking violin solo.
After the interval, we were regaled with another Mozart piece, his Divertimento in D K136 in Allegro, Andante and Presto. According to the Programme Notes, "the scoring for four-part ensemble means they are not true symphonies. Some authorities claim them to be Mozart's first ever string quartet". Whatever the truth may be, it was indeed a most enjoyable piece of music, enthusiastically played under infectious direction of Kuuisto. Its main melody is endlessly repeated against the background of an insistently gay string rhythm. whilst its second is slightly slower and exudes his youthful graceful whilst the third gives full reign to Mozart's capacity of caprice.
We next had another Sibelius piece. It was a three-movement Suite for Violin and String Orchestra suggestively entitled Country Scenery, Evening in Spring and In the Summer. No one wanted to publish this work when it was first written 1929 and it was not re-discovered and performed by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä on 8th December, 1990! The work has a very relatively fast first movement and felt as if a young kid were hopping, swaying from side to side along a country path in a dance-like movement , alternating with its strong and light sound and lesiurely melody. It was followed by a second movement with a Finnish feel, with a soft, meandering melody as if one were rambling amidst unexpected nooks and corners along the country in a summer evening evening whilst the final movement the whilst the final movement sounded like a extremely fast fluttering of the wings of a bee hovering amidst a paradise of summer flowers.
The evening's musical feast ended with Haydn's (1732-1809) Symphony No. 88, believed to be written of 1787. In this symphony, he used his normal strategy of long silences and soft passage suddenly broken by loud and forceful sound before launching his main melody in the first movement in Adagio-Allegro and innovatively used loud trumpets and drums in the usually slow second movement, here in Largo and the third in Meunetto in Allegretto has a rustic feel to it whilst the Finale, in Allegro con spiritu, is another lively and gay movement. It marked the end of another most enjoyable month of music with the HKPO. Kuuisto rewarded the thundering applauses with a jazzy solo in which he coaxed all kinds of magical sounds from his 18th century instrument!
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