A Non-Halloween Concert

Musiikkitalo, Helsinki (Photo from Musiikkitalo website)

Many cultures celebrate Halloween at this time of the year, but the roots of the holiday go back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced Sah-win). It marked the end of the harvest season, recognised the changes in the natural world and signalled the preparation for a leaner, darker winter. The Celtic people believed that, at this time of the year, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. The tradition of the bonfire was an important part of the festival, as they believed the bonfire connected them to the spirits of their ancestors, and would provide them with light and warmth in the long winter months ahead.

In schools in Ireland, on that last Friday before the mid-term, which was (the dreaded?!) ‘Halloween Dress Up Day,’ us primary teachers sought to remind the older pupils that the tradition of wearing masks and costumes could also be traced back to their Celtic ancestors, who believed that the spirits of the dead were roaming the earth, on Halloween night in particular, and in those ancient times, they covered their faces with masks to avoid being recognised by the ghosts.

Halloween isn’t a ‘thing’ here in Finland. It’s actually somewhat refreshing to spend time in a society that hasn’t succumbed to global and US influence and, it seems to the outsider, could take or leave such a festival. I could count on one hand the number of window displays that I saw which had a Hallowe’en theme. One of the few was Café Ekberg on Boulevardi, which has been operating since 1852, and did give a nod to the feast with some of their pastries on display.

Pastries at Café Ekberg, Helsinki. Halloween 2025

Knowing we wouldn’t have any ‘Trick or Treaters’ calling, we decided to attend the Music Hall, the Musiikkitalo on Friday last, the 31^st of October. It has been on our wish-list to go to a concert in the venue more or less since we got to Helsinki and, thirteen months later, we finally got there.

Musiikkitalo is another magnificent public building and cultural hub in Helsinki. It is located on Mannerheimintie, one of the main streets through the city centre, between the main railway station and the Eduskunta, the Finnish Parliament House. It has entrances from Mannerheimintie and the impressive Kansalaistori Square, where the Oodi Library along with one of the ‘Instagrammable’ Helsinki signs are situated. The music venue has no less than six purpose-built concert facilities, each with their own unique and bespoke acoustics. The capacity of the beautiful main concert hall is 1,704 and I could only count about five empty seats at Friday’s concert.

The building was designed by LPR Architects and they describe the main concert hall as ‘the pearl hidden within.’ Every detail was, apparently, designed with acoustics in mind. According to the brochure, the seats mimic the way the human body absorbs and reflects sound waves, while the gaps in the birch panelling deliver a more rounded sound and the acoustic canopy above the stage allows the orchestra to hear itself better.

This was confirmed by Elina Raijas, the flautist with the Helsinki Philarmonic Orchestra at around the time of the grand opening on 31^st August 2011 when she said, ‘I still remember our first rehearsal at Musiikkitalo. The difference in acoustics was incredible. I completely forgot to play my own part because I was too busy marvelling at how brilliant the orchestra sounded.’ I’m sure one of my oldest friends (by that I mean longest, since we met in our Junior Infant classroom!), Miriam O’ Sullivan-Long, who is herself an accomplished flautist, will understand Elina’s sentiments, to some extent. She is promising to visit Helsinki while we are here, and we are waiting!

The ‘vineyard’ layout of the concert hall somehow manages to create the illusion of a smaller, more intimate space. The colour scheme is similar to that inside the inside of a traditional Finnish smoke sauna. To paraphrase the blurb in the information brochure, the architects said their ‘design language’ was inspired by a river logjam as the seating areas are like logs caught up in a narrow of a river, each pointing in a slightly different direction. The dark stained birch walls and the lighter, waxed pine stage are quintessentially Finnish. This photo I took of Seán before the concert began gives some idea of what it is like, looking down on the stage from one of the balconies.

Jazz is on the periphery of my musical tastes, though I loved some of the jazz sessions we attended in New Orleans earlier this year when we visited with our son and his lovely wife. Perhaps my taste is maturing and I thoroughly enjoyed the HPO-All That Jazz concert on Friday. UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra, which is celebrating 50 years, teamed up with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (HPO) to perform a brilliant selection of jazz standards and classics.

The HPO was founded in 1882. Today, the 102-strong ensemble play to more than 110,000 listeners every year. In addition to concerts such as this one at Musiikkitalo, the orchestra or smaller ensembles perform in various venues across the city and it tours internationally. It holds the distinction of premiering most of the symphonic works by Jean Sibelius (who I wrote about in a previous blog post), with the composer himself conducting, and continues its commitment to contemporary music by commissioning works by composers, both Finnish and foreign. The instrument I was particularly fascinated with was the enormous harp, gilded in gold with intricate designs on its column and base. I reckon it would not look out of place in that new gilded ballroom that is being built across the pond.  

 The programme included, inter alia, pieces by Jelly Roll Morton, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. It was hosted by a brilliant pianist Iiro Rantala who wore a fantastic black and white striped suit. My feeble attempts at learning Finnish at Duolingo helped me to identify about 20 of the thousands of words he spoke in his introductions, but that didn’t dim our enthusiasm, as we were there for the music. The conductor was Teemu Takanen and his and Iiro’s more recent compositions brought a lovely ending to a very enjoyable evening.

One wonderful aspect to Musiikkitalo and to the experience we had there is that it is not at all elitist. Over half of all the events at the venue are free and open to the public. Final rehearsal tickets for HPO can be purchased at €8.50 and the orchestra offers tickets for €3.50 for 15–25 year-olds for the 2025–2026 season. We paid €44.50 for each of our tickets for this concert. During the 25 minutes of the interval we sipped a glass of wine and were people-watching. The audience spanned the generations and, while some people did indeed get dressed up for the occasion, many more were in casual attire and looked like they had come indoors after a day's hiking. While I was waiting for Seán in the foyer after the concert, I saw one of the musicians meeting his family and getting ready to leave. He had removed his suit jacket, opened his tie, letting it hang around his neck, and he had donned a pair of yellow wellingtons over his suit trousers. It was a great Finnish....