Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto BBC Proms

Slavs, Scandinavians and Scots are in this Prom's

Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony

Orchestra tonight in a programme that has Tchaikovsky's full-blooded

and quintessentially Russian Violin Concerto at its heart.

It's played by Pekka Kuusisto, great excitement as the charismatic

Finnish musician prepares to make his Proms debut.

Another Russian master in the second half - Petrushka is the first

of a trio of Stravinsky ballets to be performed at the Proms this

weekend with a radical soundscape inspired

by old St Petersburg and the city's traditional folk music.

There is actually a folk thread running through

We start with a world premiere by Scottish composer Helen Grime -

Subtly incorporating a traditional farmworkers' song,

it is the first of two orchestral pieces inspired by the landscape

Eardley was just 42 when she died of cancer in 1963.

Though from Glasgow, she spent her latter years

in a house perched on a cliff near the small fishing village

of Catterline in the North-East of Scotland, painting the sea

Grime, who herself grew up not far away, became fascinated by Eardley's

approach of painting the same scenes over and over in different lights,

In her new work Grime applies this to musical composition.

Catterline in Winter evolves by exploring the same

material in multiple ways, gradually shifting through different

harmonic registers, rhythms and orchestrations.

Although it's far from a straightforward depiction

of the painting in sound, listen out for the exuberant motifs

bursting through later in Grime's short piece,

akin to the sun breaking through the leaden sky

Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

The world premiere of Catterline in Winter, part one from Two Eardley

MUSIC: Catterline in Winter by Helen Grime.

Thomas Dausgaard conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

in the world premiere of Catterline in Winter - the first of

presented in Joan Eardley's picture. -- magically.

The Scottish folk song referenced in the piece is called

"The Scranky Black Farmer" - scranky being a rather wonderful sounding

It is what's known as a bothy ballad sung by farm labourers

specifically in the north-east of Scotland.

A bothy is the building where they would sleep and entertain

themselves with songs, often about the harshness

You can hear the second part of her Two Eardley Pictures,

entitled Snow, on BBC Radio 3 this Sunday afternoon.

I couldn't stand all that fiddling with reeds, it brings on neurosis.

BBC Four at the Proms this Friday night. Great to have you with us.

I'm thrilled to introduce Pekka Kuusisto a soloist in Tchaikovsky's

Violin Concerto. It's a piece that brilliantly shows

off just what fertile ground Tchaikovsky's mind was when it came

to melodic inspiration - a deep well that kept

on providing exciting new ideas. The work is highly virtuosic,

a real challenge to play, but it's also full of lyrical

writing and unforgettable melodies. It was written in 1878

in Clarens in Switzerland, where Tchaikovsky was recuperating

after a disastrous and brief Though we now think of the concerto

as a masterpiece, it divided It was even declared

unplayable and was refused Tchaikovsky had to wait three

years for his premiere. His work was determinedly,

defiantly and luxuriantly Russian, attracting cheers from his fellow

countrymen but sneers from some "The violin is no longer played,

it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue," wrote

the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick. "In the finale we see a host

of savage, vulgar faces. We hear crude curses,

and smell the booze," he concluded. Whilst he was not as nationalist

as some of his colleagues, it's true that Tchaikovsky

was at the forefront of a specifically Russian

brand of romanticism. He proudly drew clear inspiration

from the popular music, dance His concerto is shot

through with driving folk rhythms, from the vigorous country dance

of the first movement, to the exhilarating intensity

of the festival celebrations Our soloist tonight really

is a thrilling player. I have been lucky enough to hear him

play chamber music and concertos He is charismatic, challenges

the musical status quo and yet always gives complete respect

to the composer whose music he is playing -

Pekka Kuusisto's Proms debut an exciting and eagerly

awaited occasion. Pekka Kuusisto is a great character,

as we will see. Pekka Kuusisto takes

to the stage to perform Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto

in D Major, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,

conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. MUSIC: Vionlin Concerto

in D Major by Tchaikovsky. The rollicking Finale

to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, played by the BBC Scottish Symphony

Orchestra, under the direction of their new chief conductor

in waiting, Thomas Dausgaard. I don't think I remember a soloist

making the audience laugh as he did in the first movement. He seemed to

have them in the palm of his hand. Tchaikovsky's nemesis Hanslick

denounced it all as irredeemably Well, if that's the case,

soloist Pekka Kuusisto clearly relishes filling his nostrils

with such earthiness and passion. Erica Jeal, writing about Kuusisto

in the Guardian nearly ten years ago: "he seems to take every piece

he performs, however familiar, back to first principles,

stripping any vestige of interpretative tradition

and playing it as though he were hearing it

for the first time. It's as if nobody has ever told him

how the violin is You got a real sense of that in the

Tchaikovsky, determined to give the impression that he was almost

improvising, as if he was a folk musician standing up and making up

the work as he went along. A great dynamic between him and Thomas

Dausgaard. They have worked together much in northern Europe. Thomas

Dausgaard was delighted, he was telling me earlier, to be with him

as he makes his Proms debut this evening.

