Mahler: Symphony No. 2
Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir / Hannu Lintu
Performers
- Conductor
- Soprano
- Wiebke Lehmkuhl Contralto
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Gulbenkian Choir
Coro Gulbenkian was founded in 1964 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as a full symphonic body of around 100 singers. The choir joins the Orquestra Gulbenkian and other orchestras to perform Classical, Romantic and Contemporary choral-symphonic repertoire, but can also perform a cappella. It has performed – and often premiered – many 20th century works by Portuguese and international composers.
Coro Gulbenkian has been invited to collaborate with major international orchestras, under the direction of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Colin Davis, John Nelson, Emmanuel Krivine, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frans Brüggen, Franz Welser-Möst, Gerd Albrecht, Michael Gielen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, René Jacobs and Leonard Slatkin, among others.
Besides its regular season of concerts in Lisbon and frequent national tours, Coro Gulbenkian has repeatedly toured Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macao, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Uruguay.
Coro Gulbenkian has recorded extensively for Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Cascavelle, Musifrance, as well as FNAC-Music, performing a wide range of repertoire, from Early-Renaissance polyphony to Xenakis. Several of these albums received international awards.
Michel Corboz was the Principal Conductor between 1969 and 2019. Jorge Matta and Inês Tavares Lopes are currently the Associate and Assistant conductors, respectively.
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Gulbenkian Orchestra
In 1962, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation decided to establish a permanent orchestral ensemble. Originally with only twelve musicians (strings and continuo) it was named “Orquestra de Câmara Gulbenkian”. This collective was successively enlarged and today the “Orquestra Gulbenkian” (the name it has adopted since 1971) has a permanent body of sixty instrumentalists, a number that can be expanded depending on the repertoire.
This structure allows the Gulbenkian Orchestra to interpret works from the Baroque and Classical periods, a significant part of 19th century orchestral literature and much of the music of the 20th century, including works belonging to the current repertoire of the traditional symphonic orchestras. In each season, the orchestra performs on a regular series of concerts at the Gulbenkian Grand Auditorium in Lisbon, where it has had the opportunity of working together with some of leading names of the world of music (conductors and soloists). It has also performed on numerous locations all over Portugal, in an effort to decentralize music and culture.
The orchestra has been constantly expanding its activities in the international level, performing in Europe, Asia Africa, and the Americas. In the recording field, Orquestra Gulbenkian is associated to labels as Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Teldec, Erato, Adès, Nimbus, Lyrinx, Naïve and Pentatone, among others, and this activity was recognized with several international prizes.
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Hannu Lintu
Music Director
“Dynamic and sharp on the podium” (Bachtrack) and with a “scrupulous ear for instrumental color and blend” (Washington Post), Hannu Lintu maintains his reputation as one of the world’s finest conductors. This season, Lintu takes up the baton as Music Director of Orquestra Gulbenkian whilst continuing his tenure as Chief Conductor of Finnish National Opera and Ballet, proving himself a master of both symphonic and operatic repertoire. The appointments follow a stream of successful concerts with Orquestra Gulbenkian and breathtaking productions with Finnish National Opera and Ballet including Strauss’s Salome, Puccini’s Turandot and Britten’s Billy Budd. This season will see the completion of the house’s Ring Cycle with Wagner’s Götterdämmerung as well as productions of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Highlights of the 2023/24 season include debuts with Berliner Philharmoniker, NHK Symphony Orchestra and SWR Symphonieorchester, and returns to Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and George Enescu International Festival.
Recent years have seen Lintu conduct New York Philharmonic (concluding with an immediate re-invitation from the orchestra to perform at Bravo! Vail Festival), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Radio France, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthaus Berlin, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, alongside the likes of Gil Shaham, Kirill Gerstein, Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babayan.
