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

• Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946): Violin Concerto "Distant Light":
• 1Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Andante I06:45
• 2Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cadenza I01:49
• 3Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cantabile I03:57
• 4Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Mosso01:42
• 5Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cadenza II02:24
• 6Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cantabile II04:26
• 7Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Cadenza III04:01
• 8Violin Concerto "Distant Light": Andante II08:04
• Summer Dances:
• 9Summer Dances: I. Broadly, Sonorously01:38
• 10Summer Dances: II. Underscoring the Character01:21
• 11Summer Dances: III. Unhurriedly01:29
• 12Summer Dances: IV. Energetically01:08
• 13Summer Dances: V. Sadly02:12
• 14Summer Dances: VI. Joyfully02:07
• 15Summer Dances: VII. Broadly, Sonorously01:52
• Quartet for Strings & Piano:
• 16Quartet for Strings & Piano: I. Preludio03:19
• 17Quartet for Strings & Piano: II. Danze05:41
• 18Quartet for Strings & Piano: III. Canti drammatici07:27
• 19Quartet for Strings & Piano: IV. Quasi una passacaglia07:39
• 20Quartet for Strings & Piano: V. Canto principale10:32
• 21Quartet for Strings & Piano: VI. Postludio03:35
• Total Runtime01:23:08

Info zu 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
ist seit dem Jahr 2013 Chefdirigent des Finnischen Radio-Sinfonieorchesters. Er studierte Violoncello und Klavier an der Sibelius-Akademie in Helsinki sowie Dirigieren bei Jorma Panula. Er besuchte Meisterkurse bei Myung-Whun Chung und gewann 1994 den ersten Preis beim Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen. In dieser Spielzeit gastiert Hannu Lintu u. a. beim Deutschen Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, beim Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien sowie bei den Symphonieorchestern von Toronto, Baltimore und Detroit. Zuletzt dirigierte er u. a. The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, das Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne sowie das Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. Er tritt immer wieder auch als Operndirigent hervor, so u. a. an der Estonian National Opera, der Tampere Opera und der Finnish National Opera, wo er zuletzt Produktionen von Carmen, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal und Aulis Sallinens King Lear betreute. Seine CD-Einspielungen mit dem Finnischen Radio-Sinfonieorchester u. a. mit Werken von Gustav Mahler (Sinfonie Nr. 1), Jean Sibelius, Olivier Messiaen und Luciano Berio wurden vielfach ausgezeichnet.

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