Sibelius: Symphony No. 2; King Christian II Suite. Gothenburg Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Alpha. $18.99.
The second release in Santtu-Matias
Rouvali’s Sibelius cycle on the Alpha label fulfills the promise of the first
while showing this young Finnish conductor (born 1985) becoming more
comfortable with his unusual and powerful vision of the symphonies of Finland’s
most famous composer. The initial release, of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1, was
unusual and dramatic – and very much a matter of taste. It was replete with rubato and emphases that turned
Sibelius’ First into a highly energetic, craggy and often peculiarly phrased
work that at times barely sounded like Sibelius at all. “Reconsideration” was
almost too mild a word for Rouvali’s interpretative stance, which made Sibelius
sound sometimes like Bruckner, sometimes like a tone-poem composer who
inadvertently mislabeled an exceptionally episodic First Symphony. Rouvali’s
was a polarizing interpretation – but there is much less of that level of
controversy in his reading of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2, and much more of the
fine attention to detail and nuance that was the best part of his recording of
No. 1.
Make no mistake: Rouvali is still eager to
push Sibelius’ tempo markings to extremes, notably in the second movement of
No. 2, where fast sections are very
fast and slow ones practically stop in their tracks. He still takes full rests
very seriously indeed, stretching them to such an extent that the music has a
stop-and-start quality even beyond what Sibelius put into it. But Sibelius did put much of this into his Symphony
No. 2, and as a result, Rouvali’s approach seems more organized and
well-accentuated here than it did in the much smoother and more overtly
Germanic Symphony No. 1. It is in his Second Symphony that Sibelius really
began to find his unique compositional voice where symphonies are concerned,
and Rouvali seems thoroughly attuned to the special characteristics that
Sibelius brought to the symphonic form in this work. Indeed, in retrospect, it
may be that Rouvali, in his reading of Sibelius’ First, was trying – with mixed
success – to find an interpretation that would look ahead to the approach that
Sibelius took in his later symphonies.
Be that as it may, Rouvali’s handling of
Sibelius’ Second brings out the very best in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra,
whose brass growls, whose winds flit both pointedly and delicately about, whose
strings have bite as well as warmth. The second movement, in particular, is
quite marvelous: its intensity never flags, and Rouvali – given a tempo
indication that actually calls for considerable use of rubato (the exact marking is Tempo
andante, ma rubato) – lets his imagination fly, accentuating the different
sections of the music to fine effect without ever overindulging to an extent
that could easily become grotesque. This movement comes across as a dramatic
tone poem within a larger tone poem, as if the entire symphony possesses an arc
of storytelling within which this movement’s tale is told with particular drama
and effectiveness.
The rest of the symphony has remarkable
power. The first movement is strong and bright, structurally sound and
elegantly poised. The third is marked Vivacissimo,
and Rouvali pushes the opening tempo so determinedly that it is a real credit
to the orchestra that it can keep up and maintain so high a level of clarity in
intonation. Again, Rouvali looks for maximum contrast in this movement’s next
section, essentially stopping the entire forward motion of the music so as to
bring out the lyrical beauty that Sibelius offers here. The back-and-forth
between fast and slow sections is somewhat jarring, but in a way that seems to
accentuate Sibelius’ intentions rather than run counter to them. And as the
third movement yields attacca to the
finale, with its spectacularly beautiful first theme, Rouvali urges the
orchestra to ever-higher levels of intense commitment, to such an extent that
the fourth movement sounds not only like a tone poem but also like a film score
for a particularly impassioned directorial odyssey. Yet Rouvali – a
percussionist as well as conductor – is also sensitive here to the extreme care
with which Sibelius uses small sections of the music and the orchestra to
provide contrast with the massed sound of the ensemble (one of the few
instances in which Sibelius utilizes a technique more closely associated with
Mahler). Rouvali’s symphony-as-extended-tone-poem approach is even more
apparent here than in the earlier movements, as he gives each section of the
finale a clear beginning and conclusion even at the occasional expense of some
forward momentum. As the conclusion of the symphony approaches through a very
extended full-orchestra crescendo,
Rouvali takes pains to allow a final dip into quieter, more contemplative waters
before the genuine splendor of D major sweeps everything into a brilliant
conclusion. It is quite a performance.
Also on this recording is the
five-movement King Christian II Suite,
which is somewhat earlier than the symphony (1898 vs.1902). The suite is drawn
from music for a stage play and is more direct and less complex than the
symphony, and in some ways more immediately appealing. Rouvali handles this
material with a lighter and, in truth, less-intrusive touch than he uses for
the symphony. The first two movements, Nocturne
and Elegie, flow naturally and
pleasantly, with expressiveness and thematic construction that are noticeably
“Sibelian” even at this stage of the composer’s development. Elegie, originally the overture to the
play (by Adolf Georg Wiedersheim-Paul, 1863-1943), is a particularly adept bit
of scene-setting. The third and shortest movement, a bright little Musette, is followed by a Serenade whose rather martial character
Rouvali emphasizes to good effect. The suite ends with a Ballade whose intense opening and scurrying middle section actually
foreshadow the Second Symphony; indeed, this movement has something of the
feeling of a brief tone poem about it, just as Symphony No. 2, in Rouvali’s
performance, has a similar feeling writ large. The pairing of this suite with
this symphony is a thoughtful one, giving this entire release a welcome
cohesiveness that allows Rouvali to demonstrate the effectiveness of his
approach in different but clearly related contexts.
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