Edvard Grieg
Peer Gynt, Suite No. 2, Op. 55
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Violin Concerto No. 3 Conversations with the Unknown
Witold Lutosławski
Concerto for Orchestra
VADIM GLUZMAN violin
ERSO
conductor OLARI ELTS
Conducted by Chief Conductor Olari Elts, the opening concert of ERSO’s anniversary series features Edvard Grieg’s popular Suite No. 2 Peer Gynt, including the yearning Solveig’s Song. These very pieces accompanied the birth of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in 1926, when a trio of musicians, the predecessor of the orchestra, first performed.
One of the evening’s main attractions is Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Violin Concerto No. 3 Conversations with the Unknown. According to the composer, the title refers to “possible conversations with one’s “other self”, the inner voice or conscience, with God (in the most abstract sense), or with someone you do not know.” The world-renowned Vadim Gluzman, to whom the concerto is dedicated, will perform as the soloist. In the second half of the concert, the audience can enjoy Witold Lutosławski’s colorful Concerto for Orchestra, infused with elements of Polish folk music.
ERSO TV broadcasts are produced in cooperation with Klassikaraadio and Helipilt Grupp OÜ.
ERSO thanks Tammo Sumera, Mait Visnapuu, Priit Perend, Eva-Liisa Heinmaa.
Eduard Tubin
Suite on Estonian Dance Tunes
Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 100 Military in G major
Villem Kapp
Symphony No. 2 in C minor
TRIIN RUUBEL violin
ERSO
conductor NEEME JÄRVI
ERSO’s Honorary Artistic Director for Life, Neeme Järvi, has curated a delightful program of Estonian classics. Eduard Tubin’s Suite on Estonian Dances will showcase simple and joyful Estonian melodies, featuring Triin Ruubel as soloist. To mark the orchestra’s centennial, the humorous maestro has chosen Joseph Haydn’s spirited Symphony No. 100 Military, where festive trumpet signals and marching rhythms ring out alongside beautiful melodies and dances. The second half of the concert features Villem Kapp’s majestic Symphony No. 2, excerpts of which have also been performed at the Estonian Song Festivals. This concert also serves as the opening for the ERSO Anniversary Festival.
ERSO TV broadcasts are produced in cooperation with Klassikaraadio and Helipilt Grupp OÜ.
ERSO thanks Tammo Sumera, Mait Visnapuu, Priit Perend, Eva-Liisa Heinmaa.
Bernhard Henrik Crusell
Divertimento Op. 9
Sergei Prokofjev
Quintet G minor Op. 39
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Clarinet Quintet A major, K. 581
MAANO MÄNNI violin
ARVO LEIBUR violin
NILS RÕÕMUSSAAR oboe
TOOMAS VAVILOV clarinet
KARIN SARV viola
RAIN VILU viola
ANDREAS LEND cello
MATI LUKK double bass
Brilliant performers who have left the orchestra for pedagogical work or other ensembles will make music together with ERSO chamber musicians in the MUBA hall: violinists Arvo Leibur and Maano Männi, clarinetist Toomas Vavilov, and oboist Nils Rõõmussaar. Audience members can enjoy the elegant beauty of three chamber music works.
The Finnish-Swedish composer and clarinetist Bernhard Henrik Crusell is considered the most important Finnish composer before Sibelius, and a playful divertimento from his oeuvre will be performed. Sergei Prokofiev’s Quintet, which the composer arranged based on his Paris-years ballet Trapeze, is full of colorful characters and movements. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet is one of the composer’s most popular chamber works and offers charming moments. The quintet’s beautiful second movement, Larghetto, never fails to melt the hearts of listeners.
