Friday, May 16, 2025
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Impressionistic, intense and dark pieces bookended this concert, beginning with the short-lived Lili Boulanger’s impressive nocturne, generously atmospheric and melodic if heavy of heart, sensitively performed, David Afkham (the German, Haitink-mentored, chief conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra) going on to sculpt an expansive account of Schoenberg’s Maeterlinck-inspired late-Romantic symphonic poem, alive to its pictorial scope and its suggestive storytelling; also its modernist tendencies, if key-related, this impassioned performance revealing of solo lines (played with distinction) within the densely scored tuttis.
As centrepiece, Oliver Knussen’s wonderful Violin Concerto, for Pinchas Zukerman, concise yet bursting with beguiling invention and detailing. Petri Aarnio (leader of the FRSO) proved to be a master of the solo part, combining technical brilliance and musical sagacity, for instant appeal yet far-reaching engagement. This generously lyrical and rhythmically buoyant gem, immaculate in glinting orchestration, given with collegiate conviction, once again claimed itself to be special.