United Kingdom Beethoven and Sibelius: Dame Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra / Thomas Dausgaard (conductor), Royal Pageant Corridor, London, 25.1.2024 (CSa)
Beethoven – Overture, Leonore No.2, Op.72(a); Piano Concerto No.2 in B-Flat main, Op.19
Sibelius – Lemminkäinen Legends, Op.22
Two commonly featured works by Beethoven – his overture Leonora No.2 and second Piano Concerto made up the primary half of the Philharmonia’s eagerly awaited Southbank live performance final week, whereas Sibelius’s sometimes carried out set of tone poems, Lemminkäinan Legends, dominated the second. Sadly, Esa-Pekka Salonen, the nice Finnish conductor lengthy related to this work and this orchestra, examined optimistic for COVID earlier within the week, and was substituted at quick discover by his equally redoubtable Danish counterpart, Thomas Dausgaard. On the rostrum, the authoritative Dausgaard cuts a statuesque and extra bodily constrained determine than Salonen, whose deftness and fluidity are signature traits, however it could be idle to take a position whether or not these radically contrasting conducting kinds would have resulted in markedly completely different performances.
Beneath Dausgaard’s path, Leonora No.2 proved to be a compact and dramatic curtain-raiser, with brooding strings, declarative brass and delicate heat woodwind ominously foreshadowing the darkish depth of Beethoven’s politically revolutionary opera. A lighter, however no much less considerate word was struck by an impressive account of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.2, during which the gamers, joined by the incomparable Dame Mitsuko Uchida, offered fantastically articulated and well-balanced assist. Beethoven started to put in writing this piano concerto (chronologically his first) in 1787 when he was simply 17 years outdated, and though the composer’s particular person voice may be heard to sing by the three actions, the work owes a lot to the sooner classical kinds of Haydn and Mozart. Uchida’s method adopted go well with. The primary motion Allegro brimmed with youthful vitality. After a prolonged introductory passage, and from the second the nimble, dancing strings gave solution to Uchida’s finely judged entry, this exceptional artist balanced virtuoso keyboard precision with Mozartian playfulness, grace and profundity. Even because the cascading Bach-like cadenza unfurled, every word was crystal clear. A purposefully gradual, soulful and at occasions astonishingly delicate Adagio yielded to mischievously joyful Rondo.
The second half of the live performance uprooted us from the sunny, optimistic uplands of Beethoven’s youth, to the nippiness, musical landscapes of Sibelius’s homeland. ‘Music is for me,’ Sibelius declared, ‘like a wonderful mosaic which God has put collectively. He takes all of the items, throws them into the world, and we have now to recreate the image from the items’. In his Lemminkäinen suite, the ‘items’ in query are drawn from 4 Finnish legends from the Kalevala (a supernatural world inhabited by mythic heroes, villains, magicians and river maidens), whereas the ‘image’ he recreates is a sequence of tone poems of symphonic size and texture, the vary of orchestral color deployed in every ‘motion’ served to showcase the excellent strengths of each part of this orchestra and gave rise to some beautiful particular person instrumental solos. Significantly memorable moments: the shimmering, undulating First and Second Violins within the second suite, Lemminkäinen in Tuonela; some hauntingly stunning enjoying from the Philharmonia’s chief Zsolt–Tihamér Visontay and from Rebecca Kozam on the cor anglais within the third suite, The Swan of Tuonela; and notable contributions all through from timpanist Antoine Siguré and his fellow percussionists. That mentioned, Dausgaard’s tempo and general phrasing faltered on events, and for this member of the viewers not less than, the stress and drama important to Sibelius’s epic had been ceaselessly absent. Others could disagree. As Sibelius famously mentioned, ‘Pay no consideration to what the critics say since there has by no means been a statue arrange in honour of a critic’. Only a thought.
Chris Sallon
