It was a dreary day last Thursday, but a great pleasure to finally meet up with sportswriter Brad Wilson for the first time at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Brad’s beat is my old stomping grounds of the Lehigh Valley and across the river in Warren and Hunterdon Counties.
I wish I could say I derived as much pleasure from Esa-Pekka Salonen’s performance of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Sadly, as someone who loves this symphony very much and who has heard it performed many times, I thought Salonen really missed the ball on this one (I promise, my only sports analogy in this write-up). At no point did I feel moved or inspired, nor did I get any sense of the conductor’s understanding of the tectonic movement or spatial relationships in the piece. I didn’t think it possible not to be cheered by the opening “sunrise” of French horns and flutes, nor do I think I have ever heard the plangent woodwinds in the third movement (if we regard it as a four-movement symphony), like forlorn waterfowl, without them tugging at my heartstrings.
There should be a sense of mounting suspense, dread even, as the ground begins to shift into the inexorable accelerando between the first two movements (which are connected). Ideally, it should carry all the thrill and terror of the sublime, but here I did not sense that it was undertaken with any great care. Rather, like most of the performance, it was simply tossed off, blithely and unconvincingly.
Even in the magnificent last movement, it was like stuff just happened. In more satisfying performances (which is to say, probably just about every other performance I’ve ever heard), everything comes together in its rough-hewn way and conductors succeed in making it sound as if every component belongs, relates, and makes some kind of coherent sense. Despite his vast experience with this composer, Salonen did not – at least for me. Maybe it was just I who was having an off-night, but I did not like it, and nothing is as depressing as having a piece of music you love and know very well not take flight.
I hasten to add, I realize the performance may not have impressed everyone the same way. At the end of the six monolithic chords that bring the symphony to a close, people around me burst into wild applause and the guy in front of me actually whooped, even as it took everything in my power to conjure a golf-clap. I didn’t want it to come across as if I don’t love the composer or don’t appreciate the orchestra’s efforts. But Salonen. Oy vey. I don’t know what people want from their Sibelius, but I expect more.
I searched for some online reviews, to make sure I wasn’t taking crazy pills, and I came across this one in which every one of the reviewer’s impressions run counter to my own. The stuff he dismisses about the concert, I enjoyed, and the stuff I disliked, he lauded to Pohjola and back. Believe me, I would have settled for “majestic stateliness.”
https://bachtrack.com/review-esa-pekka-salonen-philadelphia-orchestra-sibelius-stucky-may-2024
If there was a Philadelphia Inquirer review, I could not find it and wouldn’t be able to read it anyway, unless forwarded to me, because it would be paywalled (and in any case probably mostly worthless).
It’s unusual for Philadelphia to program the same piece two years in a row, but they did so with the Sibelius 5th. Frankly, I thought Dalia Stasevska’s performance last year was head and shoulders over what I heard Thursday night – nimble, thrilling, and intelligently judged. Even Don Liuzzi was more electrifying on the timpani. This is not a reflection on his playing on Thursday, but a musician has to work within the overall design of a conductor’s interpretation, such that it is. Salonen’s brass had some good moments with the big tune (Sibelius’ “swan theme”) in the last movement, but nothing seemed to fit together or flow organically – unusual for a conductor of his experience with this most organic of composers – or, at the very least, generate some tension and release.
Salonen is often characterized as “a modernist.” I don’t care about that. The mature Sibelius is not exactly the most sentimental composer. I would be perfectly satisfied if he had allowed the architecture of the music to simply speak for itself. But it was as if he had no idea of its magnificent layout. Rather, it was like he was flipping through a magazine (Architectural Digest?) in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The performance, to me, just felt uninvolved, and by extension uninvolving. Maybe he’s just conducted it too many times.
Steven Stucky’s “Radical Light,” which opened the program, was also just kind of there. Salonen commissioned the work, back during his days as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to be included on a program between Sibelius’ 4th and 7th Symphonies. On Thursday, it just came off as a time-killer. Sure, it paid tribute to Sibelius by aping some of his mannerisms and textures, but I couldn’t help but think how much more satisfying it would have been had the concert just opened with the 7th Symphony or “Tapiola.”
The highlight of the evening was Salonen’s own “kínēma” (all lower case) for clarinet and orchestra, which even at 30 minutes I found engaging and wonderfully played. Ricardo Morales, the orchestra’s charismatic principal clarinet, was the soloist. I confess I was pleasantly surprised, as I own a few recordings of Salonen’s own music, and while I find it agreeable enough to just go with it if I’m in the right mood, this piece was by far the most immediately ingratiating of anything of his I have ever heard.
I want to make it clear that I don’t dislike Salonen, and I wish him all the best in conducting “Daphnis and Chloe” in Philadelphia this week. Even Pierre Boulez knew how to pull off a good performance of Ravel.
Likewise, none of this is intended as a reflection on Brad, who was kind enough to secure our tickets. He and I have enjoyed a kind of radio and Facebook messaging friendship for a good number of years now. His musical knowledge is vast and his tastes are diverse (ranging from Bach to Elliot Carter), and his observations and recommendations are always valued. From his comments that night, I gather he liked the Sibelius. I don’t have the gift of diplomacy, so I was hesitant to start in, knowing that whatever I had to say would likely blossom into a rant.
And what do I know? Salonen is Finnish (like the composer) and he has decades of experience interpreting this music. Me? I’m just a grouch. Maybe I should have eaten something closer to the start of the concert. But I love Sibelius and I love this symphony, and I have a pretty good idea of when somebody gets it right. Even Simon Rattle, with his bewildering obsession with whispered pianissimos, got it when he conducted it in Philly in 1999. Salonen was like Väinämöinen, the star-crossed wizard of the Kalevala, on one of his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
And dammit, the program notes were weak too!
This amused me: Dave Hurwitz’s recollection of three terrible concerts. Hurwitz can be an acquired taste, but once you acquire it, he’s like an amusing, outspoken friend. I agree with him that live music concerts, even at their worst, can be wonderful. Also that there can be a certain satisfaction to be found in tearing the bad ones apart.
I would have had this posted days ago, but I was interrupted by a phone call, like the poet Coleridge, distracted by a knock at the door in the middle of setting down the lines for “Kubla Khan,” which had come to him in a dream; and then when he returned, he found he couldn’t pick up the thread. However, unlike Coleridge, this humble review is unlikely to be included in anthologies of English literature in 200 years, even as society inevitably continues to deteriorate.
