SIBELIUS COMPLETE SYMPHONIES III / The Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

SIBELIUS COMPLETE 

SYMPHONIES III 

The Philharmonic Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (3 March 2024) 

This review was reviewed in The Straits Times on 5 March 2024 with the title "Philharmonic Orchestra's perfect end to near-perfect Sibelius symphony cycle". 

Part Three of The Philharmonic Orchestra’s complete cycle of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ seven symphonies was a bit of unfinished business left over from the Covid-19 pandemic. Having performed the first four symphonies in 2019, this final concert of the last three symphonies was originally scheduled for a date in March 2020 when the virus intervened. 

Lim Yau addresses the audience,
thanking them for choosing
Sibelius over Swift.

This was a classic case of “better late than never”, as the young musicians and their highly experienced Music Director Lim Yau being four years older, were also wiser as well. While this orchestra may be considered “old hands” in Sibelius, having completed its first cycle in 2007-2008, there cannot have been more than a handful of players from 16 years ago onstage this time around. 

Symphony No.5 in E flat major (Op.82) got off to a rocky start when French horns spilt the notes of the spread-out opening chord. The ship had to be steadied straight away, and the recovery was a nervy one. With the end of the introduction and into the Allegro proper, an even keel was maintained. That was when the music broadened, and a palpable sense of release from the earlier tension. 

By the central slow movement, the ensemble was a well-oiled machine, creating the expectant atmosphere for the finale’s prestidigitation of strings and sonorous sequence of bell-like French horn chorales. The build-up to the valedictory close was also excellent, and the closing chords suitably emphatic. 

Symphony No.6 in D minor (Op.104) followed after the intermission. For this least performed, least neurotic and most underrated of symphonies, the orchestra gave the best case possible. Its sunshine-filled opening was a showcase for high strings, and with the entry of woodwinds, the music radiated the warmth and clarity of fresh spring water in summer. 

Despite its minor key, the optimistic vibes were unmistakable, undimmed even with brass interjections and growling low strings. Lightness and litheness of textures were maintained through its four movements, up to the unassumingly hushed close. 

As persuasive as the Sixth had been, it played out like a prelude to Symphony No.7 in C major (Op.105) that followed almost immediately. Arguably the consummation of Sibelius’ mastery of the symphonic form, its 22 minutes constituted the shortest symphony by far, but was also his longest unbroken single movement. This paradox found fertile soil in the ever-resourceful minds of Lim and his charges. Something almost as mundane as its opening scale, rising from the depths, was made to sound vital. The dissonances and ambiguous tonality kept the mind guessing before finally brassily resolving in a reassuring C major. From there, the performance never looked back. 

The scherzo-like central section, both agitated and playful, provided much-needed contrast, then culminating in one almighty Mahlerian super-chord at the climax. This ensemble showed exactly why Sibelius never brought out an eighth symphony. Seldom has a final C major chord sounded this glorious or definitive, the perfect end to a near-perfect symphony cycle.   

 

ERIK T. TAWASTSTJERNA Piano Recital / Review

ERIK T. TAWASTSTJERNA Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Wednesday (2 March 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 March 2016 with the title "Perfect Finnish to a memorable outing".

If the name Erik Tawaststjerna sounded familiar, that is because he was the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius' most important biographer. Erik T. Tawaststjerna is his pianist son, who is Head of Piano Studies in Helsinki's Sibelius Academy. Very appropriately, the first half of the younger Tawaststjerna's piano recital was devoted wholly to Finnish music.

Two of Magnus Lindberg's six Jubilees opened the evening, immersing the ears with plangent chords and sequences of fluid running notes. Although atonal in conception, there was  an unusual warmth to the 6^th Jubilee, which dissolved into the fidgety triplets of the 3rd Jubilee, almost a study of virtuosic fingerwork.

The survey of miniatures continued into Sibelius' five Esquisses (Sketches), his last works for the piano, contemporaneous with the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies. If the 1^st and 5^th of these resembled bagatelles, it was three central pieces – titled Winter Scene, Forest Lake and Forest Song – that came across like granite-like fragments hewn from his mighty symphonies and tone poems. The austere harmonies and chilling demeanour of themes were classic Sibelius, persuasively brought out by a specialist who has recorded the composer's complete piano output.

Altogether lighter was Sibelius' own transcription of his popular strings hit, Valse Triste from incidental music to the play Kuolema. A gentle waltz rhythm, melancholic melody and spectral swirling figures contributed to its sickly sweet scent. Far from being the unwitting salon favourite, this was a work about death. Despite Tawaststjerna's ardent advocacy on the keyboard, one somehow misses those sobbing strings.

The first half concluded with Einojuhani Rautavaara's Second Sonata (1970), also known as the Fire Sermon. Its three movements were tonal. Aggressive ostinatos in the 1^st movement were reminiscent of Bartok even if hints of melody were allowed to escape from the cauldron, contrasted with the lyricism of the slow movement which had acerbic stings of its own. A furious fugue completed the 10-minute piece, distinguished by striking chordal resonances by allowing the strings to go undampered for a few more seconds.

Familiar music occupied the second half, beginning with the Six Musical Moments of Franz Schubert. Within these short intimate pieces, the Austrian composer invested a whole world of moods and emotions, which Tawaststjerna keenly brought out.

The tensions and inner angst of his Lieder were never far away from the song-like numbers, contrasted by the polka-rhythm of No.3 (a popular encore), Bach-like figurations of No.4 and the outright fury of No.5. It was the longing nostalgia of the final piece, wonderfully captured, which made this outing memorable.

The Fireworks in Chopin's “Heroic” Polonaise (Op.53) were the sonorous antidote to too much pensiveness, and Tawaststjerna's stunning control in the stampeding octave sequence as the music threatened to boil over was one to be remembered. 

His encore of Sibelius' Finlandia, in a gratifyingly blustery transcription by the composer, full of chords, octaves and tremolos - provided the perfect Finnish finish.      

Post concert: Tawaststjerna meets with YST piano students
and the piano duo of Low Shao Ying & Shao Suan.