Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Usher Hall - 23/04/23
Eva Ollikainen, conductor | Stephen Hough, piano
The latest instalment in the Sunday Classics series of afternoon concerts at the Usher Hall welcomed the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, on tour under its Finnish Chief Conductor, Eva Ollikainen, with illustrious guest soloist Sir Stephen Hough, in a programme of works by Thorvaldsdóttir, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, on 23rd April. The concert was very well-attended. As its advertised start time coincided with the mobile phone network alarm signal test, the start was delayed to allow the noisy event to conclude.
There was a pre-concert talk in the form of an interview with Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, affording an opportunity to meet the composer of the opening work of the programme, ‘Metacosmos’. Extremely petite, dark-haired, with eyes that suggest a depth of self-knowledge driving an intense creativity, Anna spoke candidly about her music. Though her compositions often stem from a non-musical metaphor, essential to her creative process, her music is neither descriptive nor programmatic. It is the structural elements of the metaphor that drive the structural elements of the music. The starting points for ‘Metacosmos’ were the idea of falling into a black hole, and the idea that beauty could arise naturally out of chaos. The music evokes the sensation of being drawn by irresistible forces, surrendering to them and emerging into a beautiful alternative reality. I asked whether, like many composers in the past, she is tempted to revise her compositions. She said that she only delivers a piece to the performers when she is certain it is finished. Thereafter, “it is not my piece; it is ours”. Well, ‘Metacosmos’ in performance was indeed everything she said it was, and I am now a massive fan of Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, eager to be transported on her forthcoming musical journeys – a second string quartet and a cello concerto are in the pipeline.
The most popular of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerti, No. 2, with Stephen Hough as soloist, was the central work of the programme. A storehouse of rich, passionate, romantic melody, sweeping the listener along in its irresistible flow, it is always a joy to hear in performance, but with a virtuosic master of expression of Stephen Hough’s calibre and a sympathetic orchestra and conductor ‘in the zone’, it can be truly sublime, and indeed it was. Phrasing and rubato were all elegantly judged, with horns, cellos and violas really shining in the first movement. The Adagio sostenuto was suffused with tenderness, with fine solos from principal flute Thomas Hancox and principal clarinet Arngunnur Árnadóttir, and glorious tone from the muted strings. The finale, played attacca, with passages of glittering bravura brilliance alternating with one of Rachmaninov’s very best ‘Big Tunes’, was everything it should be and more, the violas being particularly radiant in the first occurrence of the ‘Big Tune’. It was a superb performance and the Usher Hall erupted with enthusiastic applause. This prompted an encore, introduced as “the best work written by a Prime Minister”, Paderewski’s Nocturne in B-flat major, Op. 16 No. 4, its tranquillity a perfect foil for the passionate Rachmaninov.
Less than 48 hours after I had wallowed in the RSNO’s Pathétique in the same hall, the concert concluded with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, sustaining and indeed magnifying the impression that Iceland is a small country that is more than pulling its weight in achieving musical excellence. The salient thematic focus of Tchaikovsky’s last three great symphonies, the inescapability of fate, received its fullest expression. Maestra Ollikainen chose unhurried tempi that gave space for that expression and the players responded with playing that drew the rapt audience into the composer’s emotionally-charged world. Not that the energy-charged passages lacked excitement – these too thrilled with particularly fine agile brass playing. Principal horn Stefán Jón Bernharðsson’s solo at the beginning of the slow movement had just the right measure of serene melancholy, a perfect contrast to the emotional grief-stricken outburst at the centre of the movement. The Valse third movement offered a brief respite from the emotional turmoil, though it does not escape the recurring fate motif that started the piece on solo clarinet and resurfaces in every movement. The finale, played attacca, starts with the motif in a majestic march, suggestive of stoic acceptance of fate, but this is soon subverted by a foray back into the storm of passions. The final appearance of the fate motif, far from triumphant, is grotesque and self-mocking. The last four hammer blows which end the coda seal the tortured spirit in a coffin.
In the last of many recalls to the platform to acknowledge the tumultuous applause, bringing the various soli and sections to their feet, Eva Ollikainen quelled the applause and addressed the audience, thanking them for the warm Edinburgh welcome and announcing that the Icelanders feel that “Scottish people are our soulmates in Europe”, bidding us a fond farewell with a final encore: a short serene piece for string orchestra by Icelandic composer (and the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor) Daníel Bjarnason. Slowly shifting string chords of gradually rising intensity accompany a cantabile melody played solo in turn by principal cellist Sigurgeir Agnarsson, principal viola Rita Porfiris, Leader of the Second Violins Páll Palomares and finally Leader of the Orchestra Sigrún Eðvaldsdóttir. Very moving and a perfect end to an afternoon of superb music making.