Symphony Concert N° 3

In her final years, the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (who died in 2023) strove to invest contemporary music with greater emotional depth. Her works are characterised by an extraordinary mix of tonal colour, atmospheric density and the subtle expression of feeling. This is particularly evident in »Ciel d'hiver« (Winter Sky), an arrangement of the second movement of a symphonic piece that Saariaho wrote twelve years earlier, which premiered in 2014. From a constant atmospheric “bed” of sound supporting snippets of melody, there emerges a sustained maelstrom from which the composer conjures up various wintry moods.