From the Archives: Helsinki Baroque Orchestra – Mission Baroque

At the beginning of June, the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra hosted Bulgarian star mezzo Vesselina Kasarova at the Musikkitalo during her very first stay in Northern Europe. Her visit is a good example of the cultural input of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra (commonly known as HeBO) this year celebrating their fifteenth anniversary.

Kasarova is just one of the globally acclaimed musicians working with the HeBO. In 2010 they toured Germany with violinist Viktoria Mullova as their soloist, and they regularly collaborate with such early-music maestros as Skip Sempé, Erich Höbarth and Reinhard Goebel.

Their associate director as of 2009 has been Italian Riccardo Minasi. Though HeBO can most often be heard abroad, they are now increasing the number of concerts in Finland.

“I've been deliberately trying to engage internationally famous soloists and conductors. I want to introduce Finnish musicians and audiences to great artists who are otherwise far too little known here,” says HeBO artistic director Aapo Häkkinen.

A ‘new Baroque generation’

In 1996, some young musicians gathered around a Helsinki pub table after their first concert. The evening had been so good that they did not want their budding joint venture to end there, and as the night wore on, they jotted down the names of potential players for a new orchestra. A Baroque orchestra going by the name of Uusi Kapelli (“New Chapel”) gave their debut concert at the Helsinki Old Church on 25 May, 1997. The ‘new Baroque generation’ was warmly welcomed to the Finnish music scene.

Most of the players back then were students and the orchestra did not meet regularly. They also seemed to lack a clear mission and leader. This changed in 2002 when the name of the orchestra was changed to Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and installed harpsichordist Aapo Häkkinen as their artistic director.

Häkkinen brought with him vision, motivation, and a clear artistic mission. “Our aim was, and still is, a repertoire that takes in all the Baroque genres,” he says.

“Along the way we have become more professional and regular. The players have also developed in terms of quality and have greater experience, and the orchestra has created an identity of its own. Over the past five years, we have, I think, further honed our profile.”

Cultural input at home and abroad

Although Häkkinen did not have much experience in orchestral conducting when he took over in 2002, he had already distinguished himself as an internationally established harpsichordist. HeBO’s first foreign contacts came through him, and before long they were receiving invitations from places like the Wigmore Hall in London.

The European dimension and cultural exchange have been conscious choices, but the orchestra have never had a chance to concentrate on them. “We’ve done gigs abroad and in this way made ourselves known,” Häkkinen reports. “We’ve now got agencies in Germany, Spain, Belgium and France.” There have been times when HeBO were more likely to be heard in, say, Germany or Spain than in Finland.

The situation at home has recently improved since HeBO launched a concert series at the Helsinki Music Centre upon its opening in autumn 2011. Their fifteenth anniversary season has also taken in a performance of Handel’s opera Julius Caesar at the Finnish National Opera in January 2012 and a gala concert in April. The invitation to the Finnish National Opera says a lot about the National Opera’s faith in the orchestra since no Baroque music had been performed there for two decades or so.

As Finland is a small country, its cultural life centres on a few cities and above all the Helsinki region. The same applies to Baroque music. “The early music scene is very active in Helsinki, considering the city’s size. True, the guest-performance system still needs improving, but we need have no qualms about comparing the offering in the Helsinki region to that in any European metropolis. The standard of the teaching and performance of Baroque music is both high and wide. In other words, we can also find different types of ensembles and approaches to music,” is Aapo Häkkinen’s analysis.

HeBO run another regular concert series in Rauma, a small town on the west coast of Finland. In other words, they are doing their bit for musical life in other parts of the country, too. “A concert series of our own in both Helsinki and Rauma is in every respect a positive change, except that it costs money. Offsetting our financial risks over the longer term is in fact one of our challenges for the near future.”

Freelancer orchestra

HeBO are made up of freelancers. There are two reasons for this. One is financial and the other artistic. 

“We still don't have enough resources for our players to make a living from HeBO alone. On the other hand, there was no such thing as a standard orchestral line-up in the 17th and 18th centuries, so in this sense, the present-day Baroque orchestra cannot have a permanent lineup either, in the way that an orchestra playing music of the 19th and 20th centuries can,” says Häkkinen.

Having to reconcile the players’ and concert organisers’ schedules makes planning the repertoire difficult. Many of the musicians live in Helsinki but also work with other European ensembles.

As it is at the moment, HeBO leave Häkkinen time to pursue his own career as a musician: “HeBO do not – or at least not yet – completely fill my calendar, or anyone else’s. Personally I’m happy with this, but I hope that one day the situation will be different for some of the musicians.”

And what about the future?

“Does it sound dull if I say that virtually nothing will change?” asks Häkkinen with a laugh and continues: 

“I think it’s important, especially for a young orchestra like ours, not to keep altering our artistic policy every year or so. Sudden radical changes can be catastrophic, and quickly spoil what’s been built up over years.” It is still possible to discover Baroqmue music that has never been performed or recorded. HeBO has even given some world premiere performances – of works never heard even in their day.

“We’ve been quite active on the recording front, especially in the past few years. One a year is actually the optimum number of discs for us, and possibly the maximum. Recording develops the orchestra, but this should not be at the expense of concerts. And recording doesn’t pay these days, so a mix of recording and concert tours is really the only sensible thing.”

In other words, the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra are engaged in cultural work in many senses and aims to continue along its chosen path. “We’ve already got a clear artistic policy, and we intend to build up our international cultural export and exchange. The time has also come to increase the volume of our activities. As I see it, even a relatively small rise in activity would yield output exponentially in proportion to the input, in terms of quality and possibly volume,” Aapo Häkkinen reckons in debating the orchestra’s upcoming challenges.

The Helsinki Baroque Orchestra have continued their versatile work since the release of this story. Their latest projects can be viewed on their website.

Featured photo: Heikki Tuuli Translation: Susan Sinisalo. The original article has been slightly edited for this rerelease in a manner that does not affect its substance.