United Kingdom Nordic Soundscapes – Sigfúsdóttir, Grieg, Sibelius: Stephen Hough (piano), Johanna Rusanen (soprano), Tommi Hakala (baritone), YL Male Choir, Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Mathias Rouvali (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 26.9.2024. (CC)
María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir – Oceans (2018, London premiere)
Grieg – Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 (1868)
Sibelius – Kullervo, Op.7 (1892)
What a way to start the Philharmonia’s Nordic Soundscapes series.
The music of Maia Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir is remarkable. Booklet note annotator Andrew Mellor also penned a significant book, Nordic Silence (Yale University Press, 2022) in which he explains (p.139) Sigfúsdóttir’s placement: ‘In 2018, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra began to chronicle an outstanding new generation of Icelandic orchestral composers with a series of recordings. Across all three albums, titled Emergence, Recurrence, and Occurrence, are works by composers María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Hlynur Aðils Vilmarsson, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Haukur Tómasson, Thurídur Jónsdóttir, Magnús Blöndal Johansson, Veronique Vaka and Daniel Bjarnason (also the conductor on all three)’. Mellor adds, ‘The vast majority of the scores included are slow by anyone’s definition’. In his programme note here, Mellor describes Sigfúsdóttir as a member of the ‘First Icelandic School – a generation of Millennialist composers whose music tends towards the slow and vaporous, mining atmospheric, beguiling and often spectral sounds from the symphony orchestra that speak of their nation’s topography, weather systems and unavoidable connection to geological timescales’.
Slow and monumental would seem to sum it up. Sigfúsdóttir’s pieces Aequora and Spiral certainly demonstrate this, but Oceans does slow on a more monolithic scale. In Oceans, texture and orchestration sit on an equal footing with harmony, something which seems to emphasise harmonic arrival points. Much of the music shifts, or more accurately transforms slowly into something else. The orchestra is huge (including eight double basses and four percussionists) but the sounds are often hyper-delicate, the high violin beginning, for example superbly sustained by the Philharmonia. For all of its monolithic gestures, though, there is melody at the heart of Oceans. It might be slow-moving, but it emerges as if from a chrysalis, birthed into tonal structures which quickly twist and mutate. The music occasionally ‘arrives’ somewhere, before defocusing again, all held within an austere glacial beauty. There is a moment that seems to point to Wagner, both generally and at one point specifically towards Parsifal (I heard it both in the concert and listening to the YouTube of the world premiere in 2018). Most surprising is a three-note unaccompanied solo tuba that seemed to be of vital significance. So it seemed in Santtu-Mathias Rouvali’s reading, anyway (it seems less so in the world premiere). Rouvali also brought out a rhythm that seems to take on the role of a Bergian Hauptrythmus on bass drum, underlying oceanic swells which move from gloom to radiance. The piece ends quietly, hauntingly, an invitation for us to silently contemplate the magnificence of Gaia’s oceans: so why the instant applause I don’t know. Rouvali set up the perfect atmosphere; this was a fine performance of a significant piece. I look forward to exploring more of Sigfúsdóttir’s music.
My last encounter with Stephen Hough was in the Poly Theatre in Beijing (a programme that included his own Partita for piano). Here, in Grieg, the results were somewhat more mixed. Rouvali showed himself a concerto partner par excellence, with Hough at every micro-juncture. Hough did show much sense of freedom in the first movement, but a few passages revealed he was not completely inside the music as yet; best was the cadenza, a finely wrought and intelligent reading. Interestingly, when Alice Sara Ott played this concerto with the Philharmonia just over a decade ago, it was an interpretation that foregrounded the Lisztian elements of the score; Hough’s solution felt more satisfactory.
The Philharmonia’s muted strings did sound fabulous for the opening of the slow movement, and Jonathan Weigle’s cello sang deeply. This did not feel entirely settled still, and there was surely no need for the attempted applause between the second and last movements (there had been applause also after the first). The finale did exude fresh air, though, a lovely, pointed dance. The brass department felt decidedly trombone-led; in amongst all of this, Hough and Rouvali conspired to create a moment of great peace. One encore, an old favourite: Christian Sinding’s Rustle of Spring, Op.32/3 (most often known by its German title, Frühlingsrauschen), in a most appealing performance.
There were almost zero caveats for the Kullervo though. If I have occasionally harboured doubts as to Rouvali’s premiership of the Philharmonia, this proved that in the right repertoire he is completely and utterly convincing. His grasp of the score was evident throughout – and it is a big score. With large orchestra and lasting some 81 minutes here. The choir was the YL Male Voice Choir: ‘YL’ stands for Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat, Finland’s best-known male voice choir and one of the finest choirs I have ever heard. There is a complete mastery of range (no straining as the voices go up) and perfect balance and timbral mix. Their sound is simply beyond compare.
The Philharmonia rose to the challenges of Sibelius’s huge score. An early work (Sibelius was not yet 30 when he wrote it) it is a celebration of Nordic nationalism and myth. First performed in Helsinki in April 1892 it was a seminal part of Finland’s path to independence. The use of folk-like melodies is no accident when Sibelius returned to Helsinki from Vienna, he visited the folk singer Larin Paraske, notating what he heard.
The long first movement (Introduction) needs a clear head at the helm, and Rouvali paced it superbly, melodies striding along, ebullience present and correct. There is no missing Sibelius’s signature here at times, particularly perhaps in the woodwind writing. This was a very, very powerful statement; the heartachingly muted strings at the opening of the second movement (‘Kullervo’s Youth’), beautifully phased. Again, pacing seemed perfect from Rouvali – perhaps just a touch more intensity would have sealed the deal. But that was more than counterbalanced by the simply superb clarinet solos. Most of all it was the sense of organic growth, a very Sibelian trait, which clinched it, and that emanated from Rouvali’s foresight.
The choir enters in the third movement (‘Kullervo and his Sister’), a narrator with the two soloists as the characters in a tale of incest. If Johanna Rusanen seemed over-vibratoed at first, she did settle, a feisty and strong woman in the story; Tommi Hakala was confident and forthright of voice throughout. Certainly, neither compromised at any point in this performance. Rouvali’s way with the orchestra was to bring out the vividness of the scoring and the vivacity of the music itself; a trait which recurred in the raw dances of the fourth movement (‘Kullervo goes to War’) that transmogrify themselves into something far darker (along with some remarkable scoring, beautifully delivered in Technicolour by the Philharmonia players).
Finally, ’Kullervo’s Death’. Here, the choir took on an almost ritualistic aspect in the repetitions of ‘Kullervo, Kalervon poika’ (‘Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring’). Here, Nature is animated (the grass weeps) and there is a sentient sword that perhaps recalls Wagner’s Nothung. From full dynamic spectrum to silences pregnant with energy, this was an unforgettable conclusion to a performance by the Philharmonia at the height of their powers.
A most memorable evening: a major UK premiere and a Kullervo for the ages.
Colin Clarke