KVT – Sibelius Supreme

KVT celebrates the Finns, Danes, Japanese and VNSO

Excellent night at the Opera House on Saturday.

Anyone familiar with Dame Edna Everage would have found delightful similarities between that famous stage personality and excellent guest conductor of the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, Yasuo Shinozaki from Japan. Like the Dame would have done, he waited on his podium with poised baton, raised eyebrows and a slightly bemused quizzical expression aimed directly at the few tardy and impolite patrons who had the temerity to try and find their seats in the semi dark. I half expected him to do a Dame Edna and, bitingly, welcome them to the performance, ask their names, comment disparagingly on their clothes, and generally embarrass them…as they fully deserved.

Excellent, I thought!

With the tardy ones seated, after tripping over themselves in the dark and treading on the toes or poking their bottoms in the faces of those they had to pass by, he launched the orchestra into a really excellent playing of Danish composer, Carl Nielsen’s ‘Aladdin Suite’ which is probably Nielsen’s most popular work. It’s said that this version of music from the Middle East set the tone for soundtracks of just about every Western movie that delved into the fictional intrigue, mystery and romanticism of that part of the world.

It was one of the most excellent openings I’ve yet to hear the VNSO deliver…great percussion work to get our ears up and our blood pounding.

The feature of the night was really excellent Japanese violinist, Kayuhiro Takagi, playing Sibelius’ Violin concerto. This piece places huge technical difficulties before the soloist but as soon as the diminutive Takagi bowed the first bit you knew you were listening to a winner. The first movement was an emotive ride and just when you thought it couldn’t get dramatically better along comes the second movement with the plaintive, yearning violin solo, suddenly emphasised by the big drums and a little later so beautifully underscored by the bassoons. Then the woodwinds playing beneath the high pitched, almost gypsy wail….wonderful all the way through!

And doesn’t Sibelius do wonderful bits for the timpani! They beat a heady opening for the third movement and sometimes they seemed to pulse through it like a healthy heart beat. And as the violin shouted a joyous last note you couldn’t help but want to jump to your feet and clap Takagi for a long time….which a lot of us did and were rewarded with a encore of Bach’s very beautiful Largo.

Sibelius was a great hero for the Finns, especially after his 1899 ‘Finlandia’ which brought him to the attention of the Western music world and made him an icon worthy of a lifetime pension. He composed stirring nationalistic music at a time when Finns were struggling to break the shackles bound about them by conquering Swedes and Russians. I guess just about everything he composed the Finns may have ascribed it some nationalistic meaning. When he composed his second symphony in Italy in 1901/02 as, some say, a praise of summer and the joy of living, in Helsinki it was called a Liberation Symphony and forever it’s been sort of stuck somewhere between the two poles in listeners minds.

Whatever, it’s a glorious piece and was nicely played by the VNSO. Lots of good places for the horns and woodwinds to show their proficiency. The second movement that starts off with the double basses plucking the tune throwing it to the cellos and taking it back again, joined by the bassoons, then by the other winds and horns, is almost too good to be true and you feel a bit of regret when the violins are allowed to come in, all mellow and fruity, and take control. I love it at the end when the brass and drums come out slightly tops.

I always call the last section, where movement 3 and 4 meld together, the great symphonic teaser. The theme that you exit the concert hall whistling and humming is peacefully presented after a frenetic twirl, swells up, retreats, takes you over again, almost fades away, promises to come again but never quite does, never completely plays itself to a conclusion, and always moves me to tears.

The finale is completely electric with the timpani and trumpets drawing all to a blaring, triumphal conclusion (as they certainly did on Saturday).

It was called a Scandinavian night but I know a few Finns who may bridle at the thought of being labelled part of Scandinavia, preferring to be Nordic…but Sibelius was done proud!

Excellent work VNSO!