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Belated write-up due to holidays ...
The programme was originally due to include Brahms' Piano Concerto #1, which I adore and which is not performed often enough: but Helene Grimaud had been ill, and so Beethoven Piano Concerto #5 (Emperor) was substituted. It is a glorious piece, but I've heard it performed many times and this wasn't in my top five. There were points when Grimaud's playing felt frantic, and others (second movement) where it seemed almost mechanical, too regular. Salonen's heart didn't seem to be in it, either: his conducting was urbane, restrained, orderly.
Luckily the Beethoven was bracketed by Sibelius: Finlandia to start, always rousing and exuberant, and Lemminkäinen in the second half. Only Finns should be allowed to conduct Sibelius, we conclude: Salonen was by turns exuberant, triumphant and beatific, driving the music onward. In Lemminkäinen I really noticed the percussion -- rumbling bass, shimmer and ring -- beneath the melody, in a way that I haven't picked out when listening to recordings. And there's an ominous undercurrent, not of evil but of inhumanity, in The Swan of Tuonela (which always makes me think of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's dark little story, 'Swan Song'). ... In the final movement, Lemminkäinen's Return, I'm sure I picked out a cheerier version of the Totentanz theme.
The programme was originally due to include Brahms' Piano Concerto #1, which I adore and which is not performed often enough: but Helene Grimaud had been ill, and so Beethoven Piano Concerto #5 (Emperor) was substituted. It is a glorious piece, but I've heard it performed many times and this wasn't in my top five. There were points when Grimaud's playing felt frantic, and others (second movement) where it seemed almost mechanical, too regular. Salonen's heart didn't seem to be in it, either: his conducting was urbane, restrained, orderly.
Luckily the Beethoven was bracketed by Sibelius: Finlandia to start, always rousing and exuberant, and Lemminkäinen in the second half. Only Finns should be allowed to conduct Sibelius, we conclude: Salonen was by turns exuberant, triumphant and beatific, driving the music onward. In Lemminkäinen I really noticed the percussion -- rumbling bass, shimmer and ring -- beneath the melody, in a way that I haven't picked out when listening to recordings. And there's an ominous undercurrent, not of evil but of inhumanity, in The Swan of Tuonela (which always makes me think of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's dark little story, 'Swan Song'). ... In the final movement, Lemminkäinen's Return, I'm sure I picked out a cheerier version of the Totentanz theme.
