Tour: Pärt, Sibelius, Brahms

A Hungarian orchestra singing an Estonian piece, an Israeli violinist playing a Finnish concerto, and then the symphonic sounds of romantic relief to round up the experience. On the day following the grand Mahler concert, the Budapest Festival Orchestra will return to Carnegie Hall with a program that can be described as northern and conservative but by no means cold or rigid. After the 90-year-old Arvo Pärt’s a cappella credo, the only concerto by Finland's greatest composer, Jean Sibelius, will be performed with the solo part played by Maxim Vengerov. This Grammy and Gramophone Award-winning artist, considered one of the greatest violinists in the world, is a regular performer at the most prestigious concert halls. He is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, bringing music to the poorest places with his 1727 Stradivarius. The concert will be concluded by the serene symphony of Johannes Brahms, written when he had finally stepped out from Beethoven’s shadow.

“I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me.” Arvo Pärt, considered the most prominent figure in contemporary church music composition, found inspiration in Gregorian chant to create his own minimalist style, tintinnabuli, which focuses on timbre and each individual note. The Latin term means “little bells” and refers to the character of the subtle sounds. Summa, composed in 1977, originally for voices (although an instrumental version was also written later), fits into the series of slow, meditative works that follow strict rules and are constructed from a limited number of notes. The piece, characterized by circular musical motion, is based on the text of the Latin Credo, the Apostles’ Creed.

Sibelius's only concerto offers a lively variety of melodies. "I have wonderful themes for the violin concerto", the composer wrote for the piece he was creating, which he revised after its premiere in 1904. Sibelius, who had trained to be a violinist, had a thorough knowledge of the instrument and thus composed one of the most enjoyable, yet most challenging solos for the violin in the history of music literature. He combined the virtuoso traditions of the 19th century with his own symphonic style; the dark, yet clear and translucent orchestration of the Violin Concerto reminds many listeners of northern autumn and winter. The first movement, interrupted by a cadenza in the middle, is followed by a slow movement free of sentimentality and a dance finale. It is dedicated to the Hungarian child prodigy Ferenc Vecsey, who first performed the work at the age of thirteen.

It took Brahms about fifteen years to find his own symphonic voice after Beethoven’s Ninth. In contrast to that dramatic struggle and dramatic achievement, the Second Symphony flowed almost effortlessly from the composer’s hands: the score was completed during a single summer. The tranquility of the beautiful Wörthersee, where the work was composed, is echoed in the music: instead of the earlier pain and struggle, here a pastoral mood prevails. Light and darkness, lyricism and power, intimacy and openness converge in the piece, which is built from the three-note motif introduced in the bass at the opening of the first movement. The slow movement introduced by the cello brings a few clouds, but the oboe solo over a plucked accompaniment banishes them in the third movement. The finale is among Brahms's most unbridled expressions in music.