5. Academy Concert: Tarmo Peltokoski
The programme of the fifth 2024/2025 Academy Concert combines two composers from the German-
Austrian late Romantic period, both known for their lavishly lush and at the same time contrapuntally
tight orchestral language, with two from the far north in Finland. In his second symphonic poem,
Richard Strauss expresses the life principle of a man constantly seeking new excitement, who is
driven solely by constant change, until in the end the “fuel is all gone”, and he no longer even resists
his departure. This is not the Don Juan of Mozart and Da Ponte – he is a last days figure, consumed
by weariness at the turmoil of the world, who takes refuge in the strongest of all conceivable
distractions. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's late violin concerto is a successful fusion of film music and
classical design. The composer wanted to create, “music with expression and emotion, with long
melodic themes, shaped and developed according to the principles of the classical masters”, and
music that comes “from the heart”. Daniel Lozakovich is already a star among young violinists, and
with this piece will now make his debut with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. The aspiring conductor
Tarmo Peltokoski, still in his mid-twenties, will also be a guest performer with the Academy Concerts
for the first time. With him, he brings music by his fellow Finns, which already radiated across Europe
and the world during his lifetime. Kaija Saaraiho’s Ciel d’hiver (Winter Sky), a new version of the
second movement from her earlier piece, Orion, opens ours ears and our view of nature and the
cosmos. Jean Sibelius conducted the world premiere of his last symphony himself as a “symphonic
fantasia”, with themes that seem to float, emerge, return and dissolve. Referring to these organically
intertwining parts, the conductor Sergei Koussevitsky also described the composition as a “Finnish
Parsifal”.
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