Strict martial order deserves all the sticks and stones that Shostakovich threw at it, but Hungarian cellist István Várdai did something even more daring in the opening bars on Saturday at the Concertgebouw. Where Shostakovich insistently stamps his cipher, a passage many soloists use to set the frog-march tempo, Várdai pulled back, just a little, but also just enough to remind us that we were here to listen to a human.
Playing on the 1673 Stradivarius that belonged to Jacqueline du Pré and Lynn Harrell, Várdai created the sort of intimate moments that made this historically freighted work all his own. His fleet fingers made mesmerisingly light work of the first movement’s frenetic quaver passages, while a blistering attack on the double-stops had him shedding bow-hair onto the podium. Shostakovich’s whirligig writing requires pinpoint accuracy and Várdai did not disappoint. The anxious lullaby of the moderato – opened beautifully by principal horn Jukka Harju – allowed Várdai to establish a simple clarity of tone for a cerebral but passionate account before creating a breathtaking tension through the eerie harmonics.
With the bombast of the march and its explosive finish left far behind, this uncanny, vulnerable duet with the celesta suggested a searing mental picture of a child’s toy uncovered from rubble: for all war’s self-righteous mobilising, it’s those who understand it the least who suffer the most. At ease in the cadenza, Várdai addressed the auditorium with direct eye contact to deliver both lyricism and technical ferocity. After taking a breath, he introduced Pablo Casals’ El Cant dels Ocells with the quiet hope that music can show us the power of the human against the oppressor.
One such human is Nicholas Collon, co-founder of the Aurora Orchestra, who has engendered the same youthful spirit of collaboration among the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Collon’s superpower as a conductor is a deceptive lightness of touch that belies technical precision. In a programme conceived to celebrate Finnish Independence Day last week, Magnus Lindberg’s Serenades (commissioned by the Chicago Symphony) proved a richly referential work, by turns as restless and lush as any Hitchcock matinee. Meanwhile, every tone colour, from plaintive folk melody to earthy strum, were at the tip of Collon’s brisk baton in an enlivening and triumphant rendition of Sibelius’ Third Symphony.
Finlandia would have been the obvious overture in the circumstances, though the old national hymn has gathered a fresh darkness since the last border crossing with Russia closed, and it’s NATO that – for now – is driving the threat of night away.
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