Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season November-December 2015 | Page 31

program notes {
upward through these layers of strings.
Featured as soloist is the English horn
— the most melancholy and haunting
of the woodwinds — singing the Swan’s
plaintive song. The key is A minor, but
the harmonies are immediately set adrift,
swimming rapidly through many keys.
Midway through, the black, brooding
sound of horns tells us this is a world of
mortal danger as well as beauty.
In the third tone poem, “Lemminkäinen in Tuonela,” an ominous
tremolo in the low strings and implacable
upward-rushing scales give more urgent
warnings. The hero is about to shoot
the swan when he is himself killed by an
arrow from a herdsman. His body is cut
into pieces, and its fragments float down
the black river; we again hear the English
horn as the Swan floats impassively above.
The tone poem’s middle section is very
different: a portrait of his mother hastening
to his rescue. In a delicately scored lullaby
led by a maternal string melody, she
gathers his remains, stitches them back
together, and miraculously brings him
back to life. The music of the opening
section returns, but now filled with heroic
might and resolve. However, the last word
goes to the low stri