Concluding their Finnish tour in Sastamala on Monday, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor Nicholas Collon took the house with a splendid programme of Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jean Sibelius, featuring the orchestra’s Principal Clarinet Christoffer Sundqvist as soloist in the evening’s marvelous concertante centerpiece, Salonen’s kínēma (2021) for solo clarinet and string orchestra.
Priming the evening with an intriguing foray into Sibelius’s ever-refined theater music, the composer’s own, ca. twenty-minute concert hall adaptation from his incidental music to August Strindberg’s Svanevit (Swanwhite, 1908/1909) was heard. For the concert suite, Sibelius rescored his thirteen-instrument theater original for an orchestra of duple winds, four horns, harp, timpani, percussion and strings. Out of the horn signal and thirteen cues the composer initially wrote for the fairy tale play, most cues are included in the suite, regrouped into seven movements.
The music of Swanwhite is wrought of subtle motifs, clad in translucent orchestral fabric, filled with evocative passages of minutiae details in mood-painting. Among the thematic kernels, appearing in The Harp movement on flutes, there is a motif the composer later reused in the Andante mosso, quasi Allegretto second movement of the Fifth Symphony. There are further links between the two works as well, manifested in texture and ambiance.
In retrospect, Sibelius’s use of repeated motives and long-held pedal-notes comes off strikingly proto-cinematic manner, pre-echoing the iconic film cues by Bernard Herrmann. Alongside woodwinds and strings, harp textures come to the fore, whereas timpani and castanets provide additional color.
Performed with refined clarity and airy sweep, awash with fine-tuned instrumental detail, Swanwhite served as befitting, rarely-heard opener.
Commissioned by the FRSO and written for Sundqvist, Salonen’s thirty-minute clarinet concerto in five movements, kínēma, has its musical roots in the composer’s film scoring projects during COVID lockdowns. Some of the concerto’s material is derived from Salonen’s original music to Aku Louhimies’s film Odotus (The Wait, 2021), whereas the J.D. in memoriam fourth movement was initially written as memorial to the Finnish writer and film director Jörn Donner, who passed away in January 2020.
The evocative first movement, Dawn, opens with an ascending clarinet line, emerging languidly from the surrounding divisi string haze. The main scalar pattern is then reworked into sunlit melodic lines by the soloist, while layered ostinati are head within the string ensemble. On the closing page, the music cools down to molto lento two-note figurations.
Ingenious series of Theme and variations ensues, derived from outtake material from The Wait, and providing the soloist, the orchestra and the conductor with passages of uplifting virtuosity.
As implied by its title, the central movement, Pérotin dream, recalls the composer’s dream meeting with the 12th century Master of the Notre Dame organa. Quirky clarinet signals herald the movement, echoed by Stravinskyan pizzicato accents, mounting to whirling dance. On figure X, the soloist resorts to quoting from Pérotin’s famous four-part organum, Viderunt Omnes (ca. 1198), inviting the orchestra into joyously surreal contrapuntal choreography. Building up to passages of seemingly free-floating musical fantasy, the music eventually evaporates into scintillating pppp hue.
Slowly rotating string oscillations and pensive clarinet lines come together in the meditative fourth movement, its reflective stillness yielding to one of the evening’s absolute highlights.
Salonen’s finale, Return, is introduced by wave-like string motifs, rippling over double bass drone, colored by violin glissandi in soft dynamics. The soloist pics up the motivic line, reshaping it into actual melodies, while the ensemble resorts to sequences of refined counterpoint, before landing on sustained chords and scalar patterns. Halfway into the movement, rhythmic shapes become more pronounced in the orchestra, provoking the soloist to utter seven strange high-notes, marked bizarre squeak (no precise pitch). On the last pages, the clarinet and strings present their joint closing scene, which culminates in shared triple-forte Lento resplendence leading to the double-bar.
A dazzling outing from Sundqvist and his FRSO colleagues under Collon, kínēma was given in its full virtuosity and radiance at Sastamala. Mastering the solo part with impeccable agility and poetry, Sundqvist brought Salonen’s writing to gorgeous sounding raiment. Ever admirably in accord with their soloist, the Collon-led ensemble embraced the string textural with merit and focus. One of the finest performances of kínēma to date, the clarinet concerto marked the high-point of the wondrous evening.
Concluding the program, Sibelius’s iconic Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, op. 82 (1914-15/1916/1919) was heard in mighty reading. Another memorable chapter in their joint quest into the composer’s oeuvre, the symphony came of as radical as ever, while displaying praiseworthy sense of proportion and astonishing Boreal color.
Scored for trademark Sibelian orchestra of duple winds, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings, the symphony’s unusual three-movement blueprint was only achieved through five-year creative process of trial and error. Composed in 1914-15, the symphony’s four-movement first version picked up where the Fourth Symphony (1910-11) left, presenting its premiere audiences with an enigmatic orchestral score of elusive symphonic shapes, culminating in expansive finale. Dissatisfied with the symphony, Sibelius took upon himself the task of revising the score, coming up with an intermediate second version a year later. However, it took him three more years to present the symphony in its final 1919 guise.
Inaugurated with Tempo molto moderato horn calls, answered by woodwinds over a timpani pedal-point, the first movement fuses together the characteristics of an opening allegro and a scherzo, presenting us with an unprecedented symphonic sequence of organic development. The Andante mosso, quasi Allegretto central movement is awash with soundscapes of pastoral mystery, yielding to almost pantheistic proportions, while retaining Haydnesque lightness.
In the finale, out of buzzing Allegro molto string hue, horns introduce the famous swan theme, pre-echoed on double-basses, transforming the movement into terrific sonorous facades. At the heart of the movement, darker orchestral clouds arise from the horizon, before being scattered by the musical forces of nature at play. The swan theme returns, taking the movement into zenith. Closing with six pillar-like tutti chords, the symphony ends with life-affirming intensity.
A rousing performance from FRSO and Collon, the symphony was saluted with well-deserved cheers and standing ovation. An organic reading, beautifully phrased and marvelously paced, the Fifth Symphony was served with fresh insight and orchestral mastery.
Rounding off with a delightful encore, an extract from Hugo Alfvén’s ballet score Bergakungen (The Mountain King, 1916-23), the evening at Sastamala was pure joy.
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Nicholas Collon, conductor
Christoffer Sundqvist, conductor
Jean Sibelius: Swanwhite, op. 54 (1908/1909) – suite for orchestra
Esa-Pekka Salonen: kínēma (2021) for solo clarinet and string orchestra
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, op. 82 (1914-15/1916/1919) for orchestra
Sastamala Gregoriana, Vexve Arena, Sastamala, Finland
Monday 15 April, 7 pm
© Jari Kallio
AIM - Adventures in Music 
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