On February 3 at 12 pm EST / 7 pm EET, Susanna Mälkki will return to conduct the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert featuring works by Sibelius, Bartók and Tchaikovsky which will be streamed through the orchestra’s website. Mälkki is currently the Chief Conductor of the HPO, a role she has held since 2016.
The program will begin with Jean Sibelius’ mysterious tone poem Tapiola, a work written by the Finnish composer in 1926 which depicts the spirit god of the forest based on Finnish mythology. Joined by the great German violinist Tabea Zimmerman, the orchestra will then perform Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto op. Posthumous which was written in 1907 but left in a drawer for 50 years and only published in 1958 several years after the composer’s death. The program will conclude with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 4, known to some as ‘Fate’, which was initially met with criticism when first performed due to the compositional structure but has transformed into a repertoire staple for leading orchestras around the world.
Photo: Simon Fowler