Giuseppe Torelli
Sonata in D major G.1
Antonín Dvořák
Piano Trio No. 4 Dumky
George Enescu
Légende for piano and trumpet
Dmitri Shostakovich
Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, op.8
LAUR KELLER trumpet
TOOMAS HENDRIK ELLERVEE violin
ANDRES ALEXANDER METSPALU cello
JAAN OTS piano
The ERSO future stars perform as part of the Lossimuusika series! This exciting chamber music program features the newest and youngest members of the 100-year-old ERSO, each having just one season of experience with the orchestra.
Julius Fučík
Concert Overture Marinella, Op. 215
Friedrich Eberle
Wagneriana, Op. 38
Julius Rietz
Concert Piece for Wind Quintet and Orchestra, Op. 41
soloists Guido Gualandi (oboe), Soo-Young Lee (clarinet), Mihkel Peäske (flute), Peeter Sarapuu (bassoon), Ye Pan (horn)
Juhan Aavik
Suite on Estonian Folk Tunes, Op. 42
Eino Tamberg
Dances with the Tuba, Op. 105
Lepo Sumera
Thunder Incantation
Arvo Pärt
Concerto piccolo über B-A-C-H
soloist Indrek Vau (trumpet)
Raimund Kull
potpourri-fantasia
ERSO
conductor OLARI ELTS
The program of this studio concert is inspired by the repertoire the orchestra performed nearly a century ago, during its very first years of activity. The audience will hear lively and spirited pieces by Julius Fučík, Juhan Aavik, and Raimund Kull, Julius Rietz’s idyllic concert piece, as well as Friedrich Eberle’s potpourri Wagneriana, which served as the opening piece for the orchestra’s inaugural performance in 1926. For the second half of the evening, Olari Elts has selected works by composers who worked as sound engineers at the radio during the second half of the 20th century – Eino Tamberg, Lepo Sumera, and Arvo Pärt. Just like a hundred years ago, the studio concert will be broadcast live to radio listeners.
The concert will take place in the legendary Studio 1 of Estonian Radio, which was the home of ERSO from the 1950s until the early 1990s. It was in this very hall that a young Neeme Järvi rehearsed with ERSO. The years of Roman Matsov and Peeter Lilje serving as chief conductors were also spent right there, in the radio house.
ERSO TV broadcasts are produced in cooperation with Klassikaraadio and Helipilt Grupp OÜ.
ERSO thanks Tammo Sumera, Mait Visnapuu, Priit Perend, Eva-Liisa Heinmaa.
JacobTV (Jacob ter Veldhuis)
The Garden of Love
Luciano Berio
Opus Number Zoo
John Eriksson
Träd
Steve Reich
Nagoya Marimbas
Steve Reich / Vambola Krigul
Vermont Counterpoint
Mason Bates
Life of Birds
Mirjam Tally
The Birds for Company
ERSO chamber ensembles
The choice of Loodusmaja Taru as the concert venue has also inspired the programme: ERSO chamber musicians take the audience on a journey into the world of nature sounds. The evening opens with The Garden of Love, an oboe piece by Dutch composer JacobTV, based on William Blake’s dreamlike poem. In Luciano Berio’s playful and witty wind quintet Opus Number Zoo, the performers not only play music but also tell stories. John Eriksson’s marimba piece Träd, for four performers, is rooted in suggestive music built on repetition. Hypnotic sound patterns are created in Steve Reich’s minimalist marimba works Nagoya Marimbas and Vermont Counterpoint. Mason Bates’s Life of Birds, for four instruments, evokes the movements and calls of birds. In Mirjam Tally’s airy work The Birds for Company, the cello conjures a fantastical soundscape of primordial and cyber birds.
ERSO TV broadcasts are produced in cooperation with Klassikaraadio and Helipilt Grupp OÜ.
ERSO thanks Tammo Sumera, Mait Visnapuu, Priit Perend, Eva-Liisa Heinmaa.
