A Celebration of Speaking Music
FiBO 35 years anniversary concert
Strozzi–Vivaldi–Auvinen
Tuuli Lindeberg, soprano
Erik Bosgraaf, recorder
Finnish Baroque Orchestra
First violin: Kreeta-Maria Kentala
Second violin: Dora Asterstad
Viola: Laura Kajander
Cello: Lea Pekkala
Double bass: Petri Ainali
Harpsichord: Anna-Maaria Oramo
Organ: Annamari Pölhö
Lute: Jarmo Julkunen
Percussion: Aleksi Haapaniemi
Erik Bosgraaf, Tuuli Lindeberg, Antti Auvinen, Anthony Marini and Marianna Henriksson, programme planning
In his essay collection titled Music as Speech (1982), the legendary conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt encourages us “to gaze with fresh vision upon the great works of the past, in all of their stirring, transforming diversity” in order to “prepare us for what is yet to come”. The collection, translated into Finnish by the journalist Hannu Taanila who passed away during spring 2024, has been important for numerous Baroque musicians. In FiBO’s 35 years anniversary concert, we hear classic works by Antonio Vivaldi as well as marvel at the power of music in Barbara Strozzi’s solo cantata. The premiere by Antti Auvinen asks how a musician should use his or her voice and musical language.
The concert programme contains one of the most iconic works of the Baroque, Spring (RV 269) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). For many years, Vivaldi worked as musical director at the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls. The Pietà was the most important school for many a well known female musician, and it provided Vivaldi with an orchestra of up to 40 musicians. The brisk concerto for sopranino flute (RV 443) and the tragic sinfonia Al Santo Sepolcro (RV 169) are examples of different aspects of the composer.
As an educational institution for women, Pietà became the object of snide insinuations. The Venetian composer and singer Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) also received her fair share of the same kind of allusions. She grew up as the daughter of the librettist Giulio Strozzi, but without certainty of who her parents really were she became the victim of gossip circulated by the hypocritical aristocracy. Strozzi’s vocally ostentatious L’astratto is nuanced by a mischievous sense of humour.
Auvinen’s (b. 1974) new work for soprano, flute and Baroque orchestra takes a look at musical rhetorics. The composers takes the lives of Strozzi and Vivaldi as his subject and deals with themes such as fake news, hate speech and anonymity. The performance promises to be a stirring and entertaining experience, with the star of both early and contemporary music Tuuli Lindeberg and the virtuoso from the Netherlands Erik Bosgraaf as soloists.
Duration: 1 h 30 min (incl. intermission)
The Järvenpää concert is organized in co-operation between FiBO, Järvenpää's cultural and event services and Järvenpää parish.
There will be a concert introduction at the House of Nobility on 11 October from 6 pm to 6.30 pm.