January 2015 - Page 2 of 2

Press quotes featured

BERLIN PHILHARMONIC – OCTOBER 2019
SIBELIIUS “TAPIOLA”
TCHAIKOVSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO with JANINE JANSEN
SCHUMANN SYMPHONY NO.3 (“RHENISH”)

“Der allseits beliebte Paavo Järvi gehört zu den Stammdirigenten der Berliner Philharmoniker. Die Zusammenarbeit hat sich in den letzten Jahren intensiviert. Zwei Mal pro Jahr steht er am Pult … Das nordische Repertoire liegt dem Esten immer am Herzen. Mit seiner letzten Tondichtung „Tapiola“ ist Jean Sibelius 1926 noch einmal in die Welt des finnischen Nationalepos „Kalevala“ eingetaucht. Das Stück ist nach dem Gott des Waldes benannt, und tatsächlich beginnt es wie ein romantischer Märchenwald mit ein paar vorbeihuschenden Schatten. Doch Järvi entzieht der Tondichtung bald den Boden der Gemütlichkeit und lässt eine spukhafte Gegenwelt zur Realität aufleuchten. Hier sind keine pittoresken Waldgeister am Werk, eher abgründige Gestalten.

“Umso fröhlicher klingt Robert Schumanns Rheinische Sinfonie. Järvi nimmt sie musikantisch, ausgelassen, da hängt kein Klotz am Bein … Der Dirigent lässt sie schlank und rhythmusbetont spielen. Die Musiker drehen kräftig am Schwungrad und setzen viel quirlige Energie frei. Sie lassen Schumann nicht nur singen, sondern auch tanzen.”
Berliner Morgenpost, Martina Helmig, 11 October 2019

“Nie war sie besser: Tschaikowskys Violinkonzert ist für Janine Jansen eine fast zwanzigjährige Erfolgsgeschichte, mit vielen Orchestern erprobt und bekräftigt. Auch Paavo Järvi ist ihr darin ein vertrauter Partner. Doch mit ihm am Pult der Berliner Philharmoniker erfindet sich die Geigerin noch einmal neu, angefeuert durch ein Orchester, das sie ebenso diskret auf Händen trägt wie ihr kräftige Impulse gibt … Die Grundlage solch mitreißenden Virtuosentums heißt Sensibilität, eine flexible, dem melodischen Atem folgende Tempogestaltung, die das Orchester in fulminanten Tutti-Ausbrüchen wieder ins pulsierend rechte Lot bringt. Dem Hexenritts des Finales, aus dem die Funken eines fast leichtfertigen Humors hervorblitzen, ziehen wunderbare Dialoge von Oboe und Klarinette, Flöte und Fagott eine melancholische Schicht ein, neben Jansens manchmal wie gehauchter unendlicher Melodie.
Der Tagesspiegel, Isabel Herzfeld, 11 October 2019

“Die Nörgeleien über Robert Schumanns angeblich schlechte Instrumentierungen wollen nicht abreißen. Der Orchestersatz angeblich undifferenziert und platt wie ein Kuhfladen. Paavo Järvi hat jetzt endgültig gezeigt: stimmt nicht. Man muss Schumann nur so aufführen, als wäre es für ein Kammerorchester gedacht, weniger pauschal, mehr Kommunikation der einzelnen Stimmen und Gruppen. Der Ansatz mit der „Rheinischen“ geht auf. Das ist schon mal mindestens zehn Kilo leichter. Schöne Raumeffekte lassen Schwerpunkte durch das Orchester wandern. Große Flächen, strahlendes Geschmetter, aber auch intime Stellen, bei denen der Große Saal der Philharmonie zu einem kuscheligen Wohnzimmer wird …”
rbbKultur, Andreas Göbel, 10 October 2019

