United Kingdom Sibelius, Lindberg, Shostakovich: Christian Lindberg (trombone), Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 2.11.2025. (AV-E)
Sibelius – Finlandia
Christian Lindberg – Trombone Concerto No.4, ‘Golden Eagle’
Shostakovich – Fifth Symphony (1937)
Before the concert started, Michael Fuller (double bass) announced that the Philharmonia Orchestra were just back from their 80th birthday celebration US tour (review here) ‘exhausted but energised’ and that the theme of the concert was ‘identity’: personal identity, spiritual identity, and national identity, as portrayed by the programme’s composers: Sibelius, Lindberg, and Shostakovich. We were left with the question: were the closings bars of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony meant to express a ‘victorious triumph’ or a ‘hollow triumph’?
The ‘identity’ of Sibelius’s Finlandia, dubbed ‘his hymn to his homeland’, was not ‘Nationalist’, but rather ‘Naturist’, as nature portrayed in its primordial nakedness refreshingly free from people. The galvanised and gleaming Philharmonia played Finlandia with gusto and panache with the sonorous brass gleaming and stupendous strings swooning, with conductor enlisting the spirit of nature from his platooning players; not forgetting the intrepid timpanist, Håkon Kartveit, who played with incisive verve.
Christian Lindberg’s extravagant and exuberant Trombone Concert No.4, ‘Golden Eagle’, was commissioned by the Taipei Symphony Orchestra in 2010 and dedicated to their conductor, Gilbert Varga, and it is divided into three sections, each separated by a monologue-cadenza which has its own distinctive voice. Lindberg does not ‘identify’ with his trombone: he is his trombone as it is one of his limbs, and not an appendage: his vice is his trombone’s voice: they are one.
‘Golden Eagle’ is a kaleidoscope of tones, sounds, colours, moods: I never knew that the trombone could produce so many voices and noises, from sneezing to croaking, from laughing to farting, for this work was full of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ humour, often causing an attentive and animated audience to ‘laugh-out-loud’ (as they say).
Rather unusual for ‘contemporary’ composers, Christian Lindberg actually has his ‘own identity’ – a voice of his own – and not at all derivative of other composers, as tediously customary in ‘contemporary’ music. Lindberg’s Trombone Concert No.4, is a mesmerising masterpiece and was warmly received by an enthused audience.
The elegantly elfistical Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducted a completely flawless performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony (subtitled ‘A Soviet artist’s practical, creative reply to just criticism’) with all tempos correctly judged from beginning to end: accents, clarity, phrasing, and dynamic range were exceptionally well-judged eliciting a highly charged emotional intensity from his immaculately tuned world-class orchestra.
The trenchantly weighty cellos and double basses opened the Moderato with a gritty thrusting intensity that set the scene for the gloom and doom to come; notable throughout was the incisive nailing intensity of the timpanist and the glowing brass: world-class playing again.
Rouvali conducted the Allegretto, an uncouth waltz, with the appropriate lilting grace and buoyant swagger with the influence of Mahler clearly evident; here Rouvali conducted with gracefully balletic movements where every economic gesture was for the players and not just for show.
The eternally lingering Largo was profoundly moving and cloyingly concentrated with the woodwind sounding soulful whilst wondering withdrawn into a wasteland wilderness, with harp and strings sounding mournfully melancholic; the superlative strings secreted the suffering of Shostakovich: we could share and feel his pain through their poignant playing.
The concluding Allegro non troppo again was perfectly paced and exquisitely executed: the concluding passages were overwhelming with the timpani and strings and concluding bass drum thwacks bringing the score home to a ‘hollow victory’.
There has been a long drawn-out debate concerning the tempo of the closing bars of the Fifth; some conductors draw out the bass drum thuds to emphasise the emptiness of the ending (without end); whilst others take it quicker yet still maintaining the appropriate sense of hollowness.
Kurt Masur with the London Philharmonic Orchestra is far too slow and sluggish here and it just all falls apart. I love Kurt Sanderling’s measured, grandiose conclusion that adds that extra sense of dread (‘live’ Concertgebouw Orchestra, 1999). For, by having the bass drum strokes slightly apart, the ‘empty’ space between each thud increases the intensity of the emptiness of that thud.
Renowned music critic, Rob Pennock made an apt comparison between the closing of the Shostakovich Fifth to the closing of the March movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony: ‘It is actually like the Pathétique’s third movement March which desperately seeks but never finds triumph.’ [via personal email]. On this occasion, those hard-dry bass drum thwacks were perfectly paced in expressing the ‘hollow triumph’ that concluded the Fifth Symphony.
Having said that, this concert was a resounding triumph with the appreciative audience enthralled and exhilarated.
Alexander Verney-Elliott
Featured Image: Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall © Mark Allan