Post-lockdown Sibelius from Daniel Harding and the Swedish RSO

By Mark Valencia, 06 June 2020

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“the Largo wept with desolation”

Reviewed at Berwaldhallen, Stockholm on 6 June 2020

Sibelius, Symphony no. 4 in A minor, Op.63

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde: Der Einsame im Herbst

Purcell, Music for the funeral of Queen Mary

Bach, St Matthew Passion, BWV244: Erbarme dich mein Gott

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Swedish Radio Choir

Daniel Harding, Conductor

Ann Hallenberg, Mezzo-soprano

Krister Henriksson, Narrator

The Swedish RSO provides a flashy finish for Dvořák’s Prague

Frank Kuznik, 25th September

Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra bring their own fireworks to the festival finale.

****1

Handel's Messiah streamed from the Baltic Sea Festival

Sandra Bowdler, 18th September

Reinhard Goebel conducts a perfectly fine, straight-down-the-line Messiah as Sweden re-engages with live audiences.

***11

A Baltic phoenix: Esa-Pekka Salonen brings Stockholm back to life

Tristan Labouret, 9th September

After hosting 18 months of concerts without audience, Berwaldhallen comes back to life with the Baltic Sea Festival and its phenomenal opening concert as intelligent as it is overwhelming.

*****

Elegant Mozart and monumental Schubert from Blomstedt in Stockholm

Cameron Kelsall, 20th November

The inexhaustible maestro shared the stage with Johan Dalene, an exciting violinist seven decades his junior.

*****

Mäkelä shapes Sibelius persuasively in Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen

Edward Sava-Segal, 13th November

Mäkelä brought out the harmonic inventiveness and the unexpected lyrical character of the music.

****1

A persuasively dark Don Giovanni from Swedish Radio

David Karlin, 14th June

Andrew Staples creates an austere, monochrome semi-staging that's strangely appropriate to the times; Peter Mattei and John Lundgren lead an excellent cast.

****1

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Mark Valencia

Mark has worked in arts journalism for four decades, both as a writer and as a French-English translator. Nowadays he focuses his energies on reviewing opera and music. Mark also writes for Opera magazine and for Musical America as a correspondent for Europe and the UK.