… the Berliners were responsive to Järvi’s flexibility of pace and concern for detail (even with many performances of this wonderful work under my belt I heard oboe-writing that hadn’t been registered before). This was Järvi’s success, an accommodating approach that never sectioned-off any one episode; especially ingratiating was the poetic third movement and how solemn and imposing the next one, Cologne Cathedral captured in sound. The Finale, launched indivisibility to its predecessor, was nimble and poised, and in the closing flourishes Järvi did majesty and sprinting as togetherness.
Classicalsource.com, Colin Anderson, 11 October 2019

TONHALLE ORCHESTER-ZÜRICH (INAUGURATION CONCERT) – OCTOBER 2019
ARVO PÄRT “IF BACH HAD BEEN A BEE KEEPER”
SIBELIUS “KULLERVO”

“Mit ruhigen, inspirierenden Bewegungen und auf nötige Impulse reduzierter Gestik erwies sich der nunmehr elfte Dirigent des traditionsreichen Züricher Klangkörpers als souveräner Koordinator.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Werner M. Grimmel, 7 October 2019

“Fazit des Antrittskonzerts: Järvis Einstand ist vollauf gelungen, das Tonhalle-Orchester trägt ihn sprichwörtlich auf Händen, und die Tore für die im Verlauf der Saison angekündigten Kompositionen aus Ost- und Nordeuropa sind weit geöffnet.”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Thomas Schacher, 3 October 2019

“This was the first time the orchestra had played Kullervo and they clearly enjoyed it. They were also visibly proud of their new catch on the podium: Järvi swayed elegantly with the music, his beat easy to follow, with clear signals to soloists, principals and chorus. The orchestra and the people of Zurich can now surely look forward to many seasons of exciting music making of the highest quality.”
Seen and Heard International, John Rhodes, 5 October 2019

“Järvi’s focus may have been less on the glam or explosive effects, and more on the skill and carriage of the musicians’ achievements with the monumental score. And that, at very start of his tenure in Zurich, is a promising sign.”
backtrack.com, Sarah Batschelet, 4 October 2019

“Järvi spitzte zu, justierte die Balance, lockte Orchestersolisten aus der Reserve, rundete den Gesamtklang, kurz: Er sorgte dafür, dass diese Tonhalle-Erstaufführung minutenlangen Applaus verdiente.”
Tages-Anzeiger, Susanne Kübler, 3 October 2019

“A musician who’s lived all his life with the sound and engine of Sibelius’s music, he (Järvi) set the pulse and temperature early on. The strings possessed a rich, dark patina, digging deep in the third movement, their pizzicato accord penetrating and warm; the woodwinds excelled, … the brass glowed and rasped … the attack, precision and detail was remarkable, the swells and cadences rattled home with the touch and drama of a complete master at the helm.”
classicalsource.com, Ateş Orga, 3 October 2019

“Järvis rasant individuelle Rhetorik, das instrumentale Können des Orchesters, das gemeinsame Wollen, das von traumsicherer Übereinstimmung mit dem Chefdirigenten kündet – man kann solches durchaus als gute Vorboten für die Zürcher Partnerschaft deuten.”
Die Welt, Manuel Brug, 3 October 2019

“Järvi lässt bei seinem Einstand das Orchester einmal mehr über sich hinauswachsen, spornt es zu einer Höchstleistung an, wie es ihm schon bei früheren Gastdirigaten gelungen ist.”
SRF, Moritz Weber, 3 October 2019

ESTONIAN FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA – PÄRNU FESTIVAL JULY 2019

“The orchestra is making international waves – including an impressive debut at the BBC Proms last summer – but to hear them on their own turf in front of its adoring home audience gave the perfect introduction to this festival’s ethos.”
bachtrack.com, Mark Pullinger, 19 July 2019

“Here there are no egos, but truly passionate people in making and listening to the best music.”
El Pais, Pablo Rodriguez, 23 July 2019

“Above all there is the Estonian Festival Orchestra, the backbone of this music week and which has long proved itself internationally on tour! The latest, great baby of the great educator Paavo Järvi … And year after year you can see and hear the artists evolve, open up, listen to each other.”
Brugs Klassiker, Manuel Brug, 19 July 2019

