Sibelius’s second symphony is “a confession of the soul” – an outpouring, nevertheless ambiguous. However what occurs when a confession by no means comes, and a secret festers as an alternative in collective silence? That’s the start line for Festen, Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 movie, which was tailored into an award-winning opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Lee Corridor final yr.
There’s a good bit of plot to a piece during which incestuous little one abuse is uncovered throughout a patriarch’s sixtieth party, however it’s the ambiance that lingers, stylishly distilled in Turnage’s new Festen Suite – receiving its UK premiere right here from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo.
You’ll be able to virtually odor the stale wine and cigar smoke coming off the composer’s vividly orchestrated prelude, gurning with faux-jollity – actually crushed into it by percussion wallops that attempt to preserve its lurching progress on observe. Thereafter, the eight-movement suite ricochets between lyricism – the light melancholy of Blue or Inexperienced, pastoral tenderness in Grandma’s Music – and denial, slinky within the Conga with its rictus grin, sleazy in Interlude I. Then revelations break the floor within the jabbing thrusts of The Combat, string padding stripped away to permit brass and woodwind to land their punches cleanly. It’s cleverly made and musically satisfying by itself phrases, with out the dramatic scaffolding of the opera. I believe we’ll be listening to it rather a lot in future.
If the Turnage introduced a hip-shimmy and wriggle to Oramo’s conducting, the Sibelius – house turf for the Finn – discovered him straight as a Scots pine, guiding us by way of this patchwork of a symphony with readability, that finale in sight from the off. Momentum relatively than launch was the order of the day, till eventually he let the brass off the leash, romping us house with grandeur, actually, but additionally an overflowing pleasure.
It was the catharsis we wanted after Britten’s inscrutable cello symphony. Soloist Man Johnston stayed scrupulously, sensitively trustworthy to the composer’s conception: the orchestra’s equal, usually part of the feel relatively than its focus. It’s a tricky stability to tug off anyplace; within the Royal Albert Corridor it risked disappearing completely in a cerebral efficiency whose subtleties may have been captured on radio, however which had been a bit misplaced within the second.
Accessible on BBC Sounds till 12 October. The Proms proceed till 12 September.
