Unpersuasive Nordic Soundscapes from Salonen and the Philharmonia

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong about the standard overture-concerto-symphony concert format. But to be a real success, all three pieces have to work an awful lot better than they did in last night’s concert at the Royal Festival Hall, with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting an all-Finnish programme in the last of the Philharmonia’s “Nordic Soundscapes” series.

Lotta Wennäkoski’s Flounce was written for the 2017 Last Night of the Proms. It was billed as a “celebratory piece five minutes in length”, but I’m afraid any celebratory feeling was lost on me. A jumble of wind glissandi and percussion effects, including repeated use of the swanee whistle, made me feel like I should have been watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon; when the music turned to strings, the high tremolando sound was actively unpleasant. It was a very long five minutes.

Next was the UK premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Viola Concerto, with soloist Lawrence Power (who collaborated on the concerto and played its world premiere in Helsinki in February). This succeeded on two of three counts. Firstly, Power is a fabulous viola player who extracts a whole variety of wonderful sounds from his instrument as well as being rock solid through the fastest, most challenging passage work. Secondly, the piece succeeded as a soundscape. Although it has half the number of brass instruments as the preceding Wennäkoski, the fanfares and combinations of brass and strings were infinitely more potent. At times, the music almost had a choral feel; at times it veered into a folky side. However, I failed to get hold of any overall sense of direction. Listening to all these wonderful sounds was pleasant, Power’s long and highly virtuosic cadenza (with a heavy element of improvisation, by the sound of it) was entertaining, but the work came to an end with me wondering where I was.

There was never any danger of disorientation in Sibelius’ First Symphony, whose architecture Salonen knows backwards, forwards and sideways. Watching Salonen certainly made an impression: his beat is exceptionally clear, his energy levels are enormous without ever going over the top and he is diligent in pointing out exactly what he wants most from which section at any given moment. But in spite of his best efforts, it wasn’t until the third movement that things started to click into place. In the early movements, solos were short of colour or failing to rise above the string background, handovers not clearly delineated, timpani sometimes too loud or other problems of balance. The finale was persuasive, with expressivity returning to the woodwinds, the brass chorales providing balm to the soul and the big sweeping themes coming through strongly.

In his programme note Q&A, Salonen says that in this symphony, he worries that “it’s very easy to pull out all the stops too soon and then there’s nowhere to go”. This occasion sounded like an over-compensation.