Lahti Symphony Orchestra's 8th International Sibelius Festival

    This year’s Sibelius Festival served multiple functions. In addition to the annual celebration of the composer’s music, 2007 also marks the 50th anniversary of Sibelius’ death. Banners announcing this were hung throughout the small city of Lahti, and most prominently in Sibelius Hall, which sits on the edge of a picturesque lake -- one of thousands in Finland. Lahti’s musical venues were host to a number of events, musical and otherwise. Of particular interest to CD collectors was Bis Records’ inauguration of its massive Sibelius project, which will see the release on CD the composer’s complete works, including some newly discovered and heretofore unperformed.

    But live music is the main focus of the Sibelius Festival, which this year offered a series of chamber and orchestral concerts, including an engaging recital by Eero Heinonen of the composer’s colorful piano music. The highlights, however, were certainly the programs by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under the baton of esteemed conductor Osmo Vanska. Vanksa began his three-evening series in a grand manner, presenting Sibelius’ early Kullervo Symphony, a massive work for orchestra, men’s chorus and soloists. Vanska kept the sprawling score moving with urgent tempos, save for the second movement, which he took at an unusually deliberate pace (as on his Bis recording), all the while generating great emotional energy. The YL Male Voice Choir resounded powerfully in the splendid acoustic of Sibelius Hall, while baritone Jorma Hynninen and mezzo Lilli Paasikivi both sang with great passion as they poured out gorgeous tone. The Kullervo concert was also the inaugural webcast of the new ClassicLive.com web service, which makes available orchestral music concerts both live and on demand (video and high-quality audio). The website currently features the Lahti Symphony and the Hungarian National Philharmonic, with more orchestras to be added in the near future.

    Hynninen was back again on Friday evening for a selection of Sibelius’ songs, allowing us to hear the singer in a more poetic, reflective mode (though, even here there were a few declamatory outbursts). The concert opened with the brief and beguiling Impromptu for String Orchestra, while the entire second half was given to a complete performance of Sibelius’ Scaramouche pantomime. This piece undoubtedly works better in its intended stage presentation, since the music is far too repetitive and thematically undifferentiated for the concert hall, with the result in this case being an audience endurance test more than anything else.

    There were no such concerns for the final concert on Saturday evening. The quasi-minimalist Night Ride and Sunrise opened the program, followed by a wonderfully atmospheric Symphony No. 4. The second half featured Symphony No. 5, a Vanska specialty, wherein he demonstrated the breathtakingly quiet pianissimos he has been able to achieve with the Lahti musicians (a technique he displayed on many occasions throughout the three evenings). The Lahti Symphony brass rang out triumphantly in the finale’s dramatic closing bars. But there was more excitement yet to come, as Vanska offered (perhaps not surprisingly so) Finlandia as the last of three encores. A warhorse work, to be sure, but no number of prior encounters could prepare you for the experience of hearing Finlandia performed live in Sibelius’ homeland, before an adoring audience. The Lahti musicians were newly invigorated after a long evening, and they played magnificently. The audience’s prolonged standing ovation revealed their pride and deeply felt emotion -- more than a few ladies had tears in their eyes, and many of the men could be heard whistling or humming Finlandia’s big tune as they exited the hall. It was a grand end to a great festival.

    Victor Carr jr

 www.classicstoday.com 14/9/2007