Septimalia

Still Friday the 16th of May. Came in the afternoon to Helsinki by train, and was lucky enough to get a ticket to the sold out concert of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Music Centre. The concert contained the premiere of Juhani Nuorvala’s orchestra piece Septimalia, which I didn’t want to miss for any price, and I was very happy I got a ticket by pure luck! It was a very exciting event, because the piece provoked very ambivalent feelings in the audience; part of the audience loved it and an other part didn’t like it at all. But as for instance Shostakovich concludes in the book “Testimony: Memories of Dmitri Shostakovich”; the best composers are the ones over which the audience and critiques are arguing if the music is complete rubbish or absolutely fantastic. And this kind of argument was more or less what was going on after the concert, is felt like being part of the book “The rest is noise”. So after the concert I of course headed to the stamping ground of musicians in Helsinki; Urkki, for discussing different peoples opinions on the piece. Because these discussions are extremely interesting and you learn a lot from them. What a night it was!