45th International Viola Congress 2018

Esa-Pekka Salonen - Pentatonic Étude (2008/2014)
Zad Moultaka - Artificiale 1 for viola and tape
Lilli Maijala  viola

Georges Enescu - Impressions d'enfance, op. 28: i. Ménétrie
Scott Godin - Two Wolfli Sketches
Michael Finnissy - Obrecht Motetten III
Gustav Mahler - Adagietto from Symphony no. 5, arr. Ljova 2011
Pemi Paull viola


Programme Notes:

Lilli Maijala:
The idea is to present three faces of a contemporary violist - or human being. We establish the present on the past, constantly quoting things from different cultures and people, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. The role of a viola player is the same, we often rather pass, balance the messages between co-musicians than are in the spotlights. Basically we create dialogues and bridges between cultures.

The most exotic spice in the programme is Artificiale 1 by the French-Libanese composer Zad Moultaka. Composed in 2012 for viola and tape, the piece is an utmost intriguing mix of oriental market ingredients with its odours and sounds including snake charming, humming and foot tapping. It is a very intense trip to a compeletely different culture.

For me personally it feels important to present something from my own country. The Pentatonic Étude (2008, rev. 2014) by the composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is an excellent addition to our standard repertoire, especially since it is composed around a pentatonic passage from the beloved Bartók viola concerto. Salonen is indeed using the whole capacity and expressive scale of viola but mostly with traditional viola techniques. He manages to sound both himself and like Bartók in the same time.

Pemi Paull:
Music of Shadows is a programme for solo viola, now an album, that I have begun
performing in North America in anticipation of it’s album launch in the Spring of 2018.
The overarching theme of the music on this album is of looking back with a bittersweet
nostalgia. Enescu's memories of the country fiddlers of his childhood. Ligeti leaving avant
garde behind and writing music that harkens back to a more folkloric and traditional
Hungary of the past (before the Nazis and Soviets), Scott Godin evoking the creative output
of a Swiss psychopath/schizophrenic who lived between the wars, his pathology perhaps a
sign of the times anticipating the psychosis to come in Europe, Finnissy writing new
complexity language that was invented after the destruction of Europe but still recalling the
polyphony of the great Low Countries renaissance master Jacob Obrecht; a lonely viola
plucking away, trying to evoke the power of Mahler's great outpouring of love to Alma,
leaving the imagination of the listener, and memories of past performances to fill in the rest.
The album is about nostalgia and wistfulness for a simpler time when we were more
connected to the culture of our ancestors, it's songs and dances and prayers.