Pride of Pärnu: Estonian Festival Orchestra revels in Nielsen

By Mark Pullinger, 19 July 2019

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“Järvi's immaculate conducting, peppered with smiles and winks at the leader, kept the reins taut”

Reviewed at Pärnu Concert Hall, Pärnu on 18 July 2019

Tüür, L'ombra della croce

Dvořák, Cello Concerto in B minor, Op.104

Casals, El cant dels Ocells (Song of the Birds)

Järvi, Korale for 80 (2019 version)

Nielsen, Symphony no. 1 in G minor, Op.7

Anderson, Fiddle-Faddle

Truls Mørk, Cello

Estonian Festival Orchestra

Paavo Järvi, Conductor

Estonian Festival Orchestra make Carnegie Hall debut with Arvo Pärt

David Wolfson, 23rd October

Paavo Järvi and the Estonian Festival Orchestra don’t skirt all the pitfalls of a single-composer program in an all-Pärt evening at Carnegie Hall.

***11

Bizet raises the roof at the Pärnu Music Festival

Peter Quantrill, 13th July

The Estonian Festival Orchestra is on scintillating form in a rare outing for Roma, Bizet's own “Italian Symphony”.

****1

Sol Gabetta shines in Dvořák with the Estonian Festival Orchestra

Chanda VanderHart, 24th January

The Estonian Festival Orchestra revels in Dvořák and Tchaikovsky on the Vienna leg of its European tour with Paavo Järvi.

****1

Blistering Buchbinder, trenchant Järvi at the Elbphilharmonie

Alexander Hall, 16th August

Sometimes artists surprise, but in a wholly positive way: nothing remotely bland about Buchbinder's approach to Beethoven's C minor concerto and a Tchaikovsky 1 streets ahead of Järvi's recent recording.

*****

Smiles of a summer night: Paavo Järvi at the Pärnu Music Festival

Richard Bratby, 15th July

New music, old friends and supercharged Strauss from the Estonian Festival Orchestra.

****1

Estonian Festival Orchestra covers itself in glory in Pärnu

Alexander Hall, 16th July

In a programme of Lutosławski, Richard Strauss and Tchaikovsky conducted by Paavo Järvi, there are no weak links in the playing of the EFO and Stefan Dohr’s versatility on the horn is once again on display.

*****

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.