EIF: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Usher Hall - 27/08/22
Oh dear!
Looking at the programme for this concert in the Usher Hall, I was worried that the Helsinki orchestra might struggle to get much of an audience, and I was right. With the Upper Circle closed, I would estimate the hall a little over half full, but not much more. A slightly obscure Sibelius piece, and two contemporary works by little known composers, was either brave or foolhardy!
Not all contemporary pieces are hard to appreciate, with the minimalists to the fore, and tintinnabulists, like Arvo Pärt just across the Baltic, extremely popular.
Sadly however, our two composers today, Kaija Saariaho and Dieter Ammann, are old school modernists, writing music that is hard to understand and often, for me, unbearable to listen to.
As I sat through the first piece, Saariaho’ s ‘Vista’, apparently inspired by driving in southern California, I was reminded that a lot of the contemporary classical music I have heard recently, was described in detail in programme notes in great long paragraphs of psycho-babble, but with little or no apparent relevance to the music I was hearing. I’m afraid this was the case with ‘Vista’. Having dispensed with her normally favoured harp, piano and celeste, Ms Saariaho explains that she had to find a new, special sonority to compensate, but for me screeds of noise accompanied by banks of percussion were not the answer. Composers have tried to fight the good fight against the melodists and tunesmiths of the last 50 years, attempting to persuade us that our lives are so grim that there is no place for beauty and harmony in modern music, but this is surely bunkum! Music that pleases only a tiny minority of the chosen is simply nonsensical, and the road to ruin. Some modern composers have realised this, and indeed the story of Arvo Pärt is evidence of this type of thinking - a wild modernist writing full-on cacophony suddenly seeing the light and transforming his music into something miraculously beautiful. Sadly our two composers tonight are still scrabbling around in the dark.
The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted expertly by Susanna Mälkki, played ‘Vista’ to the hilt, and there was much to admire, but my general feeling was of terrible ennui in the face of a two-part work, slow moving to start with and then more rhythmic in the second part, but largely unfocussed throughout.
As light relief to an extent, we heard Sibelius’s late tone poem, ‘Tapiola’, in the second part of the first half, Mälkki and the orchestra evoking the vast forests and landscapes of Finland. This did show off the splendour of the orchestra, with its sonorous brass, perky woodwind and luscious strings, touring for the first time in a while, and demonstrating its continuing commitment to Finnish music. The HPO was the orchestra which premiered nearly all of Sibelius’s compositions and that tradition continues to the present time.
After the interval, we heard the Piano Concerto by the Swiss composer, Dieter Ammann, with the soloist, Andreas Haefliger, another Swiss, whose father Ernst Haefliger was a notable Evangelist in the Bach Passions. With fantastic technique, and impressive musician’s hair, Mr Haefliger gave an impassioned account of this immensely difficult work. Again the programme notes gave us screeds of information about the piece but they seemed largely at odds with what we heard. I offer a small example - “...even noisy sounds, whereby conventionally tempered tuning meets microtonality, the latter in the form of spectral harmony or quartertones (used as a diminution of tempered chromaticism)”. This is all very well, but what does he mean? Why was it all so loud and disagreeable? Once again, we heard great walls of sound, more bells and drums, xylophones and marimbas, and throughout, Mr Haefliger beating the hell out of the Usher Hall Steinway. Occasional moments of calm and respite left the piano sounding clear and harmonious, only to plunge us back into mayhem again. Mr Haefliger’ s playing was absolutely riveting, and hugely impressive, but in a way, his choice of bright red shirt cuffs made me think that his constant hammering of the Klavier had actually drawn blood! An encore of another piece by Ammann brought the concert to a close. A day which had started with the six Brandenburg concertos of Bach, miracles of musical genius, in the Queen’s Hall ended with a disappointing concert at the Usher Hall, although it must be noted that many in the audience were delighted by the performance, and whooped and yelled their pleasure.
I suppose that sums up my Festival this year. My thoughts and recollections were largely positive, with only a few duds along the way, and despite some quirky programming and odd juxtapositions the positives hugely outweighed the negatives. Someone else will review tomorrow’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’, as it is my least favourite Elgar work (largely my problem!), and I will attempt to sum up my experiences at the beginning of next week, as I look back on the last Festival directed by the estimable Fergus Linehan, who will pass on the baton of responsibility to Nicola Benedetti next year.
Cover photo: Andrew Perry
