United Kingdom Saariaho, Beethoven, Prokofiev: Ning Feng (violin), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra / Emilia Hoving (conductor). Lighthouse, Poole 14.2.2024. (CK)
Saariaho – Ciel d’hiver
Beethoven – Violin Concerto
Prokofiev – Romeo and Juliet Suite No.2
Where would classical music be without the Finns? For decades now their homeland has been exporting a steady stream of conductors and instrumentalists – composers, too – who have conquered the musical world: and here at the helm of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra was Emilia Hoving, thirty this year, already with quite a reputation; a conductor of energy and charm, a winning manner, broad gestures and a clear beat.
It was both fitting and touching that she brought with her music by her compatriot Kaija Saariaho, who died a few months ago: Ciel d’hiver (Winter Sky), an arrangement of a movement from her orchestral work Orion. A gentleman sitting behind me described it (unflatteringly) as ‘noise’: and in a sense he is right. Saariaho’s music is not an easy listen – less accessible, for instance, than that of her Finnish contemporary Magnus Lindberg: it can sound remote. She was influenced in Paris by the so-called Spectralist music of Gérard Grisey – derived, if I have understood aright, from sophisticated computer analysis of overtones. The ever-opinionated Norman Lebrecht wrote of a piece by Grisey that it was likely to lull its 33 players to sleep (to say nothing of the audience): Alex Ross, in his wonderful book The Rest is Noise (that word again), remarks more perceptively that ‘Spectralism is often just a step or two removed from the singing and shimmering textures of Debussy and Ravel.’
So it was here. My wife and I lived in Orkney for the best part of a decade: on a clear winter’s night we had only to step out the door of our isolated farmhouse to see the extra sharpness of the stars, the brilliancy of the Milky Way, and – from time to time – the Merry Dancers (as the Northern Lights are called up there). Listening to Saariaho’s Ciel d’hiver – strangely beautiful in its sounds, and in its shape – was an experience akin to that: thanks, largely, to the quietly intense concentration of conductor and orchestra. Saariaho believed that her music is only completed in performance: here, not long after her death, was one such completion.
In Beethoven’s Violin Concerto the soloist was Ning Feng: very well known, apparently, in his native China, and no stranger to audiences worldwide. He is technically superb – no question of that – and very expressive too: in this work I felt that his playing verged sometimes on preciousness, on gilding the lily – as if he was trying to squeeze more juice out of Beethoven’s notes than is actually there. At one point in the first movement I had the bizarre sensation that the orchestra was playing Beethoven and he was playing Tchaikovsky. The slow movement threatened to become becalmed as he spun a silvery thread of sound, but he set a nice brisk pace for the finale. He was greeted with a storm of applause. He repaid the compliment with the oddest encore I have ever heard: he played the National Anthem (ours, not his), and proceeded to deconstruct it in a series of ever more outlandish variations. It was technically astonishing, and increasingly hilarious: it brought the house down. Party-pooper that I am, I felt that a movement from a Bach Partita would have been equally fine: but when it comes to entertaining a concert audience, Ning Feng nailed it.
Hoving was able to give the orchestra its head in the Suite No.2 from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev’s complete score is one of the miracles of twentieth century music: despite spending forty years teaching English in secondary schools, I would much rather see a production of Prokofiev’s ballet than Shakespeare’s play. After the doom-laden opening and the swagger of Montagues and Capulets, the emotional temperature of this suite is rather lower: but there was plenty to charm and stimulate the ear. The range of colours that Prokofiev obtains from the orchestra is extraordinary: his addition of bass clarinet and tenor saxophone to the woodwinds was especially telling in playing of great delicacy as well as drama. But the final section of the suite – Romeo at the grave of Juliet – brought the concert to an end with some of Prokofiev’s most powerful and emotionally shattering music: the orchestra responded magnificently – if I pick out the baleful horns, climbing high in their register, it is only because their sound is so important to the mood of the music. Everyone made their mark, from flutes to double basses; and nobody writes for the heavy brass quite like Prokofiev does.
I didn’t think I would be saying this, but it is Saariaho’s music that will stay with me, even though I can’t hum a note of it (as we all can the Beethoven and Prokofiev); mind you, try as I may, Ning Feng’s encore will probably be difficult to forget. A couple of bouquets: for me, the concert’s star orchestral player was the principal bassoon, playing with real character; and it was so refreshing to see a conductor walking over to shake the hand of the principal double bass instead of gesticulating at him from the rostrum, and bringing each string section to its feet in turn rather than bringing the whole string body up after doing the rounds of winds, brass and percussion. Bravo Emilia Hoving, and bravo Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. (PS. Some Magnus Lindberg would be good…)
Chris Kettle