Benjamin Britten
Overture The Building of the House, Op. 79
Lepo Sumera
Symphony No. 5
Richard Strauss
Tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
ESTONIAN PHILHARMONIC CHAMBER CHOIR
ERSO
conductor OLARI ELTS
At the anniversary concert, ERSO performs outstanding symphonic works under the baton of Chief Conductor Olari Elts. „Lepo Sumera’s Fifth Symphony unfolds as constantly changing, dreamlike scenes melting irreversibly into one another, which may originate from the past, the future, or even from non-existence. A strange landscape emerges – a frozen massif containing eternal expectation, ready at any moment to shatter, melt, or crumble into dust due to its enormous internal tension…” This is how Erkki-Sven Tüür described the Sumera’s work.
Richard Strauss’s masterpiece, the philosophical symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra, was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel of the same name. Rather than retelling Nietzsche’s complex concept of human evolution, Strauss’s work conveys its spiritual atmosphere. The opening of the piece, a sunrise in the mountains seen through the eyes of an ancient prophet, has been used in numerous performances, commercials, and films. The concert opens with Benjamin Britten’s festive overture The Building of the House, performed together with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. Composed in 1967 for the opening of the Snape Maltings concert hall in Suffolk, it serves as a reminder that ERSO, now celebrating its centenary, is in need of a concert hall to call home.
ERSO TV broadcasts are produced in cooperation with Klassikaraadio and Helipilt Grupp OÜ.
ERSO thanks Tammo Sumera, Mait Visnapuu, Priit Perend, Eva-Liisa Heinmaa.
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Incantation of the Tempest
Edward Elgar
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 From the New World in E minor, Op. 95
ISTVÁN VÁRDAI cello
ERSO
conductor OLARI ELTS
Before the tour in Austria, ERSO presents its program to the home audience. The concert features two masterpieces of Romantic music: Edward Elgar’s lyrical Cello Concerto and Antonín Dvořák’s powerful Symphony New World. The evening opens with an energetic spark from Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Incantation of the Tempest, a work dedicated to Veljo Tormis. “I wanted to express and amplify the primal energy that Veljo Tormis instills in us through the rhythms and accents of the “regilaul” in his creation,” the composer noted. ERSO will be conducted by Chief Conductor Olari Elts, with the world-renowned Hungarian cellist István Várdai as the soloist for Elgar’s concerto.
Tõnis Kaumann / Indrek Koff
The Hidden Treasure
ERSO
KASPAR MÄND
The children’s concert The Hidden Treasure, with music by Tõnis Kaumann and libretto by Indrek Koff, is a story about music, musical instruments, and a hidden treasure. The main characters, Kunn and Vidiit, set out in search of a treasure that Kunn received from his grandfather. To find it, the children explore the entire concert hall. Along the way, they discover the different sections of a classical symphony orchestra, first through shapes, images, and playful associations, while music itself remains their most important guide. When they have searched every last room and are beginning to lose hope, the children suddenly realise that the treasure they have been looking for has been right before their eyes – and in their ears – all along. But what exactly is this treasure? Come to the concert and find out!
ERSO continues the concert series launched in the 2016/17 season for all children born in 2015, Estonia’s Year of Music. This forward-looking project aims to encourage parents to introduce their children to live music. Not every child born in the Year of Music needs to grow up to become a musician, but an understanding and love of music can certainly enrich their lives and help them grow into better people. Perhaps, years from now, some of the children born in the Year of Music will themselves perform with an orchestra or even become colleagues of today’s orchestral musicians.
Admission is free for children born in the Year of Music (2015).
(Please make sure to obtain or print out a free ticket for children born in 2015 from Piletikeskus. To receive a free ticket, enter the discount code “2015” and select the price category “Child born in 2015”. Children using a free ticket are kindly asked to bring a document confirming their year of birth to the concert.)
ERSO TV broadcasts are produced in cooperation with Klassikaraadio and Helipilt Grupp OÜ.
ERSO thanks Tammo Sumera, Mait Visnapuu, Priit Perend, Eva-Liisa Heinmaa.
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