While the symphony feels like Sibelius being stuck between two worlds, he is clearly coming into his own here.Įerie textures, explosive dissonances and an almost modern use of the singing voice are just a few things that make this song so exciting. But this risk makes the song even more exciting.
Winter wonders 2017 soundspectrum full#
For an orchestral song, the orchestra is quite large, with two harps, doubled woodswinds and full brass. Luonnotar translates to “Daughter of Nature” and features remarkable excitement in the orchestra. What a fantastic piece this is, and what a shame that it is played so rarely.
Especially the second movement shines in this interpretation, where Sibelius uses Finnish folk tunes to build an atmosphere that suggests something of the country, but never allows you to completely sink into it, like for example Schubert.īut the really exciting part of the concert comes with the first of two songs: Luonnotar, performed by the Finnish Mezzo Helena Juntunen. Sibelius’ music lives through this challenge, the challenge of waiting for and finding out what that phrase in the violins may mean, if it even is its own phrase and not part of something bigger. Finding one’s way through the murky texture and unrealised culminations is not an easy task, and Maestro Saraste is not looking to make it easy. He goes along with the challenge to the listener that is set down in the score. While we had remarkable transparency in Sibelius’ more romantic works a two days ago, Saraste now looks for something slightly less definite. The sound stands in between the romantic sound spectrum of the first two symphonies and between the more advanced Sibelius we will hear later.Maestro Saraste works with the orchestra to fit that range. In this work, Sibelius beings his journey to creating works with that characteristic sense of intense compression. We begin with Sibelius’ Third, a symphony showing Sibelius’ drive to contain a great amount of music and expression in the fewest number of phrases, motifs and other musical attributes. Sibelius’ transitional middle symphonies envelop two short pieces for orchestra and mezzo-soprano, separated by the interval.
While Friday’s concert was more of a conventional setup (short tone poem- soloist- symphony), Maestro Jukka Pekka Saraste and the Orchestra have gone for something different today.
The second and final symphony concert of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra’s Sibelius festival. Final concert at De Doelen in Rotterdam 19th May 2019.
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