“Paavo Järvi brings together his Estonian Festival Orchestra which he composes ad hoc, of handpicked musicians. Immediately sensitive, the complicity between instrumentalist and conductor allowed a remarkable economy of rehearsals and injected the concert with a truly breathtaking energy and virtuosity.”
Diapason, Paul de Louit, 7 August 2019

“Some journalists have compared the EFO to the Lucerne ensemble founded by Claudio Abbado … Measured by musicality, interpretive skills, technique, respect for each other and a warm relationship with the conductor, this must surely be true.”
Harmonie Magazine, Alena Sojková, 13 September 2019

“… The tour de force came after the interval, with Paavo Jarvi’s irresistibly driven interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony … the finale’s high-kicking variations virtually lifted us out of our seats. No more exciting official ending to a festival could possibly be imagined … this is definitely one of the world’s great orchestras, and it’s here to stay.
theartsdesk.com, David Nice, 14 August 2019

“The orchestra literally bites into the most beautiful horn soli and swaying folklore, jagged marching rhythms and to the finale into the Great Gate of Kiev, which also curves and opens up to the soundscapes of a Tchaikovsky exhibition. Paavo Järvi has the best handle on this, drives, holds back. It may also be glaring, but the matted harmony of the ensemble is always to be felt. This eventually explodes in an apotheosis of the sheet metal, Tchaikovsky orgasm pure.”
Brugs Klassiker, Manuel Brug, 22 July 2019

BERLIN PHILHARMONIC – MAY 2019

“Jeder Berliner Philharmoniker ist ein begnadeter Solist. Das zeichnet diese Orchesters aus. Einerseits. Andererseits kann es wechselnden Gastdirigenten unter Umständen Kummer bereiten. Aber doch nicht Paavo Järvi, dem vertrauten Freund des Hauses! Er ist angereist, um die Symphonie Nr.2 c-moll von Anton Bruckner zu dirigieren: die mit den vielen Themen, den vielen Generalpausen, die wahrscheinlich ungeliebteste, sicher schwierigste aller Bruckner-Symphonien.”
Der Tagesspiegel, 28 May, Eleonore Büning

“… This is music full of individual character, woodwind curlicues (for flute especially) and church chorales, for example, if with the composer also aware of his Austro-German symphonic lineage, fully appreciated by Järvi in his thrusting, shapely and everything-belongs approach, brought off resplendently and sympathetically by the Berliners, silences as meaningful as sound; and note the different weights applied to the final three chords of the opening movement, a bit stronger each time, timpani aflame, rolling underneath.”
Classicalsource.com, 25 May 2019, Colin Anderson

“Zu Beginn erklang Weberns Bearbeitung von Bachs Ricercare aus dem Musikalischen Opfer … Die absteigende Tonleiter des „königlichen“ Themas fasst Webern als einzelne Sekundmotive auf, die er auf die Instrumente verteilt. Järvi ließ das etwas brav musizieren, und präparierte nicht etwa Seufzerfiguren heraus, was möglich gewesen wäre. Er fasste Weberns Bach-Bearbeitung als ein Mosaik auf und betonte das Punktuelle dieser Partitur.”
Bachtrack.com, 26 May 2019, Sebastian Urmoneit

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Concert intro on main page

Paavo Järvi is the new Chief Conductor and Music Director of Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich as of the 2019-20 season. Their first performances together were met with a rapturous welcome and look set to signal a promising and fruitful partnership. Together they have recorded a programme dedicated to various orchestral works by Olivier Messiaen, written both early and later in his career.

The Messiaen album is released on 27 September to coincide with Paavo Järvi’s inauguration concert in Zürich on 2 October. The first season will be devoted to Järvi’s Nordic roots and opens with Sibelius’s Kullervo, to be followed by the complete cycle of Tchaikovsky symphonies, which Alpha Classics will release in March 2021 to accompany the reopening of the mythical Tonhalle after its extensive renovation and where the orchestra makes its home right on the banks of Lake Zürich.

