Pēteris Vasks: Distant Light, Piano Quartet & Summer Dances The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Hannu Lintu

• Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946): Violin Concerto "Distant Light":
• 1 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Andante I 06:45
• 2 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cadenza I 01:49
• 3 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cantabile I 03:57
• 4 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Mosso 01:42
• 5 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cadenza II 02:24
• 6 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cantabile II 04:26
• 7 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cadenza III 04:01
• 8 Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Andante II 08:04
• Summer Dances:
• 9 Summer Dances: I. Broadly, Sonorously 01:38
• 10 Summer Dances: II. Underscoring the Character 01:21
• 11 Summer Dances: III. Unhurriedly 01:29
• 12 Summer Dances: IV. Energetically 01:08
• 13 Summer Dances: V. Sadly 02:12
• 14 Summer Dances: VI. Joyfully 02:07
• 15 Summer Dances: VII. Broadly, Sonorously 01:52
• Quartet for Strings & Piano:
• 16 Quartet for Strings & Piano: I. Preludio 03:19
• 17 Quartet for Strings & Piano: II. Danze 05:41
• 18 Quartet for Strings & Piano: III. Canti drammatici 07:27
• 19 Quartet for Strings & Piano: IV. Quasi una passacaglia 07:39
• 20 Quartet for Strings & Piano: V. Canto principale 10:32
• 21 Quartet for Strings & Piano: VI. Postludio 03:35
• Total Runtime 01:23:08

Info for Pēteris Vasks: Distant Light, Piano Quartet & Summer Dances

Having spent much of his childhood in Latvia, where he also began his violin studies, Vadim Gluzman makes a return to his roots with this disc of music by Peteris Vasks. The ample programme (+ 84 minutes!) opens with the violin concerto ‘Distant Light’, which in the two decades since it was composed has become a modern classic. The composer has described it as ‘a song, coming from silence and floating away into silence, full of idealism and love, at times melancholy, at times dramatic.’ For the concerto, Gluzman found support from the strings of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, just across the Baltic See from Latvia. For the other works on the disc he is however joined by Latvian colleagues and friends. These include the violinist Sandis Šteinbergs who appears in the duo Summer Dances, one of Vasks’ more carefree and buoyant pieces. This recent work in seven brief movements is, in the composer’s own words, the musical equivalent of a naïvist painting. In comparison, the Piano Quartet from 2001 is one of his longest and most imposing chamber works. Beginning with a perfect fifth in the piano, it takes the listener on an emotional roller-coaster, through hectic dances and dramatic songs to a typical ‘Vasks ending’ with a distant light offering a tempered hope. In the quartet, Vadim Gluzman leads an ensemble consisting of Ilze Klava, Reinis Birznieks, and Angela Yoffe.

Vadim Gluzman, violin
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Hannu Lintu, conductor

Hannu Lintu
With a “scrupulous ear for instrumental color and blend” (Washington Post) and bringing “a distinctive dynamism to the podium” (Baltimore Sun), the 2018/19 season marks Hannu Lintu’s sixth year as Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Highlights include all ten Mahler symphonies – Lintu opens the cycle at the Helsinki Festival in August 2018 with No.8 “Symphony of a Thousand” – Finnish premieres such as the vocal symphony version of Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten and Thomas Larcher’s Symphony No.2, and concerto performances by acclaimed soloists including Yuja Wang, Evgeny Kissin and Stephen Hough. In March 2018 the Orchestra toured Spain and Germany with cellist Sol Gabetta to great acclaim – venues included Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Música, the Berlin Philharmonie and Kölner Philharmonie – and on Independence Day (6 December 2017) a special concert featuring world premieres by esteemed national composers Magnus Lindberg and Lotta Wennäkoski was held to celebrate 100 years of Finnish autonomy as well as the Orchestra’s 90th anniversary.

Guest highlights of the 2018/19 season include returns to the Baltimore, St Louis and Cincinnati symphony orchestras, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and NDR Elbphilharmonie (following highly successful debuts in 2017); Lintu also makes his debut with the Boston Symphony and Hungarian National Philharmonic orchestras. Other recent engagements include the Tokyo Metropolitan, Washington’s National, Dallas and Detroit symphony orchestras, NAC Orchestra, Ottawa, and his debut with the Orchestre de Paris.

A regular in the pit, Lintu works frequently with the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, returning in March 2019 to conduct Berg’s Wozzeck. In 2017 he received rave reviews for Kullervo, a special collaborative project with director/choreographer Tero Saarinen honouring 100 years of Finnish independence and on which Opera Magazine commented: “No other conductor – including several distinguished Sibelians – I have heard in this music has been quite so willing to show what makes [Kullervo] so original”. Other previous Finnish National Opera productions include Parsifal, Carmen, Sallinen’s King Lear and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In July 2017, as part of Finland’s centenary celebrations, Lintu conducted Sallinen’s Kullervo at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, returning in 2018 for four performances of Verdi’s Otello.

Hannu Lintu has made several recordings for Ondine, BIS, Naxos, Avie and Hyperion; recent releases include Bartók’s Violin Concertos (with Christian Tetzlaff – Gramophone magazine’s “Recording of the Month” in May 2018), Fagerlund’s Stonework (with Ismo Eskelinen) and the final instalment of Prokofiev’s complete Piano Concertos (Nos.2 and 5, with Olli Mustonen), all of which feature Lintu’s principal recording partner, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Lintu has received several accolades for his recordings, including a 2018 ICMA Award for works by Sibelius featuring Anne Sofie von Otter, a 2011 Grammy nomination for Best Opera CD (Rautavaara’s Kaivos), and Gramophone Award nominations for his recordings of Enescu’s Symphony No.2 with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and the Violin Concertos of Sibelius and Thomas Adès with Augustin Hadelich and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hannu Lintu studied cello and piano at the Sibelius Academy, where he later studied conducting with Jorma Panula. He participated in masterclasses with Myung-Whun Chung at the L'Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and took first prize at the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994.

Highlights of the 2017/18 season see Lintu return to the Tokyo Metropolitan, Washington’s National, Dallas and Detroit symphony orchestras. He also makes his debut with the Naples Philharmonic, Singapore and Hiroshima symphony orchestras. Recent engagements include the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the St Louis, Baltimore and Toronto symphony orchestras, as well as three acclaimed European debuts: Staatsorchester Stuttgart Opera, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester.

A regular in the pit, Lintu returns to the Savonlinna Opera Festival in July 2018 to conduct Verdi’s Otello – in 2017 he conducted Aulis Sallinen’s Kullervo at Savonlinna as well as Sibelius’s Kullervo for the Finnish National Opera and Ballet as part of their special collaborative project with director/ choreographer Tero Saarinen. Previous productions with Finnish National Opera include Parsifal, Carmen, Sallinen’s King Lear, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in spring 2016. Lintu has also worked with Tampere Opera and Estonian National Opera.

The 2017/18 season marks Hannu Lintu’s fifth year as Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. A concert tour to Russia and a performance of Väinö Raitio’s Princess Cecilia at the Helsinki Festival – part of celebrations marking 100 years of Finnish independence – were among last season’s highlights, and on 6 December 2017 the Orchestra honours both its 90th anniversary and 100-year-old Finland with premieres of newly commissioned works by longtime FRSO collaborator Magnus Lindberg and Lotta Wennäkoski. Other forthcoming engagements include performances of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Beethoven’s Fidelio, and a concert tour to Spain and Germany with cellist Sol Gabetta.

Booklet for Pēteris Vasks: Distant Light, Piano Quartet & Summer Dances