World Premiere of Tomi Räisänen’s Organ Concerto

Angela Metzger deserves to join the select group of organists who tour internationally as soloist with orchestra. 

A space for a concert organ was originally designed for the main concert hall in Helsinki, the Helsinki Music Centre (Musiikkitalo). However, for budgetary reasons, an organ was was not built and the hall opened in 2011 with the organ conspicuously absent. This situation changed several years ago when the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho donated 1 million Euros towards the construction of an organ; the City of Helsinki, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and the Finnish Broadcasting Company followed suit with their own contributions. The new organ's inaugural concert took place on 1 January 2024 with the great Olivier Latry at the console. Sadly, Saariaho did not live to hear the organ in its first public performance, having passed away just a few months before.

To celebrate this major project in Finnish musical and cultural life, an organ composition competition in Saariaho's name took place while the organ was constructed. The Finnish composer Tomi Räisänen, one of the prizewinners of this competition, was featured this evening in his piece Pulmo, a concerto for organ and symphony orchestra.

While Pulmo certainly had moments of brilliance and was engagingly written for the organ and orchestra combination, this was a challenging work that required concentrated listening. The opening movement conjured up images of a carnival atmosphere, but brutal and grotesque. The second movement featured lighter textures and fleeting gestures; massive, dissonant chords for organ and orchestra marked the third movement. The highly chromatic solo organ cadenza was impressive for its ability to sustain its length given the minimal material. The final movement hinted at more consonant material and ended in a glorious and satisfying flourish.

Given the rather limited repertoire for organ and full orchestra, unsurprisingly there are only a handful of organists who tour internationally as soloist with orchestra. The soloist in this evening's performance, Angela Metzger, will hopefully join this select group of organists. Metzger's commitment and formidable command of the difficult solo part were major highlights of this performance, and her almost pedal-only encore was a jaw-dropping display of technique. I certainly hope to see her perform in Helsinki again soon.

Starting off this evening's program was Schubert's Symphony No. 5. Although the late-classical sound world of Schubert was a somewhat odd pairing with Räisänen, the uncomplicated beauty of the symphony could nevertheless be enjoyed for what it is. Christian Schumann led a lilting and flowing account of this work, with economic and minimal gestures that let the music speak for itself.

Credit photo: © Raimund Löfflad