Biography-post

Estonian Grammy Award-winning conductor Paavo Järvi is widely recognised as one of today’s most eminent conductors, enjoying close partnerships with the finest orchestras around the world. He serves as Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchester-Zürich, as the long-standing Artistic Director of The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2004, and as both the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra.

Highlights of Paavo Järvi’s sixth season as Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich include performances of Bruckner Symphony No.1 and Mahler Symphonies Nos 1 & 7, as well as Archora by this year’s creative chair, Anna Thorvaldsdorttir, and John Adams’ piano concerto After the Fall with season focus artist Víkingur Ólafsson. Further highlights include a tour of Spain in October and guest performances in Hamburg, Paris, Frankfurt and Cologne in March. The season closes with a new bi-annual summer festival called tonhalleAIR, in which Paavo Järvi leads programmes with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, as well as the student orchestra of the Musikschule Konservatorium Zürich. Alpha Classics releases Bruckner Symphony No.9 in September, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, followed in Spring 2025 by Mahler Symphony No.5, the first release in a complete cycle which will span the seasons to follow.

2024 celebrates Paavo Järvi’s 20th anniversary as Artistic Director of The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, recently voted Gramophone Orchestra of the Year. Together they have performed and recorded benchmark performances of the complete orchestral works by Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms. Highlights in the 2024/25 season include extensive tours throughout Japan, South Korea and Europe and the release of Volume 2 in the Haydn London Symphonies project on RCA Red Seal.

Each season concludes with two weeks of performances and conducting masterclasses at the Pärnu Music Festival in Estonia, which Paavo Järvi founded in 2011. The success of both the Festival and its resident ensemble – the Estonian Festival Orchestra – has led to profile tours across Asia and Europe, including performances at the Berlin Philharmonie, Wiener Konzerthaus, BBC Proms and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. In Spring 2024 Alpha Classics released their fifth album, Ship of Fools, featuring premieres of three new orchestral works by leading Estonian composer, Jüri Reinvere.

In addition to his permanent positions, Järvi is much in demand as a guest conductor, regularly appearing with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia and the New York Philharmonic. This season, Järvi also conducts the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Shanghai Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He also continues to enjoy close relationships with many of the orchestras of which he was previously Music Director, including Orchestre de Paris, Frankfurt Radio Symphony and NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo.

In 2024 Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich received an International Classical Music Award for their recording of Bruckner Symphony No.8 on Alpha Classics. With the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, he has won both the 2024 Opus Klassik and 2023 Gramophone “Orchestra or the Year” award, as well as the 2019 Rheingau Music Prize and Opus Klassik Conductor of the Year. Other prizes and honours include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’s Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Gramophone and Diapason Artist of the Year (2015) and Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015 Paavo Järvi was also presented with the Sibelius Medal in recognition of his work in bringing the Finnish composer’s music to a wider public and, in 2012, he received the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. As a dedicated supporter of Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013.

PARIS PHILHARMONIE – INAUGRAL CONCERT

The long awaited new concert hall in Paris, designed by award winning French architect Jean Nouvel, opens on 14 January with three inaugural concerts performed by the Orchestre de Paris and conducted by Paavo Järvi.

Following neither the ‘shoebox’ style (as at the Musikverein in Vienna), nor the ‘vineyard’ style (as at the Berlin Philharmonie), the Philharmonie de Paris invents a model all its own, with an adjustable concert hall based on the concept of envelopment. This original design required innovations in architecture, stage design and acoustical engineering. Though a high-capacity hall (2400 seats), the Philharmonie auditorium feels remarkably intimate. But this feeling can be mathematically explained: the distance between the conductor and the farthest spectator is only 32 metres (compared to 48 metres at the Salle Pleyel). ‘Evocative of immaterial, draped sheets of music and light, the hall suspends the listeners-spectators in space, on long balconies… This suspension creates the impression of being immersed in music and light’, explains the architect, Jean Nouvel.

