Track Listing

1. I. Translucent, secret
2. II. On fire
3. III. Awakening
4. IV. Eclipse
5. V. Heart of Light
6. I. Memento mori
7. II. Winter Sky
8. III. Hunter
9. Mirage

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69550 in Music
• Released on: 2008-09-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Album Description
Soprano Karita Mattila and female composer Kaija Saariaho share not only popular star status in the classical musical world but also a fruitful musical collaboration and friendship. Their latest is Mirage, the setting of a tranceinduced incantation text by the Mexican healer María Sabína (1894-1985). This recording features the work's world premiere performance in Paris on March 13, 2008. The ecstatic 15-minute piece is written for the unique combination of soprano, cello and orchestra, featuring cellist Anssi Karttunen and the Orchestre de Paris under its music director Christoph Eschenbach. "Few singers other than Mattila will be able to hurl the voice into such high ecstasy, bend its tones and express the entire transformation in such racked yet exultant body language. (...) this is a small but important work in Saariaho's increasingly fruitful development."--The Times Anssi Karttunen performs also in Notes on Light, a cello concerto which Saariaho wrote for him in 2006. The CD also includes Orion, the largest orchestral work Saariaho has written to date.

Customer Reviews

Notes on Light, a superb cello concerto!
The three recent Kaija Saariaho compositions found here were recorded live in Paris in March, 2008 to open the Festival 100% Finlande. Christoph Eschenbach leads the Orchestre de Paris in fine performances of a cello concerto, an orchestral work, and a vocal work featuring soprano, cello and orchestra.

To my ear, Saariaho, who as a younger composer reflected radical influences including her teacher Gerard Grisey as well as Ligeti and even Xenakis, is moving ever more firmly toward Debussy. She has always pursued an ethereal timbre and texture, incorporating electronics from her studies at IRCAM, and her music once evoked the Northern Lights. But after living in France since the 1980s, she seems to have absorbed a more full-bodied, lusher aesthetic, appropriately conveyed by the Parisian orchestra.

"Notes on Light" (2006 -- 27'31") is outstanding. Written for and performed by Anssi Karttunen, Saariaho's favorite cellist, it moves through five movements (Translucent, secret; On fire; Awakening; Eclipse; Heart of light), and showcases the mysterious and enchanting style Saariaho has become known for. It is an altogether worthy successor to her violin concerto "Graal Theatre" and the cello concerto "Amers," both heard on the 2001 Sony disc featuring Gidon Kremer and Anssi Karttunen. This is the first recording of "Notes on Light."

I don't find "Orion" (2002 -- 21'58") nearly as satisfying. This is the second recording, following the 2005 debut by the BBC Symphony Orchestra's live recording at the Proms. It seems that Saariaho has some difficulty with large-scale structure without the solo line of a concerto to provide the forward impetus. It is certainly a colorful and dramatic work, with some of the largest and loudest passages in her writing, illustrating images of Orion the Hunter.

"Mirage" (2007 -- 13'37) is a more compelling piece which features stunning virtuosity from soprano Karita Mattila. Karttunen's cello plays a supporting role, adding the tone that Saariaho so loves (cello and flute have been her favorite instruments to write for over the years). Structure is, again, not the strong suit here, and the piece ends weakly. Saariaho's major works of recent years have been operas, and this is reflected in the strong vocal line in "Mirage."

While not marking any sharp stylistic departures, this is a fine showing for one of today's finest composers. Not perhaps essential, but highly recommended for "Notes on Light," an absolutely outstanding new cello concerto!

Two pieces which seem fairly minor, though "Mirage" never ceases to dazzle
This Ondine disc, released in late 2008, features three works by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho for performers especially dear to her. The Orchestre de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach have championed Finnish music. The cellist Anssi Kartunnen is an old school chum of Saariaho's from the Sibelius Academy and the dedicatee of all her cello works. Karita Mattila was the dedicatee of a major Saariaho work for soprano and orchestra ("Quatre instants", though more often heard in its soprano and piano arrangement).

