HKO: Lights of Heaven

Olli Mustonen, conductor Ian Bostridge, tenor Anatoli Ljadov: Kikimora Olli Mustonen: Symphony No 3 “Lights of Heaven” Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No 3 Mustonen’s third symphony draws its text from the Kalevala. “I believe that through music these poems, which are difficult to translate into other languages, acquire almost hypnotic and shamanic qualities that become accessible even to listeners who do not understand Finnish,” Mustonen says. Sergei Prokofiev composed his third symphony from the same intense material he used in his opera Fire Angel. The symphony is suffused with the opera’s dark‑brooding atmosphere, taking its tone from black magic and superstition, sexual obsession, devilish ghosts and an epic battle between good and evil.