Johann, Jukka and other master composers
A gift to the 100-year-old Finland
Telemann – Fasch – Tiensuu – Vivaldi – Veracini – J. S. Bach
Miikka Saarinen, trumpet
Hanna Haapamäki, recorder and traverso
Petra Aminoff, traverso
Christopher Palameta, oboe
Antti Tikkanen, violin and leader
Finnish Baroque Orchestra
In honour of the centenarian Finland, the Finnish Baroque Orchestra performs some splendidly festive Baroque orchestra music. The cherry on top is a new Baroque orchestra piece commissioned from Jukka Tiensuu. Tiensuu is a pioneer in newly written music for Baroque instruments in Finland, and FiBO has previously premiered his piece Mora.
In the Baroque section of the concert, we travel along the musical axis running from Leipzig to Dresden in Eastern Germany. The most well-known phase of Johann Sebastian Bach’s career as a composer is when he worked as cantor for the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. Several prominent German composers were proposed for the post: Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner and Johann Friedrich Fasch were all mentioned, but one after another they declined and finally Bach was appointed. Fasch himself, who Bach greatly appreciated, had been educated in the St. Thomas School. Telemann, too, had studied in Leipzig: he arrived as a law student but quickly changed his course for music. Before turning 25, he advanced to the top of the city’s music scene as a productive composer and he worked, for instance, as director for the city opera. Telemann also founded the music association Collegium Musicum that Bach later became the manager of. Telemann and Bach were good friends, and Telemann was the godfather of Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel.
Bach had a warm relation to the court in Dresden, which was one of the most attractive music centres in Europe, thanks to the art-loving prince-elector Augustus II the Strong. He gathered the best musicians of the time to his court, among others Francesco Maria Veracini from Florence. The musical life of the court in Dresden was admired all over Europe, and Antonio Vivaldi, for example, composed concertos tailored for the court orchestra.
The music by the above-mentioned composers represents late Baroque orchestral music in its most plentiful shape. The prelude series or orchestra series was an orchestral dance series, beginning with a majestic French-style prelude. Orchestra concertos and symphonies, on the other hand, were abstract instrumental pieces that in the mid-18th century were typically written in three parts. Compared to the solo concerto, the orchestra series and concertos allowed the musicians to frolic: the composers enjoyed alternating instrument sections, musical dialogue and various soloist compositions.
Duration: 1 h 45 min (incl. intermission)
Antti Tikkanen will lead a pre-concert discussion and interview the musicians at the House of Nobility on December 1st from 6–6.30 pm.