FULL TRUE FIRE (Kaija Saariaho) Paris 2017 Davóne Tines

• Work Title: True Fire  
• Composer: Saariaho Kaija   
• Libretto:
• Venue & Opera Company: Auditorium de la Maison de la Radio, Paris, France  
• Recorded: February 16, 2017
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Davóne Tines
• Conductor: Olari Elts  
• Orchestra: Orchestre national de France  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: radiofrance.fr  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, frsubs  
• Video Recording from: radiofrance.fr     FULL VIDEO
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

For its 27th edition, the Présences festival, focused on creation and contemporary music, places Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho at the forefront.
This concert presents two of her works.
On the one hand True Fire, a piece for baritone and orchestra premiered on May 14, 2015 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. “The music (…) emerged before I was interested in the lyrics. Which made it difficult to choose the texts ,” said the composer in April 2015.
To illustrate the six movements that constitute the work, she ultimately opted for writings by Seamus Heaney , Mahmoud Darwish , Ralph Waldo Emerson and traditional Native American texts. “It is only now, once the work is finished, that I see what connects these texts full of contrasts: our being surrounded by Nature, our perception of it and the way in which we form a part of it. this ” .

A work prior to True Fire , Orion (2003) takes up the mythological figure of the hunter Orion, known for his power and beauty. After his death, Zeus would have changed it into a constellation. Stéphane Roth points out the “fundamental contrast” inherent in the work. Sound dynamism and immobility present themselves as a metaphor for the Orion hunter, successively “active being” and “fixed constellation”.

You will also hear Polednice (2013) by Ondřej Adámek , a piece inspired by the poem by the Czech writer Karel Jaromír Erben , where reality rubs shoulders with the supernatural. Also on the program, Extinction of Things Seen by Helena Tulve , composed in 2007.

True Fire is a song cycle for solo baritone and orchestra by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, on a libretto collaged from multiple sources by dramaturg Aleksi Barrière. The work was jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France. It was first performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on May 14, 2015, by the baritone Gerald Finley and Los Angeles Philharmonic under the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The piece is dedicated to Gerald Finley.

True Fire has a duration of roughly 25 minutes and is composed in six movements:

Proposition I
River
Proposition II
Lullaby
Farewell
Proposition III
The first movement “Proposition I” is based on a text by the essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Spiritual Laws” from Essays: First Series). The second movement “River” is based on a text by the poet Seamus Heaney adapted from a poem by Marin Sorescu. “Proposition II” is also based the Emerson essay and was described by the composer as “the heart of the piece.” The fourth movement “Lullaby” is based on a traditional Tewa song. “Farewell”, taken from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, draws the piece into a darker mood, before the final movement “Proposition III” concludes the piece with a “sensation of weightless energy”.

The work’s title is taken from Emerson’s essay’s final sentence, that concludes also the work’s last movement: “We know the authentic effects of the true fire through every one of its million disguises.”

Saariaho described her intent for piece in the score program note, writing, “My preliminary idea was to explore the baritone voice in the context of various texts, finding an organic way to access the different colors of the voice through the texts.”