You can’t miss the symbolism in the Philharmonia’s first programme of its 2021-22 season with two Strauss works that both open with a sunrise – a new era dawning under the orchestra’s new Principal Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali. It’s also a new dawn for concert life in the UK as “normality” (hopefully) returns after the pandemic. After a year of chamber-scaled, socially distanced performances – often streamed without an audience permitted – what better way to signal this than playing Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, a work that requires a hundred musicians, its battery of percussion? Classical music is back – release the thunder machine!
If your ears recover from the Strauss, Rouvali’s next programme includes Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, the ballet that scandalised Paris at its 1913 premiere, the booing so loud that the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, was forced to count out the beat in the wings because the dancers could not hear the music. The score doesn’t hold quite so many terrors for an orchestra these days, but it’s still a severe test of any conductor’s precision and control. It was a showpiece for the Philharmonia’s previous Principal Conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen – they made a renowned recording together – so it will be fascinating to see what Rouvali makes of it. He started out on his musical life as a percussionist, so he should be expected to relish Stravinsky’s more savage moments.
The Strauss double bill of the Alpine Symphony and Also sprach Zarathustra also launches the Philharmonia’s “Human/Nature” series which explores composers’ responses to our natural world – think Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, The Lark Ascending, or the River Vltava running through Smetana’s Má vlast. There are less obvious candidates too, such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing the dawn chorus in the Réveil des oiseaux by his teacher, Olivier Messiaen. Isobel Waller-Bridge composes a new work that fits the “Human/Nature” theme too.
Another obvious candidate are Vivaldi’s violin concertos collectively known as The Four Seasons, but Pekka Kuusisto promises a personal touch, embellishing them with his own improvisations. Kuusisto is a frequent Philharmonia collaborator and a lively performer – who else could get the BBC Proms audience to sing a Finnish folksong for his encore?! He contributes a number of highlights to the autumn season. In October, he performs Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto, commissioned for the Human/Nature series, but in the intimate surroundings of the Purcell Room beforehand, Kuusisto leads a free concert of works by Gabriella Smith and John Luther Adams under the title “Reef and Desert”. In more traditional repertoire, he performs Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with his fellow Finn Rouvali at the helm in December. It’s a work that evokes icy landscapes, the finale famously likened by Donald Tovey to “a polonaise for polar bears”.