Monday night's concert marked Osmo Vänskä's final appearance
as Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish SO after six highly successful
years, and the Albert Hall was packed out to hear him conduct an appropriately
Nordic programme, including Nielsen's Fourth, and most popular, Symphony
and Sibelius's well-loved late symphonic poem ‘Tapiola’. With the BBCSSO
on superb form, Vänskä's work in Minnesota will be eagerly
anticipated.
‘Tapiola’, Sibelius's last major composition, spans 20 minutes but is
built on a single, simple theme which lends itself perfectly to multiple
transformations. From the first bar Vänskä directed a wonderfully
spacious yet highly disciplined performance. After the expansive, almost
languid beginning, brass salvos and relentless string pizzicatos winched
up the tension magnificently, and the piece progressed as a perfectly
organic whole.
Equally organic in its through-composed structure, Nielsen's Fourth
Symphony (1914-16) depicts 'the elemental will of life' and contains
much of the energy and zest of the composer's Third Symphony. But it
also reflects Nielsen's growing uncertainty about his cherished idea
of nation, as well as the more personal crisis of separation from his
wife, and the struggle between the life force and other, darker forces
continues right up to the work's triumphant ending. Some critics have
found the continual stylistic contrasts too blatant, and it is a difficult
work to bring off. But tonight's thrillingly convincing performance
was a triumph for Vänskä and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,
whose youthful verve and freshness of response belied the immense discipline
of their playing.
Nordic wastes gave way to the Viennese salon for the middle work, Mozart's
A major Piano Concerto, K488 - for many his most perfect example of
the genre. Yet this elegant work, too, is shot through with pathos,
and the juxtaposition of light and shade. Seasoned Mozartian Stephen
Hough gave a masterful account, his crystal-clear articulation and sensitivity
to the shape of each phrase coupled with a cantabile that few can match.
The orchestra's lush, full-bodied accompaniment paid particularly close
attention to orchestral colours and textures. If Hough played the Allegro
absolutely straight, his own zany, yet rather refreshing cadenza was
anything but. His sublimely poetic line in the Adagio, answered by a
melting clarinet line was rounded off by a surprisingly punchy, extrovert
finale.
Sarah Dunlop
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