Tune in on Sunday, September 29, at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, September 30, at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 for The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert. The program features Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 alongside music by Steven Stucky and Esa-Pekka Salonen, who will conduct the performance. Principal clarinetist Ricardo Morales will be highlighted in Salonen’s composition.
The concert begins with Radiant Light, composed by the late American composer Steven Stucky, who served as composer in residence for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the time of its creation. In 2006, Esa-Pekka Salonen, then the L.A. Philharmonic’s music director, commissioned this piece to complement a Sibelius Symphony cycle. Stucky acknowledged Sibelius as a significant influence on his own musical style and welcomed the opportunity to take on the project.
As the program’s centerpiece, Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct his own work, kínēma, originally commissioned as a film score. The title translates to “scenes” or “locales.” This composition consists of five contrasting scenes for clarinet and string orchestra, each exploring distinct soundscapes. The performance features The Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal clarinet, Ricardo Morales, whom Salonen praises as “one of the great clarinetists in the world at the moment.” He adds, “His version of kínēma was very expressive, very musical, and very exciting. I was really fascinated and happy to be working with him.”
The concert concludes with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 in E-flat Major, a piece born out of the composer’s numerous challenges during its creation. At the time, Sibelius was already celebrated in Finland for bringing international recognition to the country’s struggle for independence from Russia. This symphony was commissioned by the Finnish government for its premiere on the composer’s 50th birthday, which had been declared a national holiday. Despite the pressure to create a worthy piece for such a significant occasion, Sibelius faced personal hardships, including health issues and a harrowing escape from Russian troops. Nevertheless, he completed the symphony on time, conducting its premiere in December 1915.
Shortly thereafter, he withdrew the symphony and made substantial revisions. In 1916, he led the work in its revised form but remained dissatisfied. Another major revision followed, and after conducting the third version in concert in 1919, even the self-critical Sibelius found no further changes necessary. In an insightful conversation for this broadcast with WRTI producer Alex Ariff, Salonen delves into the “cumbersome genesis” of this cherished symphony and Sibelius’s distinctive compositional process.
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