RSNO, 19/02/2011

Shostakovich : Violin Concerto No 1 (Mikhail Simonyan)
Sibelius : Symphony No 6
Sibelius : Symphony No 7

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Kristjan Järvi

Not being a huge fan of Shostakovich at the best of times, I was not too familiar with the 1st Violin Concerto, save for snippets of the 2nd and 4th movements.  Having heard it complete, finally, I'm still not all that convinced by it as a concerto, though it might have made an interesting symphony.  I find there's little sense of the purpose of the solo violin, whether it's as a partner or an opponent to the orchestra, and really, all the great violin concertos do have exactly that, a sense of function for the soloist.  Here, he was playing - and I mean no reflection on the actual performance, which I think was more than adequate - to no particular end that I could see (or hear).  That said, I did enjoy the Passacaglia, which was powerful and moving - it's not the soloist I recall, however, but the ensemble as a whole.

The RSNO has a long-standing and particularly strong affinity with Sibelius.  Back in the 50s and 60s, Sir Alexander Gibson was programming Sibelius into the orchestra's seasons at a time when this music was severely neglected in general.  The orchestra - and the Scottish audiences - took to it like a duck to water, and that bond has been there ever since, so it is always at the very least interesting, and frequently rewarding, to hear them play Sibelius.

Järvi had the unusual idea of performing the 6th and 7th Symphonies continuously, in a single piece of five movements.  It was an novel notion, but I'm not sure it was entirely successful, at least where the 6th Symphony was concerned.  The 7th is an undisputed masterpiece, and was given a rich and noble reading, full of space and vibrancy, but it is very far removed from the 6th.  The difference in texture is immediately apparent, like the difference between handling velvet and silk, and by the time we were ten minutes into the 7th, the 6th had become a flimsy, lightweight entrée, an impression emphasised by the almost neo-Baroque pastiche air of its last movement.  It is one of the least frequently heard of the Sibelius symphonies and while, on its own, it has a great deal of freshness and charm, if you put it alongside something as profound and primeval as the 7th, then it suffers by comparison. 

All the really great Sibelius orchestral scores have this sense of something vast and ancient behind them, a consciousness that is older and darker than recorded time, more infinite and more alien than humankind, and to which humanity is as frivolous, insignificant and short-lived as the may-fly.  The 6th Symphony is about that light, fragile humanity; the 7th is about something far greater and graver.  It is, however, all credit to the orchestra and conductor that such differences were fully appreciable.