Bo Carpelan 100: Carte blanche

Bo Carpelan 100: Carte blanche The playful philosopher -- classics from Bach to Haydn Mozart -- J.S. Bach -- Sibelius -- Haydn Antti Tikkanen, violin and leader Finnish Baroque Orchestra Irma Niskanen, programme planning The different arts are inextricably, albeit concealedly, linked channels for exploring reality.

For Bo Carpelan (1926--2011), a prominent figure in Finnish literature, music was a beloved hobby. Now, in honour of the 100th anniversary of the author's birth, FiBO and the author's descendants have planned a programme that Carpelan would have wanted to hear.

FiBO's artistic director from 2014 to 2017, violinist Antti Tikkanen, is the leader and soloist of the concert. The concert continues FiBO's period instrument performances of works by Jean Sibelius (1865--1957) with his later suite for violin and string orchestra (op. 117, 1929).

The work was written for the North American market in a Neo-classical style, detached from late Romanticism and Expressionism, but the composer eventually forbade its publication. Axel Carpelan (1858--1919) was a friend, supporter and interlocutor of Sibelius.

Bo Carpelan's bestselling novel Axel (1986) explores the inner world of Axel, the author's grandfather's brother, as well as his social isolation and his relationship to the glorified Sibelius. The pages of the book are full of music. "The more you listen to Mozart, the more you appreciate Haydn", Bo Carpelan is said to have told Claes Andersson -- a jazz musician, psychiatrist, author and politician.

FiBO performs symphonies from the year 1764 by Joseph Haydn (1732--1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756--1791). Mozart's Symphony No 1, written in London by the then eight-year-old composer, is impeccable but still childish.

In Haydn's Symphony No 22 (nicknamed The Philosopher), two English horns are used instead of oboes. At the beginning of the work, we reflect in the soundscape of English horns, French horns and muted strings as the texture inherited from the Baroque