This Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Santtu-Matias Rouvali was an exhibition of orchestral sound – brilliantly coloured, chamber-like in its intimacy and brimming with the spontaneous joy of music-making. What lingered at the close was the orchestra’s ability to shift so fluidly between sound worlds – sunlit, severe or visionary – always with the same vitality and finesse.
The concert opened with Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio italien, rendered as an intensely vivid evocation of southern warmth. Rather than a mere orchestral postcard, Rouvali and the Philharmonia shaped the score into a Mediterranean memory brought to life, its festive colours ripening like wine in the sun, its exuberant surfaces carrying an undercurrent of refinement. What impressed most was the sense of air the players sustained even in the thickest textures: the brass blazed with brilliance yet never suffocated the sound, while the strings gave the music a radiant glow that seemed to breathe in every phrase.
Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no. 1 in E flat major followed, with Sol Gabetta as soloist. At first, her tone was somewhat muffled, briefly submerged beneath the winds, but both soloist and orchestra swiftly recalibrated, finding a sensitive balance. Gabetta became the ideal protagonist for Shostakovich’s urgent, almost mechanistic writing. Her performance was charged with physicality – the sway of her body, the bow lunging into high registers – so that the cello seemed an extension of her own being. The second movement, with its blend of lyrical unfolding and an almost oppressive introspection, revealed the depth of her artistry where Gabetta’s sound hovered between confession and lament.
With forces reduced to nearly two thirds the size of those used in the Tchaikovsky, the Philharmonia sounded leaner, cleaner and more tightly focused. They matched Gabetta with economy and precision: the relentless motor rhythms of the opening, the silvery lyricism of the Moderato and, finally, the ghostly return of first movement ideas in the finale, all delivered with incisive clarity. As encore, Gabetta offered a dazzling display – part technical brilliance, part Latin-American warmth – that released the tension in a burst of exuberance and drew rapturous applause.
After intermission came Fazıl Say’s Symphony no. 5, despite its contemporary idiom, a work proved immediately compelling in its directness and sonic imagination. Say addresses themes of upheaval, memory and resilience across three movements. Rouvali led the orchestra with both structural clarity and dramatic flair. Particularly striking was the way Say’s score expanded the Philharmonia’s palette through percussion and strings: the resonant overtones of percussion hanging in the air; the delicate plucking of the harp; and the violinists tapping gently on the soundboard combined to create an uncanny sense of spaciousness. What was equally striking was the visible delight among the string players. Many marked the pulse with their feet, their bodies subtly swaying with the beat. In those moments, one almost sensed an echo of the mechanistic drive from Shostakovich’s concerto earlier in the evening, transformed here into something more playful and exuberant.
As a playful coda, the evening closed with selection from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suites, a reminder of the composer’s lighter side, rendered here with elegance and wit. This sense of spontaneous, playful energy captured the spirit of the entire concert.
