IDAGIO | Chausson: Poème de l'amour et de la mer - Berlioz: Les nuits d'été

Featuring

John Storgårds
Soile Isokoski
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Ernest Chausson
Hector Berlioz
Henri Duparc

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Performer Biography

Soile Isokoski, a renowned lyric soprano, has performed at major opera houses and festivals worldwide and is a respected pedagogue, serving as a visiting professor at the Sibelius Academy.

Composer Biography

Henri Duparc, to whom Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer is dedicated, destroyed some of his scores and was prevented from composing by a nervous ailment.

Compositional Technique

Berlioz, a master of instrumentation, orchestrated the piano parts of Les Nuits d'été delicately, placing the voice in a transparent setting and using a different effect for each melody.

Composition History

Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été (Summer Nights) is a collection of six pieces based on poems from Théophile Gautier's anthology La comédie de la mort (The Comedy of Death), published in 1838.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Ernest Chausson intended his Poème de l'amour et de la mer (Poem of Love and the Sea) to be a 'symphony with a principal voice,' where the orchestra often expands in long, ecstatic phrases.

Performer Biography

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra gave the first performances of many of Jean Sibelius's major works, often with the composer himself conducting.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Hector Berlioz, the first to save the French melody genre from mediocrity, orchestrated his melodies because piano accompaniment alone was insufficient for his expressive intentions.