RECONNAISSANCE (2020) - K. Saariaho / A. Barrière - cond. N. Schweckendiek

RECONNAISSANCE
(rusty mirror madrigal)

Music: Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)
Libretto: Aleksi Barrière (*1989)
Quotations from works by Andrei Tarkovsky, Ekkehart Malotki & Michael Lomatuway’ma

00:00 - 1. The First Martian In A Long Time
04:33 - 2. Count Down
07:57 - Interlude (Intercepted Radio Transmission, Solaris)
09:55 - 3. Green House
15:23 - 4. Desert People
18:47 - 5. Requiem

Composed in 2020 - Premiered in 2021
World premiere recording released by BIS Records, 2023
Score and text published by Chester Music Ltd / Wise Music
All rights belong to their respective holders

HELSINKI CHAMBER CHOIR & UUSINTA ENSEMBLE
NILS SCHWECKENDIEK, conductor
Percussion: I-Han Fu
Double bass: Eero Marttila

Soprano: Linnéa Sundfær Casserly, Viena Kangas, Heta Kokkomäki, Helge Kõrvits, Veera Kuusirati, Anna-Elina Norjanen
Alto: Keri Kallio, Eira Karlson, Sabrina Ljungberg, Jutta Seppinen, Susanna Sippola, Emma Suszko
Tenor: Martti Anttila, Niilo Erkkilä, Jukka Jokitalo, Mats Lillhannus, Aarne Mansikka, Joel Ward
Bass: Riku Laurikka, Jussi Linnanmäki, George Parris, Matti Torhamo, Antti Vahtola, Juhani Vesikkala

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"The word ‘reconnaissance’ contains two contradictory ideas: the English meaning of heroic military exploration of the unknown, immediately refuted by the French meaning which is the re-discovery of what we already knew, perhaps our own eerie mirror image. The high-definition pictures we now have of planet Mars’s arid landscapes, once covered with rivers and oceans that maybe were home to life, bring to mind the same contradictory impression, which must also have been the same kind of metaphysical contemplation the 15th century audience experienced when listening to the apocalyptic imagery of the Franco-Flemish School’s madrigals. This comparison is what triggered the idea of a ’science-fiction madrigal’, associating two genres that share a deep existential affinity. Indeed, choral music also articulates individual voices and collective fate, blurs the lines of who is saying ‘me’ and who is saying ‘we’. These categories are shattered in our age, when for the first time we are drawn to reflect, beyond our mapped identities, on what unites us as a species, possibly endowed with a shared future, or perhaps with no future at all. Through creative solutions that question musically what a chorus can be, Kaija Saariaho’s score treats humankind itself as a character, expressing itself both in unison and in fragmented voices, in opposing groups and in isolated individuals. Kaija's very own brand of futurism doesn’t resort to the expected electronics –despite them being one of her favorite instruments– but strip things down to the raw sound material of human voices and a double-bass and percussions, metal against skin. A ’starry night’ typical of her sound world, were it not lacerated by the violence that took us from the canyons to the stars. Thus crumble the dreams of grandeur by which we pompously define ourselves collectively: we the species of immigrants who think of themselves as conquerors and emperors." (Aleksi Barrière)

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"A great 21st-century choral piece." Esteban Meneses, I Care If You Listen

"Frightening, bewildering, indescribable. It grabs you by the throat. (...) To me, this is the most important choral work composed on this side of the turn of the millennium." Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

"Endlessly compelling, the score is to be counted among the composer’s finest, certainly, gazing into sounding vistas where the personal and the universal merge." Jari Juhani Kallio, Adventures in Music

"I foresee that it will likely be remembered as a defining choral masterwork of our era." John Dante Prevedini, Classical Music Daily