-
Electronics-infused homage to Beethoven, mixed and produced by Kristjan Järvi
-
Music track from orchestra’s innovative ‘Musical Chain’ series of classical remix videos
-
nEscapes to release further singles from ‘Musical Chain’ series in late 2021 and early 2022
Berlin, 5 November 2021. An extended, six-and-a-half-minute version of the music track from ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’, the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s second video in its digital project ‘Musical Chain’, comes out today on Estonian label nEscapes. The innovative ‘Musical Chain’ series of music videos features striking transformations of iconic classical pieces, a one of a kind in the orchestral world. ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’ is inspired by the composer’s Symphony No. 5. Kristjan Järvi mixed and produced the track, which features 21 musicians of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, who recorded themselves at home during the summer of 2020. ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’ is the second single from the ‘Musical Chain’ series to be released on nEscapes; the first, ‘Ascending Swans’, which came out on 24 September, has had nearly 20,000 streams on Spotify alone. More tracks from the series are set for release on the label later this year and in 2022.
Orchestral energy with an electronic edge
The music for ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’ pays homage to the composer’s indomitable spirit, celebrating him as the rock star of his time. The track is at once energetic and mysterious, enlightening but dark, vibrant yet intimate. Its remixing of orchestral sound and electronics channels Beethoven’s spirit as if from another dimension. The ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’ video was released on the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s social media channels in September 2020 and has since had almost 15,000 views on YouTube and 27,000 views on Facebook. The video intercuts outdoor footage of Baltic Sea Philharmonic musicians performing in atmospheric landscapes with emotive scenes of loves, loss, pain and peace, together with elemental images of nature, cities and space. A professional production team edited the film, creating a captivating video that reinvents the 1980s MTV aesthetic for the YouTube generation.
Musical gems recut for the 21st century
The ‘Musical Chain’ series of music videos launched in July 2020 with ‘Midnight Mood’, based on Grieg’s ‘Morning Mood’ from Peer Gynt. After the release of ‘Beethoven’s Twilight’, the third video in the series was ‘Ascending Swans’, which came out in November 2020. The music for this video is based on the ‘Song of Praise’ from Sibelius’s Swanwhite Suite, one of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s favourite encore pieces. The series continued in December 2020 with ‘Nutty Christmas’, a fun seasonal take on Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in which the ‘Dance of the Reed Pipes’ and the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ are transformed into the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s very own Christmas cracker. ‘Nutty Christmas’ was also broadcast to hundreds of thousands of TV viewers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the run-up to Christmas in 2020.
‘Musical Chain’ reflects the orchestra’s boundary-breaking spirit, its passion for innovative collaborations, and its dedication to communicating through digital media the energy, style and freedom of its live performances. It is also a symbol of unity and solidarity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: inspired by the human chain formed by people across the three Baltic States in August 1989, it brings together musicians from across Europe with other artistic collaborators and professional video producers. The latest video in the series, ‘Midnight Sun’, released in August 2021, takes ‘Musical Chain’ in a new creative direction, with original music written and produced by Kristjan Järvi and visuals that combine monochrome images of nature and landscapes with eyecatching geometric animations. The music track of ‘Midnight Sun’ was also released as a single, in both a radio edit and a long version, on BMG/Modern Recordings.
Baltic Sea Philharmonic – a revolution in music and culture
The Baltic Sea Philharmonic takes the orchestral concert experience to a new dimension. Every performance is a voyage of musical discovery, as the musicians perform the entire programme from memory, creating a one-of-a-kind artistic journey. Each concert is a unique spectacle of sound, light, visual art, technology, choreography and playing by heart, and under the electrifying baton of Music Director and Founding Conductor Kristjan Järvi every performance has a special energy that’s absolutely infectious. But even more than this, as a community of musicians from ten Nordic countries, the Baltic Sea Philharmonic transcends boundaries and has become a movement for bringing people together. Embodying all that is innovative and progressive about the Nordic region, this visionary ensemble is taking the traditional orchestral model further than ever before. ‘It is a living breathing creature, with boundless energy and enthusiasm for the new – an adventure in itself,’ says Kristjan Järvi.
