Santtu-Matthias Rouvali conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra, first day of Japan tour

英文記事
2025-01-21

Experience the Latest Interpretation of Sibelius by a British Orchestra

By Takuo Ikeda

It has been five years since the Philharmonia Orchestra toured Japan in January 2020, when the world was on the verge of ‘sleeping’ due to the Corona disaster. The chief conductor has been replaced by Santtu-Matthias Rouvali (b. 1985) from Esa-Pekka Salonen, but the Finnish conductor is 27 years younger than his predecessor. A guest conductor with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Rouvali made his debut in Japan as early as 2012, and in 2017 he visited Japan with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra of his home country, where he remains Honorary Conductor, performing Sibelius’ Symphony No 5, exactly the same as this time, at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan with an encore of the Sad Waltz.

The UK, together with Japan, was the first country outside Finland to recognise the true value of Sibelius, and the Philharmonia Orchestra’s performance was deeply sympathetic. Rouvali lets the woodwind solos fly as freely as they can, while giving the string ensemble a dynamic sway, sometimes with the sharp edge of a percussionist. The duo, who have been together for five years, shared the same interpretative defaults, and the second half of the second movement led to a surprisingly rich emotional expression. In the third movement, the brass played a major role, bringing brighter-than-usual tones to the fore and building to a big climax in the coda. The conductor had clearly achieved a greater scale than eight years earlier.

The first half included two concertos. Bruch’s Fantasie, interspersed with Scottish melodies, has been a favourite of London orchestras since its recording by Jascha Heifetz, and the Philharmonia Orchestra made a masterful recording with Arthur Grumiaux in 1973, when it called itself the ‘New Philharmonia’. On the other hand, the Philharmonia Orchestra’s 1948 monaural recording of Grieg with Dinu Lipatti is still one of the best. The author’s interest was focused on how these two pieces were played by a young Japanese soloist of the 21st century with the Philharmonia Orchestra, which is a ‘good match’. In Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, Fumiaki Miura highlighted the lyricism of the piece with his highly transparent and beautiful tone and moderate expression.

Nobuyuki Tsujii of Grieg’s ‘Piano Concerto’ showed some virtues, such as a Mozart-like weakness in the second theme of the first movement, but he was a step behind the orchestra in the variety of tonal changes. I hope that both musicians will further deepen their ‘art’ before they can convince the audience with a masterpiece amongst masterpieces.