Programme Notes · London Symphony Orchestra · 1 March 2026
Peltokoski: Rautavaara’s First Concerto and Wagner’s Ring
v3 · updated 30 September 2026 · 9 sources
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v3 · 30 September 2026 · Further reading added
- Added three recommended books: Wagnerism, The Ring of Truth, I Saw the World End
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v2 · 30 September 2026 · Sources added; house-style edit
- Added 6 sources
- Removed em dashes
- Rautavaara bio: the Sibelius-backed scholarship was to Juilliard; Tanglewood lessons with Copland and Sessions listed separately
- Peltokoski bio: added his other conducting teachers (Oramo, Salonen)
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v1 · 22 June 2026 · First published
Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016)
Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 4520 min
About the Work
Rautavaara’s First Piano Concerto, completed in 1969, is one of his most striking and exhilarating works, a piece that catches the composer at a fascinating turning point, as he moved away from the strict serialism of his earlier years toward the warmer, more sensuous and freely tonal style of his maturity. The concerto fuses both worlds: it has the rigour and edge of modernism alongside surging, romantic sweep and glittering orchestral colour. It is also famous for one arresting, physical device: in places the pianist plays great tone-clusters not with the fingers but with the flat of the hand and the whole forearm, producing huge, resonant washes of sound. Far from a gimmick, this becomes a powerful expressive and colouristic tool, opening up a sonority somewhere between bell-peals and breaking waves.
The work is cast in three movements and lasts around twenty minutes. It is by turns grand, mysterious and brilliant, the piano set against an orchestra used with Rautavaara’s characteristic flair for atmosphere and colour. Though less often played than his orchestral showpieces, it is a thrilling concerto, immediate, dramatic and full of imaginative sound, and a wonderful chance to hear a major modern Finnish voice. It pairs intriguingly with the Wagner that follows: both works conjure vast, elemental sound-worlds.
What to Listen For
Listen, above all, for the famous cluster-chords: passages where the soloist plays with forearms and the flat of the hand to create massive, shimmering blocks of sound, like waves of resonance washing over the orchestra. The first movement (marked ‘Con grandezza’, or ‘with grandeur’) opens in exactly this grand, sonorous vein; listen for the sense of scale and the dialogue between the piano’s washes of sound and the orchestra.
In the central slow movement, listen for a more mysterious, atmospheric mood (Rautavaara’s gift for glowing, mystical colour), with the piano weaving delicate or brooding textures over the orchestra. The finale brings brilliance and drive, the writing more motoric and virtuosic. Throughout, listen for the blend of modernist edge and romantic warmth that makes Rautavaara so distinctive: spiky, cluster-rich sonorities sitting alongside surging lyricism and rich harmony. And enjoy the sheer sound of the piece: its imaginative, often spectacular use of the piano and orchestra together, brought to life here by Yuja Wang’s phenomenal technique and fearless musicianship.
Richard Wagner (1813–1883)
The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure (arr. Henk de Vlieger)68 min
About the Work
Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (‘The Ring of the Nibelung’) is the most colossal achievement in all opera: a cycle of four music-dramas (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung) that runs to some fifteen hours and took Wagner about a quarter of a century to compose. It tells a vast mythological saga of gods, giants, dwarves, dragons, heroes and river-maidens, all turning on a cursed ring of power forged from stolen Rhinegold, and building to the cataclysmic destruction of the gods’ fortress, Valhalla. Its music is among the most revolutionary and influential ever written, built from a web of recurring leitmotifs (short musical themes attached to characters, objects and ideas) and orchestrated with unprecedented richness and power.
Because so much of the Ring’s dramatic and emotional weight is carried by the orchestra, the cycle is a natural quarry for orchestral excerpts, and many conductors have assembled their own ‘Ring without words.’ This one, by the Dutch percussionist and composer Henk de Vlieger (created in 1991), is among the finest and most comprehensive, a continuous, roughly hour-long symphonic synthesis that threads together the cycle’s greatest orchestral passages, from the primordial murmur of the Rhine at the very opening, through the Ride of the Valkyries, the Magic Fire Music, Forest Murmurs and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, to Siegfried’s Funeral March and the overwhelming Immolation that ends the world. De Vlieger arranges them so skilfully that the result plays almost as a single tone-poem, tracing the whole arc of the drama in purely orchestral terms. It is a thrilling, immersive way to experience the essence of the Ring in one sitting.
What to Listen For
Listen, right at the start, for one of the most famous openings in music: the deep, slowly stirring E-flat that emerges from silence and gradually builds into the rippling, surging music of the river Rhine, the primal source from which the whole cycle (and arguably the whole arrangement) grows. From there, follow the procession of great set-pieces and let the leitmotifs guide you: short, recognisable themes for the gold, the ring, the sword, the gods, the hero Siegfried, and so on, which recur and transform throughout.
Listen for the showstoppers everyone knows: the galloping, brass-blazing Ride of the Valkyries; the shimmering, flickering Magic Fire Music as Wotan surrounds the sleeping Brünnhilde with flame; the gentle, woodwind-rich Forest Murmurs; and the exhilarating sweep of Siegfried’s Rhine Journey. Then listen for the tragic grandeur of the second half: the shattering, brass-laden Siegfried’s Funeral March, and the vast, cathartic final scene, Brünnhilde’s Immolation, in which the music gathers up the cycle’s great themes and drives, through fire and flood, to a transcendent close as Valhalla burns and the ring returns to the Rhine. Even without voices, the orchestra tells the whole epic story; surrender to its tremendous sweep and colour.
Tonight's Artists
Yuja Wangpiano
Rautavaara’s First Concerto demands both phenomenal technique and a fearless willingness to explore the piano’s outer limits, not least its famous forearm-and-fist tone-clusters and its blend of modernist edge with surging romanticism. Yuja Wang, celebrated for her dazzling virtuosity, power and adventurous spirit, is an ideal champion for this thrilling and still under-played Finnish concerto, bringing it both brilliance and conviction.
Yuja Wang, born in Beijing in 1987, is one of the most dazzling and charismatic pianists in the world. Trained at the Central Conservatory in Beijing and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, she had her breakthrough in 2007 when, aged twenty, she stepped in for Martha Argerich with the Boston Symphony, and she has been a star of the concert platform ever since. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist and a Grammy winner, she is celebrated for a phenomenal, seemingly effortless technique, electrifying stage presence and fearless musicianship across a vast repertoire, with the great virtuoso Russian concertos among her specialities.
Further reading
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Accessible Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
Alex Ross, Picador 2021
Alex Ross traces how Wagner’s music and ideas, the Ring above all, spread into literature, art and politics.
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Accessible The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung
Roger Scruton, Penguin Books 2017
Roger Scruton’s guide to the story, characters and meaning of the Ring, a companion to the four operas distilled in this orchestral adventure.
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Deeper I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner’s Ring
Deryck Cooke, Oxford University Press 1979
Deryck Cooke’s close study of the meaning of the Ring, reading Wagner’s text and its sources in depth.