SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 3 in C Major, Op. 52; Symphony No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 104; STRAVINSKY: Violin Concerto in D Major – Thomas Zehetmair, violin and conductor/Northern Sinfonia – Avie AV2150, 74:22 [Distr. by Allegro] *****:
This album, featuring Thomas Zehetmair in the dual role of violinist and conductor, celebrates the 50th anniversary season of the Northern Sinfonia, recorded at Hall One of The Sage Gateshead, England 19-22 April (Stravinsky), 4-5 August 2007 (Sibelius D Minor), and 13 November 2008 (Sibelius C Major). At the outset, let’s proffer congratulations to recording engineer and editor Simon Fox-Gal for an exemplary audiophile audition!
The C Major Symphony (1907) by Sibelius reveals his apparent turn to compressed, neo-classical procedures, away from the overtly nationalistic or romantically inflated works prior. The use of a tritone (C-F#) as a grounding interval already anticipates the direction of his most “musical” symphony, the Fourth. There are still natural echoes, horns of triumph, and quasi-chorale motifs in evidence in the first movement, and the harmony shifts to an alien world of B Minor. Gorgeous articulation by the Northern Sinfonia wind section throughout. The second movement, Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto, vacillates between waltz and rondo, opting for variants on the lovely melody by way of flutes, clarinets, pizzicato and arco strings. Some truly intimate sounds emerge from violins, celli, and winds, a chamber music ambient clarity which the composer creates again in his Symphony No. 7. The last movement condenses Scherzo and Finale–a technique that becomes rather a Sibelius trademark–what Sibelius deemed “the crystallization of chaos.” The principal flute and clarinet have their say, but the entire consort of winds and divided strings simultaneously create a rhythmic amalgam of nervous complexity, the C-F# tritone soon exalted into a chorale. A kind of Dvorak “Indian drum-beat” ostinato reigns and carries us with deliciously-nuanced fervor to the arpeggiated C Major triad that (peremptorily) concludes this intellectually and aurally engaging masterpiece.
After the Sibelius symphony, the strident, slashing, musically austere procedures of the Stravinsky Violin Concerto (1931) pour cold water on our indulged emotions, although like Sibelius, Stravinsky throws us a jarring chord stretched over octaves, D-E-A, to awaken our ears to the joys of neo-Classical repartee. A combination of Milhaud’s sense of carnival and riffs from L’Histoire du Soldat, the Toccata chugs and marches along like a catty concerto grosso, smug and irreverent. A punched opening chord sends us into Aria I, a flighty, coy movement in striking colors, especially from three helpful bassoons. The tone becomes militant, even apprehensive, before reverting to its flirtatious persona. Now, the “password” chord becomes slightly manic for Aria II, which takes on baroque qualities, even to having Zehetmair incorporate a quasi-cadenza and arioso in the manner of Bach or his modern counterpart, Bartok. Zehetmair digs into the last movement, Capriccio, with an almost hysterical abandon, tossing flecks of fire everywhere, rasping, cavorting, careening, drunken with Dionysiac enthusiasm. The last pages have Zehetmair alternately twittering and threatening with his violin, the figures rising in staggered steps to a frenzy from which we are loathe to recover.
And then back to the “purest” Sibelius there is, the 1923 D Minor Symphony, which the composer called “a draught of pure spring water.” The opening chorale might parallel the ardent tones of Palestrina, at least until the rhythmic pulse, instantiated by strings, winds, and harp, arrives. The music is less tonic than Dorian in mode, the harmonies sounding in a series of competing pantheistic doxologies. Something of Tapiola infiltrates the whimsical, step-wise riffs, a deliberate randomness over a pedal, if you will. A cautious Pan lights a path in the second movement, perhaps reminding us of how much of Paradise Lost our century will suffer. The galloping motif we know from some of the Op. 22 symphonic poems dominates the Poco vivace third movement, played with diaphanous perfection by the Northern Sinfonia. Strings, winds, brass, and harp have rarely resonated so piquantly. It ends too soon; and we enter the melancholy throes of the Allegro vivace, whose cello part has rarely sounded so serene since Kajanus, Koussevitzky, Ehrling, and Beecham were the local gods of Sibelius interpretation. The last pages offer a prayer to Nature, who may or may not have gone green.
Galvanic and utterly compelling, these performances warrant Best of the Year candidacy.
— Gary Lemco
