NZSO celebrates the 150th birthday anniversary Sibelius

NZSO celebrates the 150th birthday anniversary of Finnish composer Sibelius

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra celebrates the 150th birthday anniversary of Finland’s great composer Jean Sibelius with music that will rattle, unnerve, and animate the senses.

Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 is filled with his characteristically invigorating harmonies and unique driving melodies that make his music both universal and compelling. When describing his symphony, Sibelius wrote: “It is as if the Almighty had thrown down the pieces of a mosaic for heaven’s floor and asked me to put them together.” Sibelius indulges in the full Romantic textures of the orchestra and celebrates the entire spectrum of orchestral colour. Completed in 1902, the fragments of each of the four movements come together at the close of the work when, as Sibelius pictured, the mosaic floor of heaven emerges.

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård is the ideal leader of this Finnish and British programme of orchestral works. Currently he holds titled positions with two major British orchestras as Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra - a rare honour. His appearances with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the 2013 and 2014 Proms received wide praise from both audience and critics alike, and his release of their first commercial disc together - featuring Sibelius’s Second and Seventh Symphonies (Linn Records), has been a critical success.

His nuanced and detailed performances have drawn critical acclaim internationally. Last year, he conducted a highly regarded performance of Britten's moody Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Scotland’s The Herald Saturday called the performance “transcendent”:

A performance which revealed all the pain, conscience and beauty in this great concerto, which is woefully underplayed. In the closing pages, where, for me, the music reaches a dimension of spirituality, my breathing went on hold, my heart swelled, and I was emotionally devastated and uplifted, both at the same time. The Herald Saturday, 3 May 2014, Michael Tumelty.

In his debut appearance with the NZSO, Søndergård conducts this powerful concerto with London-born violinist Anthony Marwoodwho returns to New Zealand following his acclaimed 2010 world premiere performance of Ross Harris’ Violin Concerto No. 1 with the NZSO.

A biting energy lies at the centre of Britten’s virtuosic and imaginative Violin Concerto. Premiered on 28 March 1940 with the New York Philharmonic, the original reviews were deemed “pretty violent: either pro or con” by Britten. This Concerto demands a soloist of astonishing imagination and brilliant technical prowess and pushes the violin to the extremes of its power. Renowned virtuoso Anthony Marwood who doesn’t “spare the angst”, is a perfect match for this difficult concerto.

Marwood didn’t spare the angst. His playing was tough and sinewy, his tackling of the tricky passages in harmonics by no means facile. The Times (Britten concerto with London Philharmonic, conductor Marin Alsop, 2007)

Into the Storm opens with Britten’s Four Seas Interludes from his popular opera Peter Grimes which propelled him to national and international fame. Inspired by the natural and savage beauty of the English coast, each interlude offers a different image of the sea. Its genius lies in the way Britten translates the sounds of a storm into music and then uses this music to suggest the turmoil inside Peter Grimes, a grisly character whom Britten discovered after reading George Crabbe’s collection of poems The Borough.

Peter Grimes premiered on 7 June 1945 at Sadler’s Wells, London, marking the famous theatre’s re-opening at the end of the European war. Only six days later, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, under Britten’s baton, performed Four Sea Interludes.

Enjoy this opportunity to hear three monumental works of the 20th century repertoire live with your national orchestra. Experience Into the Storm, in association with New Zealand Listener.

ENDS

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