A debut and a swansong: Paavo Järvi and the Philharmonia play three core classics
Bachtrack
10 November 2025
https://bachtrack.com/review-jarvi-baeva-brahms-bruch-sibelius-philharmonia-london-november-2025Paavo Järvi conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in three orchestral favourites at 3pm on a bleak Sunday – small wonder that London’s Royal Festival Hall looked full. Nothing too challenging for the audience, but familiarity is no guarantee of a compelling performance and can even have the reverse effect, producing only a day-at-the-office routine.
Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn was here given the usual title nowadays of Variations on the St Anthony Chorale, a title the composer never used, denying Haydn’s slender but never disproven claim to have written the tune. Why not stay with the composer’s own title, familiar over many decades to millions? Musicology can be a mixed blessing. But it is a splendid piece, whatever we call it. Järvi and his players did justice to each of the variations, whether lyrical or brilliant, at least up to the over-hasty scurrying of the penultimate Variation 8. The programme note referred to this passage as “breathless”... maybe Järvi had read it! But Brahms warns the conductor non troppo, and presumably wants us to follow his counterpoint, but the frantic pace occluded the inner parts. The remarkable passacaglia final variation was. however, quite impressive enough to restore musical order.
Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor saw distinguished violinist Alena Baeva making her belated Philharmonia debut. One can only assume she is so much in demand that the orchestra had to join a long queue – but it was well worth the wait. “A perennial presence in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame” stated the programme of Bruch’s work and here was a performance to justify its place on that list. Most soloists can tickle the ear with the opening of the work’s Vorspiel, but Baeva offered another level of sweetness of tone and elegance of phrasing, which persisted through the whole work. In the turbulent passages Järvi gave the orchestra its head but Baeva responded with plenty of firepower of her own. Formidable technical challenges simply became vehicles for expression, the focus remaining on the music even more than on its dazzling execution. The work’s stirring finale saw the tired old warhorse gallop to a triumphant conclusion. This debutant should be invited back soon, to play whatever concerto she wants. She announced her encore (thank you!), the Polish Capriceof Grażyna Bacewicz, and dispatched its hair-raising difficulties with aplomb.
The horn call and woodwind solos that launch Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony are often likened to a sunrise, and certainly make a distinctive start to a symphonic journey. They were not all absolutely immaculate here, but did suggest that feeling of emergence and measured growth central to the work’s processes. The oboes, a trademark sound in this work, were piercingly noble, and the long bassoon solo beautifully played. The climb to the big climax, where the sound – or the sun – reaches its zenith, was powerfully achieved. At moments the brass outbursts tumbled over from rousing to raucous, but were still exciting in the swift close to the first movement, aided by the very athletic strings.
Sibelius wrote in his diary that the sight of sixteen swans circling above his lakeside home was “One of the great experiences of my life! God, how beautiful”. That inspired the ‘swan motif’ of the finale, a simple but memorable horn ostinato, circling round and round like that swan squadron in its homage to the great Finn. Järvi drove on to a mighty climax at the return of the home key and a coda of brazen splendour and exultant authority.
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