Friday, January 10, 2025
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
The concert opened with Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Sir Mark leading an expansive and dreamy account, played beguilingly, gently wafting, flexible, essentially serene, with La mer then persuasively flowing, beautifully shaped and detailed (including the Finale’s ad lib fanfares, trumpets), more symphonic than impressionistic, scrupulously prepared, the three movements attacca. The Wagner second half included the Tristan und Isolde bookends – ‘Prelude and Liebestod’ – ominous/slow-burn-impassioned, and then from tragedy to comedy (generalisations regarding the scope of both operas) to the so-called ‘Suite’ from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, taken from Act III, including the sublime ‘Prelude’, tenderly addressed by FRSO, then a light touch given to ‘Dance of the Apprentices’ before the majestic music that heralds the stage-work returns, here resoundingly.
Recorded 1961.