I hope you can hear that stamping as Pekka Kuusisto looks like he might

be about to give us an encore. Thank you. Let's get to work. I think I

have about four and half minutes. I am going to play a traditional folk

song from a region between Finland and Russia. Yes! The first version

of this song is from about 1850 in a collection of folk songs from that

region. This is the time when Russia used to be a part of fenland! --

Finland. Depending on your point of view, of course. I was going to make

a Brexit Job! So, it is four versus. It is the man singing about his

beloved girl. It was in the time when it was considered not beautiful

to be thin. The first verse is about how sweet and beautiful she is, but

she has got narrow bones. The second verse is, she has got blue eyes but

they go in different directions. In the third verse she has a very

beautiful and sweet mouth, and fortunately it is massive. And in

the fourth verse he says when I take her to the marketplace even the

horses laugh at her. Thank you so much for being here. I heard all

sorts rumours about you, but this is great.

Ladies and gentlemen, Laura Samuel. Sell you noticed this part keeps

repeating. You need to think it now. We have a new mixed choir of Royal

Albert Hall. Let's do it slowly once. Louder. And then in the real

tempo. One more time. Very clear articulate, please. Right, this is

the last verse. My goodness, what quick learners the

Proms audiences are. An improvised choir joining Pekka Kuusisto in an

improvised folk song, Munun Kultani Kaunis, its chance late as my

darling is beautiful. -- translates. What a fantastic entertainer Pekka

Kuusisto is. The violinist uses the term

"multimusical" to explain his When he's not performing classical

concerts, directing orchestras around Europe,

running his own festival in Sibelius's home town,

or working with contemporary composers like Nico Muhly

and Thomas Ades, he is joining forces with the Finnish National

Theatre, or enthusiastically jamming, collaborating and touring

with a jazz electronica band, a Norwegian noise duo

or a folk outfit. It is clear his one passion in life

is making music, it does not matter what it is. It is his Proms debut

this evening. It's a piece with a somewhat

left field connection for tonight's conductor,

Thomas Dausgaard, who tells me his childhood cat was called,

you guessed it, Petrushka! In September Dausgaard takes over

from Donald Runnicles as chief conductor of the BBC

Scottish Symphony Orchestra. When we met backstage

after rehearsals I began by asking him how strongly

a thread of folk music runs In the very obvious way in

Tchaikovsky and in a very sophisticated way in Stravinsky. We

might take it in that it is very natural, but the way Stravinsky

handles the folk material is super inspiring. He just cut it up all the

time. Just as you think he is getting into the swing of something,

if you know the song or something, he will have cut it up and a few

buyers from there and it is all clashing in the middle. That is what

he develops further in the Rites Of Spring and it is fascinating how he

makes it happen. Folk abuse at influencing Tchaikovsky and folk

music in Helen Grimes' piece that started the programme. This is an

area of fascination for you. You have worked with Pekka Kuusisto on

programmes on how folk music influenced classical composers.

It's interesting to find out where the music possibly comes from. It

gives a clue on how to perform it. Whether it was a song, a dance, and

the words and the articulation, all of this can inform the way we

perform it. That's interesting in terms of Pekka Kuusisto's approach

in terms of the Tchaikovsky. There's a sense in the way he does it as if

he's improvising it, as if it's happening spontaneously in front of

us It should be the same in Petrushka. There's only 33 years

that separates the Violin Concerto and Petrushka. But it feels like a

century. Yes, Tchaikovsky was inspired by the classic. His great

love was Mozart. Stravinsky's great love was Tchaikovsky. With all that

great love for Tchaikovsky, he managed to blend so many different

styles. It's not just folk music, it's popular music, it is what you

would have heard in the fair, accordion playing, he's imitating

the roller coasters or the carousels and all these sounds you would find

there, he is making fun of Western European music. The melody you have

in the introduction, he is mixing so many of the styles that in the end,

you are almost confused what is a parody, when is this serious? You

wonder and you are mystified. That's a fantastic place to be, I think,

without us searching, we won't find anything. He puts us there.

There are four sections to Stravinsky's Ballet.

We start at the busy Shrovetide Fair, where the puppets -

The Moor, The Ballerina and Petrushka - come to life.

Petrushka is languishing in a prison cell in the second movement,

Stravinsky described his writing here as "exasperating the patience

of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios".

The ballerina - who Petrushka loves, makes a brief appearance.

In the third tableau she is dancing with the Moor.

Petrushka appears and there is a fight.

Back to the fairground for the final section.

At its climax, Petrushka is killed by the Moor.

Petrushka's ghost appears, and thumbs his nose

Thomas Dausgaard, about to conduct the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

in a performance of Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka.

MUSIC: Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka.

A sting in the tail at the end of Stravinsky's Petrushka.

The "hero" is slain by his love rival, but as the corpse

is displayed, his ghost appears and thumbs his nose at the showman.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Leader is Laura Samuel.

So, a trio of Stravinsky ballets this weekend,

including on Sunday with Dausgaard conducting this

Hear that live on Radio 3. Dausgaard remains Chief Conductor

All that running and diving from the Olympics take over BBC Four for a

fortnight. After that the Proms return with a vengeance. Tomorrow

night we're live on iPlayer with Holst's Planets. Then we move to BBC

Two for the following two Saturdays. For now that's it from

the Royal Albert Hall good night