Review: BBCSO/Järvi
Here we go! Geoff Brown of The Times (London) reviews last week's concert at the Barbican Centre:
First Night reviews
February 26, 2005
BBCSO/Järvi
Geoff Brown at the Barbican
* * * * stars
CONFIDENCE and command, exultation at music’s power: you felt these at almost every turn in this concert. They were there in every sweep of Paavo Järvi’s baton and left arm; in each department of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in the sombre beauty of Truls Mørk’s cello. And don’t forget the composers’ richness of thought and design, especially with Nielsen and the contemporary Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür encountered on top form.
Tüür’s Aditus gave us nine meaty minutes of brilliantly individual, chiselled sounds, marked by contrary motions, motifs and textures, and steps climbing to Heaven or descending to the grave — destinations fitting for a piece dedicated to the composer’s late teacher, Lepo Sumera. Finished in 2000, revised two years later, this fizzing account was its London premiere; considering its marvels, not a day too late.
For another miniature, by Arvo Pärt, Mørk returned with the beautiful cello we earlier met in Schumann’s concerto — a sleeping beauty of a work that should be woken more often. Absorbed in his fingering and passions, Mørk sometimes looks like a harried man who has lost his house keys. With Pärt’s Pro et contra, how his worries rocketed.
Gnomic, jagged as broken glass, this mischievous little piece from the mid-1960s pitches the soloist into a madhouse, strewn with the wreckage of colliding styles. Mørk’s fingers slapped wood; gestures led nowhere; musical history became crushed in a blender. An exhilarating novelty, if nothing else.
And then Nielsen’s Fifth, the side-drum symphony from the early 1920s, a wrestling match between war and peace. This was the night’s biggest triumph. Järvi’s command was total as he ferreted out instrumental colours that other conductors miss and controlled the tensions so tightly that their release often left you winded.
I loved the acid gargle of Richard Hosford’s clarinet, snaking its way across Nielsen’s wasteland. But the performance wasn’t all devastation: the strings applied plenty of soul and silk as speeds and dynamics dropped and light peeked over the horizon. War may have given us a battering, but this was an interpretation, and a BBC concert, to send us out hopeful, and beaming.
First Night reviews
February 26, 2005
BBCSO/Järvi
Geoff Brown at the Barbican
* * * * stars
CONFIDENCE and command, exultation at music’s power: you felt these at almost every turn in this concert. They were there in every sweep of Paavo Järvi’s baton and left arm; in each department of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, in the sombre beauty of Truls Mørk’s cello. And don’t forget the composers’ richness of thought and design, especially with Nielsen and the contemporary Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür encountered on top form.
Tüür’s Aditus gave us nine meaty minutes of brilliantly individual, chiselled sounds, marked by contrary motions, motifs and textures, and steps climbing to Heaven or descending to the grave — destinations fitting for a piece dedicated to the composer’s late teacher, Lepo Sumera. Finished in 2000, revised two years later, this fizzing account was its London premiere; considering its marvels, not a day too late.
For another miniature, by Arvo Pärt, Mørk returned with the beautiful cello we earlier met in Schumann’s concerto — a sleeping beauty of a work that should be woken more often. Absorbed in his fingering and passions, Mørk sometimes looks like a harried man who has lost his house keys. With Pärt’s Pro et contra, how his worries rocketed.
Gnomic, jagged as broken glass, this mischievous little piece from the mid-1960s pitches the soloist into a madhouse, strewn with the wreckage of colliding styles. Mørk’s fingers slapped wood; gestures led nowhere; musical history became crushed in a blender. An exhilarating novelty, if nothing else.
And then Nielsen’s Fifth, the side-drum symphony from the early 1920s, a wrestling match between war and peace. This was the night’s biggest triumph. Järvi’s command was total as he ferreted out instrumental colours that other conductors miss and controlled the tensions so tightly that their release often left you winded.
I loved the acid gargle of Richard Hosford’s clarinet, snaking its way across Nielsen’s wasteland. But the performance wasn’t all devastation: the strings applied plenty of soul and silk as speeds and dynamics dropped and light peeked over the horizon. War may have given us a battering, but this was an interpretation, and a BBC concert, to send us out hopeful, and beaming.
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