Vänskä/Minnesota Orchestra Reveal Genius of Sibelius in Carnegie Concert

Last night's performance by Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra at Carnegie Hall of the last two symphonies by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was truly revelatory, especially in terms of the neglected and underplayed 6th Symphony.  The 7th Symphony is already pretty well accepted in the pantheon of great 20th century symphonic works, but the 6th needs some extra advocacy, and Vänskä is the man to provide it, especially with the excellent orchestra he brought to Carnegie Hall last night.

The Minnesota Orchestra, which used to be known in its earlier days as the Minneapolis Symphony, was long known as a very good regional orchestra, but under Vänskä's leadership it has developed into a band of the very first rank, as its Beethoven symphony recordings released on the BIS label over the past several years make clear.  But last night's Sibelius 6th performance surpasses anything I've heard from them in the past.  Every section of the orchestra was simply glorious, and Vänskä's insight into this music is unsurpassed in my experience.  (My experience includes having heard performances conducted by Sir Colin Davis, both in Boston with the BSO in the 1970s and in New York with the LSO more recently, and 17 different recordings, including Vänskä's prior go at this piece in his complete cycle with the Lahti Symphony for BIS.)  None of those prior experiences quite prepared me for the impact of last night's performance.

I sometimes refer to the 6th as the symphony without codas.  In each of the four movements, Sibelius says what he has to say and then stops, rather abruptly.  I recall the first time I heard this piece, in Boston, being startled when the first movement ended.  No preparation is made, no slowing down or broadening out... the music just stops, and Sibelius repeats this in each of the following movements.  Perhaps he was in process of evolving to the 7th Symphony which is in one continuous movement with various episodes blending into each other, and as part of that evolution decided to jettison conventional movement-ending tropes in his 6th.  I wonder whether these somewhat awkward-feeling unprepared movement-endings help to explain why the work is underplayed?  Do conductors feel stymied?  (Eugene Ormandy reportedly refused to play or record this piece, or the 3rd Symphony, on the grounds that he didn't "understand" them... a major loss, since his recordings of the other symphonies are superb.  Herbert von Karajan's uncompleted cycle on DG was filled out by Kamu's recordings of the 3rd and 6th; perhaps von K also was puzzled by the 6th.  Bernstein's recording of the 6th with the NYP is one of the highlights of his cycle, but I don't think it has quite the extraordinary insight of Vänskä's rendition last night.  Maybe it really takes a Finnish conductor to do justice to this music.)

What would have made last nights performance even more effective, I speculate, would have been to continue on to the 7th Symphony without any pause (and with a note in the program asking the audience to hold its applause).  I believe that these last two Sibelius symphonies, which were written in tandem and premiered barely more than a year apart, are really just two chapters in a larger epic, and many of the musical materials in the 6th resurface in the 7th, albeit in different contexts.  (I also hear echoes of earlier Sibelius symphonies in both works, especially the 3rd and 4th...)   I would compare the potential effect to what Seiji Ozawa has achieve in the past by linking Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales with La Valse in performance, where the very quiet beginning of La Valse picks up naturally (and with no jarring key-shift) after the final dying-away notes of the Valses Nobles...   I think the same sort of extraordinary effect could be achieved by immediately transitioning to that opening tympani tap of the 7th as the last note of the 6th is quietly dying away.  That would be incredibly powerful.

Considered on its own, the performance of the 7th was also at the highest level of expressivity, and MO principal trombone R. Douglas Wright deserved his solo bow for his performance of the famous trombone solos that recur in this piece.

Vänskä followed up the symphonies with the only possible encore: Sibelius' Valse triste, from the incidental music to Kuolema.  The ability of this large, virtuosic orchestra to play very, very quietly with sustained intensity was moving and impressive.

Prior to intermission, we had an excellent performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili as soloist.  This did not make quite so strong an impression on me.  Batiashvili played excellently, and Vänskä and the orchestra provided a superb accompaniment, but I did not feel especially transported by any sort of new insights.  It was in that sense a routinely-excellent presentation of the Beethoven Concerto of the type we have come to expect from young virtuosi performing with major orchestras in leading concert halls.  Such a performance is always welcome, and I look forward to hearing this violinist again in the future in less frequently-played repertory.  Her new recording on DG includes the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, perhaps less frequently played than the Beethoven, but a work that is becoming a standard that many of the young virtuosi are playing and recording and so hardly underexposed.  I would encourage her to add some less-frequently-played concerti to her repertory, although I understand that when a young violinist is given a showcase performance with a major conductor and orchestra at Carnegie, the pressure to play one of the handful of the most celebrated core repertory concerti is huge, and that young soloists may not have much bargaining power when an orchestra offers a concerto date and specifies their short list of acceptable works.

Great news:  BIS has decided to remake the Sibelius Symphony cycle with Vänskä in Minnesota, where he recently extended his contract as music director through 2015.  His earlier recorded cycle with the Lahti orchestra was and is superb, but recording technology has advanced and the Minnesota Orchestra is a bigger, more virtuosic band that can provide a sonic depth and virtuosity beyond what the Lahti players could produce for that earlier cycle.  I can't wait to start hearing the results. 

Comments

[thousandfoldecho]

We were at the same concert, and heartily concur with your assessment. (Those pianissimi in Valse triste were wonderful.) Thanks for an excellent review; if you're interested, our thoughts on the concert are at thousandfoldecho.com.