Vernacular and Art Music

Information regarding COVID-19: In order to guarantee the safety of our audience and in following the recommendations of the Finnish Government, the following concert has a total of 140 seats available, in order to guarantee the safety distance of at least 2 meters between each audience member. Due to the rapidly changing conditions, tickets will not be paid for in advance. Instead, register online now to save your seat and pay your ticket at the door!

Ticket Prices:

20€ - Regular Ticket

15€ - Discounted Ticket

10€ - Student and Child Ticket

For many centuries, and preceding the era of widespread access to all genres of music in which we are living today, the art of manipulating sounds, transcribing them, and sharing them, existed mainly through the opposition between secular and religious. While this opposition was mostly relevant and clear during the medieval period until the renaissance, the dichotomy later evolved into the more actual notions of art music and popular music. The art music, the music of high aesthetic value, implied careful craftsmanship and numerous considerations. On the other hand, popular music stood for its accessibility, having a free rapport with the high structural and theoretical concepts on which art music is based. Until today, and at times with great audacity, many composers have willingly played with this opposition and de facto rendered it null, by showing that art music too, could be popular and appeal to wide audiences. In a similar fashion, popular music has often enjoyed levels of craftsmanship and theoretical depth which contributed to question the relevance of the dichotomy. Mozart, Shostakovich and Bartók are three composers that have continuously played with these notions, by composing popular music with formal structure and harmonies, or by incorporating preexisting popular styles into their own compositions. In this program, the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra explores music of these three composers in order to show that at the end of the day, the lines between every style of music are often much more blurred than one might think: with Mozart, light music of the classical period. With Shostakovich, some popular excerpts from the early 20th century. And with Bartók, themes and sonorities of Hungarian folk music.