"Notes on Light" (2007) is a concerto for cello and orchestra. I heard this work at its European premiere in Helsinki and was left very underwhelmed. While the titles of its five movements are evocative--"Translucent, secret", "Awakening", "Eclipse" and "Heart of Light"--there's no clear arc and we hear just generic Saariaho noodling. I was also appalled to hear something resembling the late work of Einojuhani Rautavaara. Hearing Rautavaara-like stylings in this composer's work is a bit like finding out that an artist you revere likes to touch little kids. "Notes on Light" is vastly inferior to Saariaho's first cello concerto "Amers" written in 1993. That was an exhilirating extravaganza for cello, chamber orchestra and electronics, where the cello was outfitted with a special microphone that could capture each string separately. With a piece like "Notes on Light", Saariaho might succeed in at least not offending conservative audiences, but the more Finnish composers limit their range like this, the less chance they have of writing something original and memorable, and something that compares well to the fiery music of their youth. Indeed, the reception of the concerto at its European premiere in Helsinki seemed quite meh.

"Orion" for orchestra (2002) is the first work Saariaho wrote for the sole forces of large orchestra since her diptych of the early 1990s. It is in three movements, titled "Winter Sky", "Memento Mori" and "The Hunter". More or less fast-slow-fast, the outer movements are chaotic, untamed while the middle is mysterious. While not one of Saariaho's most important works, this is nonetheless an entertaining piece and one where her recent interest in melody (and occasional rhythmic zest) is supported by a spectral harmonic basis just as strong as in her early output. This is the second recording of the piece, following a performance by the BBC SO conducted by Jukka Pekka-Saraste. While both are live recordings, this new Ondine recording has superior sound quality.

The most appealing piece on the disc is "Mirage" for soprano, cello and orchestra (2007). Not just a setting of Mexican folk healer Maria Sabina's poem about mushroom hallucinations (who expected Saariaho to write psychadelia?), the piece is intended as a special kind of double concerto. The writing for all elements, cello, voice and orchestra alike, is among the strongest of Saariaho's entire career. The soprano is dramatic, with loud outbursts, while the cello line is subtle, silky and mysterious. The orchestra, meanwhile, varies between supporting one line and the other. Cool stuff.

If you have not yet encountered the music of Kaija Saariaho, a certain Ondine disc with her orchestral diptych, her first string quartets, and a heartbreakingly beautiful suite for cello solo has always been very special to me. Fans of Saariaho will want to check out this disc, though I don't feel it overall represents her best work.

Cosmic music for psychonauts
In the wonderful, creative musical melting pot in the late 60s, contemporary classical music was a rather overlooked but important factor. Bands like Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Moody Blues drawing on inspirations from the experiments of Stockhausen, John Cage and Messiaen.

This gorgous concert, recorded live in march '08 in Paris, with the orchestre de Paris is comprised of three indepedent pieces - the two of them world premieres - but actually sounding like one coherent musical statement. The music is full of beauty and her "Notes Of Light" seems really able to convey an inner feeling of the eternal light in the listener. And cellist Anssi Karttunen displayIn the wonderful, creative musical melting pot in the late 60s, contemporary classical music was a rather overlooked but important factor. Bands like Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Moody Blues drawing on inspirations from the experiments of Stockhausen, John Cage and Messiaen.

This gorgous concert, recorded live in march '08 in Paris, with the orchestre de Paris is comprised of three indepedent pieces - the two of them world premieres - but actually sounding like one coherent musical statement. The music is full of beauty and her "Notes Of Light" seems really able to convey an inner feeling of the eternal light in the listener. And cellist Anssi Karttunen displays a sublime mastery of his instrument, making the complex, written music sound easy and spontaneous/improvised.

The concert "Orion" is just as cosmic as the title implies. And the mixture of the sombre, the avantgarde and the spiritual reminding of other contemporary Scandinavian composers like Per Nørgård and Leif Segerstam. The aetheric effects very reminiscent of Terje Rypdal's classical works and seemingly coming from the same deep and profound inner space.

"Mirage" is based on a poem by the shaman Maria Sabina, the woman who in 1955 introduced R. Gordon Wasson (and thereby the West at large) to the sacred mushrooms (psilocybin). And Saariaho certainly sounds - and looks - like a 'wise woman' herself. Putting a completely different kind of music to Sabina's lyrics, making for a highly interesting cross-cultural meeting.

The inspired and spiritual music of Saariaho could certainly deserve a wider audience as her music should and could appeal to fans of psychedelic/progressive rock and for lovers of the more adventurous forms of electronica and new age. As well as everyone into artists like John McLaughlin, Jack Bruce, Joe Zawinul, all three of course well versed in the classical/avantgardish tradition.

Powerful, visionary stuff.