Friday, October 10, 2025
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Chairman Mao must be a little tired by now, he’s been dancing for years, appearing at concert venues all over the place, ever since John Adams gave him a separate lease of life away from Nixon in China. I thought I’d heard it enough times, yet Elim Chan (fresh from the Last Night of the Proms) led a swift, rhythmically vital account, with smoochy contrasts, that proved enjoyable, inspired by her busy baton-less direction. If Sauli Zinovjev’s four-movement Violin Concerto No.2 comes my way again, whoever is participating will have to go the extra mile to persuade that this premiere wasn’t enough to register note-bending, deliberate strangulated tone, movements I & II being too similar, ditto III & IV, although the Finale does change and makes for a worked-up ending. Staying in the mind are the first movement’s lyricism (reminding of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto), and the intense climax of III with baleful trombones. Nikita Boriso-Glebsky was fully committed to his task (ditto Chan, in full support), with seemingly no weaknesses in his technique, also evident in the final movement of Ysaÿe’s Sonata II, from Opus 27. As for Sofia Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem, it had an attractive mystery and long lines, some energy, yet a very loose structure – whatever its story, and cueing authors randomly, and not necessarily pertinent ones, there was little to suggest that ‘based on’ the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen might be the credit. It turned out to be John Adams’s evening, for the Doctor Atomic Symphony (Adams’s Robert Oppenheimer A-bomb opera), with a striking passage that reminds of Carl Ruggles’s Sun-treader, borrows from John Dowland, displays feverish activity, has solo spots for trombone and trumpet, the respective FRSO players impressive, and if the whole seems too long it nevertheless, in this company, stood out. As ever from this source, the sound and picture were first-class.
John Adams: The Chairman Dances
Sauli Zinovjev: World Bearer, Violin Concerto No. 2, world premiere (Yle commission)
Sofia Gubaidulina: Fairytale Poem
John Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony