Osmo quits Minnesota with world premiere
NewsOsmo Vänskä will end 19 years as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra next month with the world premiere of a a symphony by his friend the Finnish violinist and composer Jaakko Kuusisto, who died in February, aged 48.
There will also be a performance of Mahler’s eighth symphony.
That’s a very stylish act from Osmo.
Chapeau!
Sad story.
Here is a fragment of Kuusisto’s violin concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSeqruiQ5Tg&t=46s
It has an American flavour (Adams) mixed with oldfashioned late-romanticism, with a touch of film music.
Osmosis is the spontaneous net movement of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane in the direction that tends to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides.
Looking at the MN Orchestra website, I see Mahler 3, not 8.
Anyways, both pieces are crap.
It’s always very disconcerting when someone says something that is unkind or true.
Sally
The only crap here are your moronic comments.But what to expect from someone hiding behind the name of a provincial tenth rate east german entertainer….
Oh, how I love it when you get excited!
Music lovers are no longer what they have never been.
minnesotaorchestra.org– Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, known as the Symphony of a Thousand, is one of the most ambitious choral symphonies that exists today. Join all of us for a grand conclusion to this historic season as we wish our music director farewell.
This performance is part of the Mahler Recording Project, our ongoing initiative to record all ten Mahler symphonies with Music Director Osmo Vänskä. With a week of recording following these concerts, the Orchestra will have nearly completed the ten-part project, with a future recording date in the works for the final installment, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3.
The Mahler 8th is still listed for June. They’ll be doing the Mahler 3rd next fall under Osmo in a guest or “emeritus” capacity.
The Eighth was originally scheduled for June of 2020, but other events prevented that.
IIRC, these are the last two symphonies they need to record to complete their Mahler cycle. Unless they also go for Das Lied von der Erde.
Interesting difference in what OV would go out with as the last movement he conducts in Minnesota.
Mahler 3: What love tells me/(us)
Mahler 8: “ All things transitory
Are only symbols;
What is insufficient,
Here becomes an event;
The indescribable
Here is accomplished;
The eternal feminine
Pulls us upwards.”
The headline is a bit sensational, but one understands: clicks. “Quitting” a job usually implies some degree of precipitousness or hostility. Osmo’s departure was announced long ago, and he’s enjoying a pretty normal “final seasons” for a music director.
And as I mentioned elsewhere, he’ll be back next fall to conduct Mahler’s Third, which should (I think) complete his and the MO’s Mahler cycle….. unless they also want to do Das Lied von Der Erde and Das Klagende Lied.
Certainly hope they do Das Lied. Osmo did a chamber version (arr. Schoenberg?) in Lahti years ago that was quite good.
Indeed Schoenberg made an arrangement for ensemble:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoHvmprFIxQ
It’s a brilliant arrangement.
A great orchestra that is better than the attention it gets.
No breeding like Finnbreeding. Add banjos to taste.
And you can play the skin flute…..
Osmo has been fantastic. Hats off to him.