Dalia's Mixtape

“The orchestra is one of the greatest instruments ever created,” Dalia Stasevska tells Apple Music Classical, “but what does its future sound like, and how will it develop?” The Finnish conductor strives to answer these questions in this absorbing and diverse album of contemporary and 20th-century pieces, each one highly original in both conception and realisation. “What I wanted to achieve in Dalia’s Mixtape is not having to talk about genres,” adds Stasevska. “This is just about great music: great composers who have something interesting to say, and who are pushing the symphony orchestra as an instrument in new directions. We have an incredible history in classical music, but it’s also really important to discover new things, to listen to our surroundings and respond to them. As well as what we listen to, Stasevska is curious about how we listen to it. In an age of streaming, for instance, do we still listen to albums? “I was inspired by a discussion that I had with somebody who claimed he didn’t listen to classical music, but in fact he was without knowing it because he was listening to playlists.” All 10 tracks of Dalia’s Mixtape were recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with each one released as an EP in the months leading up to the release of the album itself. To celebrate Dalia’s Mixtape, Stasevska takes us on a personal and insightful journey through each track. Anna Meredith: Nautilus “Anna Meredith’s Nautilus is very, very energising. It’s trance-like and hypnotises you completely. I heard the piece when Anna was performing with her band in Helsinki around four years ago. And I immediately thought that it would work fantastically for symphony orchestra. “You need a different kind of attitude to play it. You can’t just play the notes, you have to feel like a rock musician. It’s very industrial and very powerful.” Andrea Tarrodi: Wildwood “Wildwood is inspired by the trees—how their roots grow deep into the ground and their branches reach up to the sky. But also this is about an inner forest. Andrea Tarrodi wrote the piece after the birth of her daughter, and says that this was how she felt. I can relate to that, because my own daughter is five months old, and that’s how you feel for the first time—really rooted to the earth. “Wildwood is one of Tarrodi’s best pieces, and it has this really substantial and glorious arc to it.” Judith Weir: Still, Glowing “This piece is Judith Weir’s only take on ambient music, which I find really fascinating. It’s centred around a luminous and transparent string texture that gives you a feeling of being suspended in time. “Occasionally, xylophone and woodwinds appear like a fleeting thought, like a cloud passing by. It’s a very slow moving, beautiful miniature movement.” Caroline Shaw: The Observatory “Caroline Shaw is one of the most important contemporary voices in our time. This piece is a cinematic work, a narrative adventure. It’s a kaleidoscopic journey from Hollywood's Griffith Park Observatory. “There are some familiar musical references in the piece, such as Strauss’ Don Juan, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Sibelius’ Second Symphony, Brahms’ Symphony No. 1… It’s quite a ride. What I love about it is that is has a really strong pulsation throughout, like a city pulsating.” Lauri Porra: Utu “‘Utu’ is part of Lauri Porra’s suite Cabins & Hideouts, his personal musical diary recording days at his family’s Finnish summer cabin. Utu, the Finnish word for “mist”, takes place around sunset as the air starts to get colder during dusk. This thin layer of slow-moving white mist appears on the surface of the lake. It’s a very particular moment in the summer. “What is so special about this piece is the instrumentation made up from a combination of natural string harmonics, low sustaining instruments and bass clarinet. I’ve never heard anybody compose using harmonics in such a way that’s not simply an effect. It’s very meditative, and it takes you directly to the silence of Finnish summer nights.” Jóhann Jóhannsson: They Being Dead Yet Speaketh They Being Dead Yet Speaketh was originally written for a film called The Miners’ Hymns, a 2010 documentary film portrait of a mining community in North-East England. Jóhannsson’s music brings together sombre orchestral chords, ambient effects and haunting brass textures in a nod to the celebrated colliery brass bands that were such an important part of mining culture. “Jóhannsson’s music is deeply moving—it always seems to carry a very personal element. Does that also partly come from the landscape of Iceland, the secludedness and the rawness? There’s definitely some of all that in this score.” Julius Eastman: Symphony No. II—The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved “Symphony No. II was only discovered a few years ago and had to be completely reconstructed. As I understand the history of this piece, it’s a love letter and a break-up letter, and Julius Eastman was not in a very good place when he wrote this. He was homeless, he had a lot of problems at the end of his life, so he probably wrote this piece while crashing on somebody’s couch somewhere with a piano. “In my opinion, its unusual instrumentation is designed to create low and resonating drone sounds throughout the piece. It has a very special timbre to it—it’s very dark and really beautiful.” SØS Gunver Ryberg: Coexistence “Ryberg is a fascinating composer. She’s a sculptor of sound, and moulds the sound of an orchestra like a synthesiser, concentrating more on effects than on harmonies or melodies. What is interesting and unique is the explosion of organic and electronic sounds when she puts it all together.” Noriko Koide: Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain “The title is really poetic, and what captivated me about this piece was how imaginative it is. There are some techniques in this piece that I’ve never seen or heard used before that are so captivating. The players not only mimic the sound of dropping water, but they also use a pencil between violin strings to create a kind of tapping sound.” Julia Wolfe: Pretty “It was so important for me to have Wolfe on the album. In a way, she is the prototype for many of today’s composers. Her music often incorporates electric instruments such as electric guitar, but in this energetic and festive piece she wanted to challenge herself and only create her sounds from acoustic orchestral instruments. “She uses so many instrument techniques, including quick tremolos and sliding on the fingerboard to mimic the sound of electric guitars. She even said in our rehearsal that we had to play some of the passages as if we were Jimi Hendrix. That inspired us so much.”