The Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival (previously the Saito Kinen Music Festival) is probably the closest to a European-style summer classical music festival we have in Japan. A month-long festival held in the city of Matsumoto (in Nagano Prefecture), 2.5 hours by train west from Tokyo and surrounded by the Japan Alps, it was Seiji Ozawa who founded the festival back in 1992 as a summer base for the Saito Kinen Orchestra. In the 30+ years since, he built the festival into a popular destination for locals and classical music lovers alike, with a programme consisting of orchestral, chamber music and opera – although Ozawa himself had not conducted much in recent years due to illnesses. It felt sad and ironic that I was visiting this festival for the first time in the year that the Maestro had passed away.
The mood in Matsumoto did not feel funereal, however. The festival announced it would dedicate all performances to Ozawa, “who shall retain the title of festival director”, and the mood was more of celebration and gratitude. Where does festival head from here? In February, rising conductor Nodoka Okisawa, winner of the Tokyo and Besançon competitions and former assistant to Kirill Petrenko in Berlin, was appointed OMF Guest Principal Conductor (a decision made by Ozawa during his lifetime), and at the opening weekend, she led the concerts with festival orchestra at the Kissei Bunka Hall.
The concert opened with a selection of works from Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although still early in her career, Okisawa has established a reputation for her interpretations of Mendelssohn’s music. On the podium she displays very little ego but a lot of humanity. She takes a no-nonsense approach (no grand gestures) and control her forces well, bringing finesse and sheen to the orchestral sound. In the Overture, the characteristic string quavers were played with sparkling clarity and clockwork precision. The woodwinds displayed elegance in the Scherzo, and in the Intermezzo there was colourful contrast between emotional intensity of the outer parts and the lighthearted middle section. After a meltingly lyrical horn solo (Jörg Brückner) in the Nocturne, she closed with the splendour of the Wedding March.
The second half was dedicated to the music of Richard Strauss, pairing his youthful and ambitious symphonic poem Don Juan and the Four Last Songs from the very end of his life with soprano Elza van den Heever as soloist. Perhaps the choice was Okisawa’s personal tribute to Ozawa, remembering his exuberant and appealing personality but also mourning his recent death.
Don Juan was perhaps not as swashbuckling or swaggering as some interpretations, but Okisawa had a strong grasp of the work as a whole and she particularly excelled in the handling of the transitions between the sections – thus achieving a smooth narrative from start to finish. The collective virtuosi of the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra (formed of countless leaders and principals from Japanese and international orchestras) responded to her baton with great passion and flair, with gorgeous contributions from the oboe (Juan Pechuan Ramirez), horns and lower strings.
Acclaimed for her dramatic Straussian roles in opera, van den Heever showed her lyrical side in Strauss' poignant final songs, performed with great luminosity and warmth of voice which rose effortlessly over the shimmering orchestra, bringing out the meaning of the text through subtle colours and shading (e.g. falling leaves and weary eyes in September, the rising soul in Beim Schlafengehen – with a beautiful violin solo by Tatsuya Yabe). As the two piccolos trilled wistfully in the final Im Abendrot, it felt as if Ozawa’s spirit was hovering above us all.
