The opening concert in the Philharmonia’s Nordic Soundscapes season gave us an brave blend of the very familiar and the very unfamiliar.
We started with Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir’s Oceans (2018) which builds from silvery harmonies and glissandi to the majesty of the sea with rich cello sound and a fitting tuba solo before dying away to almost nothing – as it began. I doubt that this is in any way easy to bring off but Santu-Matias Rouvali really knows his orchestra and it sounded as though they’d been playing this piece for years.
Then came the comforting glory of Greig’s Piano concerto with the ever reliable, charismatic Sir Stephen Hough at the piano. He may have been playing this piece for decades but still manages to make it sound fresh with a strong sense of his being part of the orchestra rather than a bolt-on. High spots included the bassoon solo in the first movement and Hough’s fluidly sensitive rendering of the cadenza. In the adagio the lyrical string sound was well balanced against the melodious warmth of the piano and I admired the crispness of the maracato section. The Philharmonia is very good indeed at cohesive pizzicato across all its string sections. Finally Sir Stephen, saying that he thought we should stick to the Nordic theme delighted the audience with Sinding’s Rustle of Spring as his encore.
After the interval we were in much darker, more portentous territory. Sibelius’s Kullervo, written when he was only 27 is rarely performed and having heard it, I can’t pretend to be surprised. It’s a nationalistic, five movement, large scale symphonic work which re-invents itself as a quasi-opera from the third movement with male voice choir and two soloists. Based on a Finnish national epic, It tells the story of a man who unintentionally rapes his sister and then dies. And it lasts an hour and a quarter.
Well I was grateful for the surtitles because my Finnish isn’t up to much. The YL choir, singing mostly in unison bring a neutral tone to the text and their sound is good. I quite liked the lullaby, with escalating menace in the second movement and there’s lots of musical drama when the anti-hero realises, in horror, the identity of the woman has has just ravished. And tucked into the texture are lots of brass chords and recognisable harmonies which signal where Sibelius would be heading a few years later.
It goes almost without saying that the Philharmonia rose skilfully to the challenges of this marathon. Personally, though, although it was interesting to experience it once, I shan’t be rushing out to hear it again.
Photograph: Philharmonia Orchestra/Mark Allan
