Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Prior to this Mahler (with a second performance scheduled for tomorrow), Herbert Blomstedt’s October was of three Bruckner Eights in Leipzig and then three weeks in Tokyo with the NHKSO, three programmes, six concerts.
Somewhat frail, entering arm-in-arm with the concertmaster (second violins the other side of the podium), once seated the musically hungry Blomstedt led a Mahler Nine that belied he is in his ninety-eighth year – powerful and passionate, tender, and as volatile as the music suggests yet without disrupting the overall design, the first movement at once emotionally compelling yet structurally logical without being hidebound, the Finnish Radio SO responding with commitment, depth and chamber-music sensitivity. The rustic dances of the second movement were suitably pesante and disruptive, moments of reflection, others of propulsion, irony, too; followed by an objective ‘Rondo-Burleske’, stoical/articulate and serene/transporting, something saved for the breakaway coda (the only time a side drum is used during this work, cutting through vividly here) if not manically out-of-kilter with what had gone before. The final Adagio, a mix of dignified chorale and otherworldly journeying, avoided Last Rites (after all, Mahler drafted enough of a Tenth Symphony to have it made performable) – the climax noble, and following an ensemble hiatus (soon rectified), the music’s fading from aural view to silence was haunting.
Blomstedt is due in London next week for a Philharmonia Orchestra concert (21st, RFH) … Mahler Nine. And then – via Bamberg (Beethoven & Brahms) – Berlin, December 19-21, Bruckner Nine, with the third evening live on the Digital Concert Hall. The New Year for Blomstedt starts in Munich before February finds him in the US for a month.
https://areena.yle.fi/1-71177245 ***VIEWING LINK***
London.
Mahler 9.
Can’t wait
Sadly I have to miss this concert. Maybe R3 will be there?
I couldn’t see any microphones and nobody in the box for R3, but I was in the rear stalls so couldn’t see if there were! Let’s hope there were, it was a stunning performance from all concerned.