Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen were born north of the 55th parallel, some 640 miles apart, in 1865. Their careers, often compared, took very different turns: The Finnish Sibelius quickly attained heroic status, while the Danish Nielsen remained essentially a musician. And although both men, their work reframed by younger contemporaries such as Schoenberg, eventually would be branded "conservative," they were restless, ambitious symphonists who took Beethoven (especially his Fifth, the archetype of the "victory-through-struggle" symphony) as their model.
So it seems fitting that Beethoven's "Eroica" rotates with symphonies by Sibelius (No. 2) and Nielsen (No. 5) on the programs of the Minnesota Orchestra's impending eight-city European tour, led by Osmo Vänskä (who in pre-Minnesota days recorded the entire symphonic output of both Finn and Dane).
Local audiences can hear the two northern symphonies back-to-back at the orchestra's concerts this week--a sturdy, no-frills pairing, made unforgettable by blazing performances.
Sibelius' Second (1902) nods to the Russian-inflected romanticism of his First but turns decisively toward the flintier sound-world and mosaic-like construction of his later work. This piece can go down almost too easily; in particular, the Finale's triumphal affirmations (and its much-debated patriotic resonances) can feel a bit unearned.
But not on this occasion. From the pastoral opening, which danced irresistibly, to the exultant close, Vänskä made the symphony a voyage of discovery -- vibrant, propulsive, throbbing with conviction. He found enormous tension in this music, but also a compensating stillness. Local climaxes were carefully subordinated to the shape of the whole yet lost none of their effect. The mushy textures of an earlier generation's Sibelius were nowhere to be heard.
The orchestra played as if possessed, with a volatility and depth of tone I've seldom encountered. This was, to my ear, an unqualifiedly great performance; the ensemble, as it packs its bags for Europe, could hardly ask for a better calling card.
Twenty years and a world war separate Sibelius' symphony from Nielsen's, which musicologist David Fanning aptly calls "one of music's greatest revenges on the pain of life." The climb here is steeper, the drama existential. Again, Vänskä and his band worked wonders, especially in the turbulent fugue of the mercurial second movement. Brian Mount was the manic snare drummer, charged by the composer with playing as if to bring the first movement to a halt; Burt Hara was breathtaking in the clarinet's wounded elegy.
Larry Fuchsberg writes frequently about music.
