Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Concert Hall, Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13 A, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Scherzos as bookends, ‘Queen Mab’ (from Berlioz’s Dramatic Symphony, Roméo et Juliette) and Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (after Goethe’s ballad), forever Fantasia (1940) and Mickey Mouse, courtesy of Disney and Stokowski. The Berlioz was light, alert rhythmically, articulate, even a trifle mysterious, with deft horns and, briefly, eruptive percussion. Berlioz’s musical biographing of Cleopatra was a mix of urgency and lyrical effusiveness, Karen Deshayes bringing dramatic edge and vivid characterisation to the queen’s look-back and her tragic end, Susanna Mälkki bringing out Berlioz’s non-textbook scoring, probably one reason why he didn’t win the coveted Prix de Rome until the fourth attempt. Following the interval Kaija Saariaho’s film- and Ingmar Bergman-related Laterna Magica, for Berlin and Simon Rattle, a substantial twenty-five-minute piece – enchanted, agitated, vibrant – with a clear sense of climax (percussion prominent). It paired well with the Dukas, here explored more for narration than its showpiece possibilities, as well as uncovering sometimes-submerged details, and quite measured in tempo, to descriptive advantage, bassoon as broom galumphingly witty.
Hector Berlioz: Scherzo de la reine Mab
Hector Berlioz: Cléopâtre, scène lyrique
Kaija Saariaho: Laterna Magica
Paul Dukas: L’apprenti sorcier
This is a splendid concert not concerned with wide audience appeal (though it would have been sold out knowing Finns ability to digest this musical feast).
It whets my appetite to hear Saariaho’s music again.
And who doesn’t love Mickey having fun with the mishchievous broom sticks.