Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)
Reconnaissance
Nuits, adieux (1991)
Horloge, tais-toi ! (2005)
Écho ! (2007)
Tag des Jahrs (2001)
Überzeugung (2001)
Reconnaissance (2020)
Nuits, adieux (a cappella version, 1996)
Helsinki Chamber Choir/Nils Schweckendiek
rec. 2022, Vihti Church, Finland
Sung texts with English translations enclosed
Reviewed as download from press preview
BIS BIS-2662 SACD [82]
Only weeks ago came the sad news that Kaija Saariaho had died from a brain tumour. She had worked to the very last on her trumpet concerto, scheduled to be premiered at the Helsinki Festival at the end of August. I had already booked tickets for the concert, and I dearly hope that she had time to finish the work. I fell under the spell of Saariaho’s magic last October when I saw the Scandinavian premiere of her last opera, Innocence, in Helsinki – the strongest operatic experience of the new millennium – and I naturally hoped for more of that kind. Alas, her departure has denied us that possibility, but this disc, with several world premiere recordings, comes as a consolation. It was recorded last Autumn, the last session the same week as Innocence opened at the National Opera.
Kaija Saariaho writes in the booklet notes: “I have had an inclination to write for choir, and indeed for the human voice in general, from the very beginning. Unlike solo vocal music, a choral work permits manifold uses of text and, as one can see from this collection, I have been inspired by a broad variety of texts to come up with diverse musical solutions. Within a choir there can be dialogue or fragmentation, voices can appear individually or coalesce into a mass, the material can be poetic, dramatic or narrational: the entire range of verbal expression is available to be woven into a multi-layered and heterogeneous whole – something that is possible only by embracing and expanding the tradition of choral polyphony.”
The opening work, Nuits, adieux, is as good an illustration as any of the manifoldness of Saariaho’s sound-world. It exists in two versions: the original (with electronics) from 1991, and the a cappella version from 1996. Together, they bookend this delectable programme. In Saariaho’s own words, it is “a work about singing, breathing, whispering, nighttime, farewells.” The original version is scored for four solo voices and electronics. The music is amplified, each of the soloists, members of the choir, has two microphones, and the signals are fed into programmes where they are processed in various ways, described in the liner notes. It is worth noting that Timo Kurkikangas, who operates the electronics, was also responsible for the sound design in Innocence. The outcome of this processing is an estranged sound-world that gives an impression of otherworldliness. Still, it is a product of four human voices only. The sounds are everchanging and both provocative and soothing. The work contains ten building-blocks, five titled Nuit and five Adieu with different characteristics. The Adieu moments are slow and soft and the whole composition can be seen as a lullaby, not for a child, rather for the end of life. It is a fascinating composition that may take some time to digest, but once one has come to terms with the sounds one is caught. A particular attraction is the recurring solos by the marvellously beautiful soprano voice of Linnéa Sundfær Casserly. In the a cappella version, the electronics are replaced by eight-part chorus, while the solo parts are practically identical with the original. It is a special treat to return to the work in that modified version at the end of the programme.
Horloge, tais-toi! Is a short piece for female choir and piano has close connections with Kaija Saariaho’s own family. She wrote it in 2005 for Didier Seutin’s Polyphonic Choir at the Conservatoire du Centre in Paris, a children’s choir where Saariaho’s daughter sang as a child. She asked her son Aleksi, who was 15 at the time, to write a suitable text, and the result was this little humoristic scherzo, where we hear clocks ticking. It ends, seemingly, with the piano silences the choir with six powerful full stops…… but, after a long silence the piano resumes the music. No, it was just the coda!
Écho! from 2007 for eight voices and electronics, was inspired by a double-choir motet by Claude Le Jeune (c. 1528/30–1600), which deals with the Echo myth, and it was natural to process the voices with electronic echoes. The text, specially written by Aleksi Barrière, is divided in three movements, the first two soft and calm, the third intense but restrained. It is immensely beautiful.
Both these works are premiere recordings. Tag des Jahrs (2001) was commissioned by the Tapiola Chamber Choir and the Helsinki Chamber Choir Week and recorded by the Tapiola Chamber Choir in 2003. This is Friedrich Hölderlin’s and Kaija Saariaho’s The Four Seasons. Surprisingly Der Frühling, which we usually regard as the most bustling of seasons, is slow, calm and beautiful, while Der Sommer, is still slow but rather busy, and the short Der Herbst bubbles with energy. Der Winter is more expectedly recessed and chilly. The electronic part also contains nature sounds: bird song, wind etc – discreetly but full of atmosphere.
The little Überzeugung (2001), a commission from the Salzburg Festival, is scored for three female voices, crotales, violin and cello. The text is also here by Hölderin. Crotales are percussion instruments consisting of small circular metal discs, like small cymbals. They produce etherical sounds that blend beguilingly with the string instruments and the three high voices – very beautiful. This is also a world premiere – as is Reconnaissance, the work that lends its title to the whole programme.
“The word ‘reconnaissance’ contains two contradictory ideas: the English meaning of heroic military exploration of the unknown, immediately refuted by the French meaning, which is the rediscovery of what we already knew, perhaps our own eerie mirror image.” writes Aleksi Barrière in the liner notes. It is the most recent work in this collection, composed in 2020 and described by Aleksi Barrière, who also wrote the text, as a “science-fiction madrigal”. From the knowledge we have today of our twin planet Mars, we can deduce that life may once have existed there and the composition becomes a contemplation on possible parallels between Earth and Mars. To put it bluntly: Is Earth going the same way as the Martians once did: to total extinction? The uncompromising brutality of the kaleidoscopic music here, certainly points in the same direction. Frightening, bewildering, indescribable. It grabs you by the throat. One would expect that Kaija Saariaho should involve electronics in such a work, but it is in fact written for SATB chorus, percussion and double bass. To me, this is the most important choral work composed on this side of the turn of the millennium, and in harness with the rest of the programme, which is just as valuable, this is an indispensable disc for all lovers of choral music. The performances are tremendous. It is also a worthy memorial to Kaija Saariaho.
Göran Forsling
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