Visit the official website of the Philharmonie de Paris

NEW RECORDING – DUTILLEUX

This recording is the first in a series featuring the Orchestre de Paris and its Music Director Paavo Järvi. The programme offers three works by the late, lamented Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013), widely considered the most important French composer of the second half of the 20th century: Sur le même accord ‘Nocturne for violin and orchestra’, with violinist Christian Tetzlaff, the Symphony No.1 and Métaboles. The release coincides with the inauguration of the Philharmonie de Paris in January 2015, when Järvi and the Orchestra will perform the gala opening concerts.

“VIBRANT AND COLOURFUL” – GUEST CONDUCTING THE STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Paavo Järvi recently conducted the Staatskapelle Berlin, receiving a glowing review from the Berliner Zeitung. He returns in May to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in three concerts concerts featuring Schumann’s Overture, Scherzo and Finale in E Major, Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2 in G minor and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 in F minor. The soloist is Yuja Wang.

“It really is a bit odd that Paavo Järvi’s name hasn’t been taken up at all in connection to Simon Rattle’s successor at the Philharmonic. The conductor has, until now, seldom appeared as a guest conductor with the orchestra and only as recently as two years ago was he re-invited to perform with them after a long gap. Perhaps Järvi comes across as too unpretentious, too musical; possibly because everything seems a little bit too easy to him. He sparks the public with reliable enthusiasm; and he has an extremely wide repertoire from almost all eras, which he serves with exceptionally good taste.”

“This is what was experienced at Monday’s wonderful concert in the Philharmonie with the Staatskapelle. Järvi’s clarity and the orchestra’s silkily soft sound – these complemented the evening beautifully … Mozart’s G Major Piano Concerto (with Maria Joao Pires as soloist) feather-lightly performed, with such noble, almost tender restraint like one hardly ever hears from this powerful ensemble … Opening the concert was Olivier Messiaens’ early orchestral work “Le Tombeau resplendissant” which the composer wrote in memory of the early death of his mother. A work, with which the conductor Paavo Järvi could prepare the Staatskapelle for what followed: the gentleness of the mystically glowing passages which recurred in the piano concerto and the uncharacteristically rough opening of the Messiaen which lead to Schumann’s Spring Symphony after the interval.

“In recent years Järvi has extensively worked on the Schumann Symphonies which he performed as a cycle with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, of which he has been the director for 10 years: this familiarity with the score is felt in every note. Järvi conducts this first symphony resolutely as a work of joyous abandon. Hefty dialogues between the string groups, a lost dream in the slow movement, slapstick humour in the finale– with Paavo Järvi it all sounds so vibrant and colourful, that one looks back on September’s parlous Schumann – Brahms cycle and thinks: I would also really like to hear this with the Philharmonic.”

http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/calendar/details/20432/ – highlight=PAAVO+JÄRVI

DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIC ASIAN TOUR

Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2004 and, celebrating their 10^th anniversary, they have just returned from a triumphant tour in Asia with concerts across Korea and Japan.

Following their recent success performing and recording the complete cycle of symphonies by Beethoven and Schumann, this tour was dedicated to Brahms and concluded with four sold out performances at the Tokyo Opera City Hall featuring all four Brahms’ symphonies, as well as both piano concertos, the violin concerto, the violin and cello concerto and incidental music. Järvi and the ensemble will record their first Brahms’ disc for Sony in 2015 for release in 2016.

The Korean Times wrote:

“This performance marked the fifth by Järvi and the Bremen German Chamber Philharmonic in Korea but it was nonetheless staggering. Though many regard the music of German composer Johannes Brahms to be stately and imposing, Järvi’s interpretation was quicker, lighter and more lyrical”

DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE BREMEN AWARDED THE WÜRTH PRIZE

On 29 November the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen was awarded the Würth Prize for Corporate Social Responsibility and the “outstanding regional and youth projects which it has intiatied.” The commitment of the orchestral members was recognized for their ” vibrant introductions to musical life with a future”.

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