Lintu has made several recordings for Ondine, BIS Records, Naxos, Avie Records and Hyperion Records. His diverse discography comprises recordings of Magnus Lindberg’s orchestral works, the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with Stephen Hough, and Lutoslawski’s Symphonies Nos. 1-4, all with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. His often-gilded work boasts two International Classical Music Awards and several nominations for Gramophone and GRAMMY awards in recognition of recording projects such as Bartók’s Violin Concertos with Christian Tetzlaff, works by Sibelius featuring Anne Sofie von Otter, Rautavaara’s Kaivos, and the Violin Concertos of Sibelius and Thomas Adès with Augustin Hadelich and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lintu studied cello and piano at the Sibelius Academy, where he also later studied conducting with Jorma Panula. He participated in masterclasses with Myung-Whun Chung at L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and took first prize at the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994.
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Tuuli Takala
Soprano
Finnish soprano Tuuli Takala was born in Helsinki and studied voice, violin and music education at the Sibelius Academy in her hometown. She made her professional debut in 2013 at the Finnish National Opera as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. In 2014 she returned there as Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) as well as in 2021 as Violetta Valéry (La traviata).
Since 2015, she has been an ensemble member of the Semperoper Dresden where she has performed roles such as Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Gilda (Rigoletto), Micaëla (Carmen), Capriccio-Sängerin, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Marzelline (Fidelio), the Queen of the Night, and since the 19/20 season also as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Susanna, Waldvogel (Siegfried), Olympia (Les contes d’Hoffmann), La Contessa di Folleville (Il viaggio a Reims), Echo (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Valencienne (Die lustige Witwe).
In the 2023/24 season Tuuli Takala will make her role debut at the Semperoper as Adina (L’elisir d’amore), she can be seen again as Pamina and she will embody the role of Teresa in the new production of Hector Berlioz’ Benvenuto Cellini. She will also make her role debuts as Mimì (La bohème) at the Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole, as Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) at the Finnish National Opera and she will return to Hamburg State Opera in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor.
Guest appearances in recent seasons have taken her to the Hamburg State Opera as Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), the Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole as Violetta Valéry, Zurich Opera as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), and to the Tampere Opera as Pamina and as Amanda Rossi in the world premiere of Olli Kortekangas’ Veljeni Vartija. In 2021, she made her Bayreuth Festival debut as the Flower Girl (Parsifal) and returned to the 2022 Festival as the Shepherd (Tannhäuser). Other guest engagements to date have taken her to the Savonlinna Opera Festival as Pamina, Gilda, Marguerite (Faust) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni), as the Queen of the Night to all three Berlin opera houses, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the Volksoper Wien, the Aalto Theater Essen, Opéra de Toulon, among others.
Tuuli Takala is an award-winning artist with 1st Prizes from both the Timo Mustakallio and Kangasniemi singing competitions in Finland 2013, prizes from the 2015 Belvedere Competition in Amsterdam, and the Arnold Schönberg Center Prize from the 2013 Hilde Zadek competition in Vienna. In 2014 the Pro Musica Foundation in Finland named her Young Musician of the Year, and in 2018 the Semperoper Dresden awarded her the Curt Taucher Förderpreis.
On the concert stage, Tuuli Takala was heard in the 2022/23 season as soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen and in the world premiere of Olli Kortekangas’ new song cycle Songs of Meena with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä. She also sang in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Dalia Stasevska and also in Mahler’s 8th Symphony (Mater Gloriosa) with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under Ingo Metzmacher at the Hanover Art Festival.
Further, her concert repertoire includes Requiem, Exsultate jubilate and the Mass in C minor by Mozart, Ein deutsches Requiem by Brahms, Händel’s Messiah, Poulenc’s Gloria, Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, and J. S. Bach’s Passions, the Mass in b minor and the Christmas Oratorio. In 2017 Takala was featured as soprano soloist in the ZDF Advent Concert at Dresden’s Frauenkirche with Staatskapelle Dresden under the baton of Christian Thielemann.
She is also a passionate singer of lieder and art song and has performed in recitals and concerts across Finland and in London, Vienna and Tokyo among others.
Programme
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 2, in C minor, Resurrection
1. Allegro maestoso
2. Andante moderato
3. In ruhig fließender Bewegung (Andamento tranquilo e fluido)
4. Urlicht: Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Luz primordial: Muito solene, mas simples)
5. Im Tempo des Scherzos (No tempo de um Scherzo)