Royal Festival Hall, London
The UK premiere of the Turkish composer’s piano concerto Mother Earth was balanced with theatrical Sibelius and a sure-footed reading of Dvorak’s upbeat Eighth Symphony
T
he Philharmonia closed their 80th-anniversary season in style with a pair of late-Romantic big hitters and the UK premiere of a seven-movement piano concerto by Turkish composer Fazil Say. With nature at its heart, the programme journeyed from the frozen wastes of Finland to the sun-kissed woodlands of Bohemia and beyond.
En Saga, a last-minute substitute for Falla’s Love the Magician, was Sibelius’s first tone poem, poorly received in 1893 but successfully revised nine years later. The composer refused to furnish any specific literary explanations, yet the colourful score is redolent with imagery, from patriotic pageantry to dusky forests and midnight sleigh rides. It proved meat and drink to fellow Finn Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Plunging into its shadowy dramas, the conductor sustained the musical momentum effortlessly across its substantial arc while striking some fantastical podium attitudes of his own to tease out its more theatrical effects.
