BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds conductor, Simone Lamsma violin. Rautavaara, Cantus Arcticus; Sibelius, Violin Concerto; Nielsen, Symphony No. 5
This was an absorbing concert and one I enjoyed very much. It also had quite a full and very appreciative audience. The BBC Philharmonic sounded glorious – really at the top of their game, and this must have a lot to do with the leadership of John Storgards, who as chief conductor really does spend a lot of time with the orchestra giving concerts in Manchester and elsewhere in the UK. I made a note to myself that I really must check out their 26/27 season carefully when it is published. Because they don’t have quite as tight a commercial imperative as the Halle in constructing their programmes, they can often be more interesting. The Halle 26/27, though with some interesting programming of James MacmIllan works and Thomas Ades as conductor (Ades’ Elgar 1 sounds fascinating) on the whole is disappointingly unoriginal and features relatively few concerts conducted by their chief conductor Kahchun Wong.
The Cantus Arcticus I have a recording of but have never heard live before. It is a more substantial work than i remembered, and I particularly enjoyed the third movement, the calling of the wild swans, with the massed woodwind mirroring the cacophonous swans, and the movement resolving (I think) into the beautiful melody introduced in the Marshes first movement. Someone behind me was asking his companion whether concerts always used exactly the same recording of bird cries, given that the work was first performed in 1971. I don’t know the answer to that – nor did the companion!
I have never really understood the Sibelius’ violin concerto. I have never got my head round the structure of the first movement, and the meanderings of the second. It came as no surprise in the programme booklet to read that Sibelius was almost permanently sozzled during the concerto’s composition, and wrote the 2nd movement during an almighty 3 day hangover. That would explain some of my feelings about the work. Anyway, Simone Lamsma gave it a virtuoso and dazzling performance which signalled her as a major upcoming star. Her encore was a beautifully played Bach Largo, which I found much more moving than the whole of the Sibelius concerto.
I wrote right at the beginning of this blog, back in 2019, reviewing a Halle performance, that I have always struggled a bit with the structure of Nielsen’s 5th Symphony – the first part sounds so magnificent that the second can seem less impressive, with not so memorable thematic material, and can sound as though it ends too abruptly. This was certainly a performance that made the best possible case for the work – I was gripped throughout, and somehow (maybe it was a specific emphasis the conductor gave to the sectional differences of voice, perhaps ensuring the cohesion between the different movements) the second half seemed to constantly increase in tension, broadening out in the closing moments to provide a very convincing ending – taut, but with a sense of finality and resolution. Throughout the work, Storgards helped the orchestra to balance itself effectively – you could always hear the woodwind chewing away at the thematic material below the heavy brass. I was intrigued by how much some of this symphony sounded like Shostakovich…..I’ve never heard of a connection between the two………..
John's musical journey 