Is there some unwritten law that Finnish conductors must be good at Sibelius? Even thinking of Finns who can be a bit eccentric in other repertoire, they almost all have something interesting to say when it comes to their national composer. Perhaps there’s an expectation among concert planners that Sibelius must run through their bloodstream, but then I can think of a few English conductors I wouldn’t pay to hear in Elgar. Last night at Usher Hall, Helsinki-born Emilia Hoving was the Finn tackling Sibelius – a lively and rewarding account of the Sixth Symphony.
Hoving’s Sibelius credentials are excellent. She studied with the legendary Jorma Panula (among others) and assisted Hannu Lintu at the Finnish Radio Symphony and Mikko Franck at the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. From the very first bars, her purposeful reading of the enigmatic Sixth with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra tingled with life. Textures were crystal clear, reminding one that Sibelius described his symphony as offering the public “pure cold water”.
Allied to a sense of momentum, Hoving demonstrated a fine sense of the work’s disorienting architecture, knitting themes together and managing the tempo transitions expertly. The Allegretto moderato was a flurry of activity, building to an impressive climax. Woodwind details shone through, especially in the Poco vivace third movement, and the finale was tautly handled, never slipping into nostalgia, with a dramatic central episode before the fade to silence.
That this Sibelius 6 was so lively came as a surprise considering what had come before because the rest of the programme had felt quite soggy – appropriate, perhaps, considering the sodden Edinburgh weather. The first half featured RSNO leader Maya Iwabuchi as the soloist in Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, her tone sweet and unforced. Her first movement cadenza was deftly dispatched, with a lovely hand-off back to the orchestra.
This was a warm but lethargic reading, though, content to snuggle in the music’s warmth. In the Usher Hall’s muddy acoustic the orchestral accompaniment had a tendency to cloy, contributing to a lack of impetus. Adrian Wilson’s tender oboe solo in the Adagio almost became a woodwind ensemble, so prominent were his colleagues, and the brass threatened to smother Iwabuchi’s buoyant Hungarian-style finale.
The concert opened with Britta Byström’s A Walk to Brahms’ Violin Concerto, an orchestral doodle featuring snatches of the concerto’s first movement – a sort of ‘Spot the Motif’ game – that seemed an entirely superfluous introduction, especially when Brahms himself provides a lengthy orchestral tutti before the soloist’s initial entry.
More aimless Scandinavian fare opened the second half. Kaija Saariaho’s Ciel d’hiver (Winter Sky) is the re-orchestrated central movement from her 2002 composition Orion. It’s a cool, ominous tone poem with all the usual tropes – shimmering harp, flutter-tongued woodwinds and (yawn) bowed percussion – to create a Nordic atmosphere. Sibelius did it so much better.
