Sir Mark Elder is now approaching his thirteenth
season as musical director of the Hallé and has had great success
in building the orchestra’s international reputation. The development
of performance consistency has been the key as it is now extremely rare
to attend a Hallé concert that doesn’t stimulate, satisfy
and delight. Recent double successes in the 2010 and 2011 Gramophone
Awards have demonstrated how the Hallé continue to go from strength
to strength. The orchestra was short-listed as a double finalist in
the 2013 BBC Music Magazine for Wagner’s
Die
Walküre and Elgar’s
The
Apostles with the latter winning the prestigious ‘Recording
of the Year’ award.
For their new release the Hallé has returned to the music of
Sibelius with recordings of the perennially popular
Symphony No.2.
This is coupled with
Pohjola’s Daughter and
The Oceanides,
both
easily accessible works that do not find their way onto the concert
hall programmes as often as their quality deserves. The Hallé
has long been associated with Sibelius. It gave the British première
of the
Symphony No.2 in 1905 under Hans Richter. In 1943 when
Barbirolli took over the Hallé he soon began thrilling audiences
with his interpretations of the
Second
Symphony. I’m sure that many music-lovers will have grown
up with Barbirolli’s excellent Sibelius
EMI
recordings too. Now it’s Elder’s Hallé interpretations
that are taking on the Barbirolli mantle and the major work on this
release is the much loved
Second Symphony. It was
recorded
live at two of the four Bridgewater Hall concerts in September 2012.
I did report from one of those Bridgewater Hall performances but not
one that was recorded.
In 1901 Sibelius wasn’t looking out onto wintry and majestic Finnish
landscapes as he wrote much of his
Symphony No.2. Instead
he
was experiencing the warm climate of Italy primarily in the Mediterranean
coastal town of Rapallo. This must have been a difficult time emotionally
for Sibelius and his wife who had recently lost their youngest daughter
to typhoid fever. Whilst in Italy another daughter had become dangerously
ill. The March 1902 première of the
Second Symphony conducted
by Sibelius in Helsinki was a triumph as Finnish audiences identified
with the patriotic spirit of the music. Sir Mark’s impassioned
performance is totally gripping, generating real excitement. Splendidly
controlled and executed with palpable shape and momentum this is world
class playing. I love the way all the melodic blocks are brought together
to make a compelling outpouring of Finnish nationalistic fervour. The
dark-hued writing of the slow movement
Tempo andante, ma rubato
has emotional weight and the brass fanfares at the heart of the movement
shine out like beacons. The
Vivacissimo exuberance of the
Scherzo
contrasts with its melancholic central section focused around the deeply
felt oboe melody, played gloriously by principal Stéphane Rancourt.
In the
finale the way Sir Mark builds up towards its exultant
conclusion is outstanding with the big patriotic theme sounding astonishingly
full, fresh and powerfully dramatic. Noticeable throughout is how the
homogeneous Hallé strings have developed significant body. They
also possess an appealing silvery timbre that is a match for the finest
orchestras around.
Written between the second and third symphonies,
Sibelius completed
Pohjola's Daughter in 1906. The composer introduced the work
in December that year in St Petersburg conducting the Orchestra of the
Marinsky Theatre. Sibelius provided a programme outline concerning the
epic Kalevala story of Finnish folklore. Väinämöinen,
the wizard hero has to perform a number of heroic labours to win the
hand of the beautiful maiden, daughter of the Northland god, Pohjola.
This Hallé recording of
Pohjola's Daughter was made in
February 2007 under studio conditions at the Bridgewater Hall. In the
hands of principal Nick Trygstad the opening solo cello melody feels
like a religious chant. There is a spicy, pungent aroma suggesting an
almost middle-eastern exoticism and an undercurrent of foreboding is
never far away. Sir Mark adeptly gathers pace, increases weight and
darkens in colour before igniting the dramatic final climax.
Completed by Sibelius in 1914 just prior to finishing his
Fifth Symphony,
the tone poem
The Oceanides was a commission for the Norfolk
Festival in Connecticut. Crossing the Atlantic to première the
work that same year Sibelius undertook much rewriting during the voyage.
It seems that the Greek mythology of Homer was the inspiration behind
The Oceanides not Sibelius’s more usual Finnish legends.
Whatever the motivation Sir Mark draws a vivid potency from the writing,
culminating in a terrific sea storm. A riveting intensity to the brilliant
orchestral playing is marked by blazing brass and colourful woodwind
over a luxuriant bed of strings.
The Oceanides was recorded in
BBC Studio 7, part of the now demolished New Broadcasting House, Oxford
Road, Manchester.
Sir Mark Elder is an inspirational conductor and there aren’t
too many of those around today. Playing with dramatic bite the Hallé
is certainly on its finest form with this all-Sibelius disc. Excellent
sound quality adds to the desirability of this release. As the Sibelius
First and
Third Symphonies were released by the Hallé
and Sir Mark Elder in 2009 (
CDHLL7514)
it is to be hoped that a series of the Sibelius symphonies is in the
offing.
With the current interest in British music gaining hold, fingers crossed
that the symphonies and tone poems of Arnold Bax might be planned for
future Hallé programmes.
Michael Cookson
See also review by
John
Quinn
Masterwork Index:
Sibelius
Symphony 2
