Sebastian Hilli
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Helen Grime’s short welcome (for the LSO and Simon Rattle) – rhythmic, colourful, intricate – says more in four minutes than Sebastian Hilli does in thirty-five, for his 1977 – a Violin Concerto (a month by month tale of the stated year, from dreamy to a turn to tragedy, it seems), however expressive and potentially descriptive, music of long lines and pretty patterns, if too samey across this length, further scuppered by the overuse of trombone glissandos that grew evermore irritating on a purely musical basis (they may have a pictorial reference). To conclude the FRSO’s 24-25 season, the Bruckner (standard 1878/81 version) was splendid, immediately so with an expectant string tremolo (rustling just above audibility) and a richly communicative horn solo, from deep in a forest, to an ultimate awed climb from the depths to a mountaintop with a glorious view, via moonlit processional and hunting Scherzo, the outer movements displaying Nicholas Collon’s keen Brucknerian instincts – alive to rises and falls, ebbs and flows, languishes and impetuosities – and the FRSO’s sonorous and sensitive response. In the Scherzo’s Trio the melody was flute-led, which suggests Nowak’s edition was used; Haas has an oboe.