SWEDISH PHILHARMONIA AT CORN EXCHANGE
Jaime Martin the Spanish conductor of the Swesish Philharmoniia
In this time of tribulation, it is a true test of music lovers to turn out for a major European orchestra. Jaime Martin, the charismatic conductor congratulated the audience on being there at all.
No wonder he is a hugely popular persona on the musical stages of the world. His orchestras read like a list of the brightest and best from Europe to California, yet it’s clear that the breathtakingly talented set of musicians, the Gävle Sinfonia ( just to confuse readers ) sometimes known as the Swedish Philharmonia, is his absolute favourite.
They were magnificent in the opening Symphonic fantasy, ‘The Tempest’ composed by Tchaikovsky in 1873 – part of the passion with nineteenth century musicians for all things Shakespeare . It opens – and closes in fact- with expansive evocations of the sea , storms and all, and in between sublimely unstructured passages of sheer romantic fantasy. The Swedes, always a sea-going nation – were in their element with this wild and unpredictable mood music, whilst the conductor gave the entire performance a kind of manic marine energy .
The star performer of the evening , the Ukranian violinist Viktoria Mullova won her first major prize, a Gold Medal in Helsinki for that country’s Sibelius prize in 1980. String playing must have some kind of magic as this now world famous performer looks about 30 years old today and her precision performance certainly exudes youthful dynamism. Having garnered just about every international honour going, she has returned ,as artists often do, to her Ukranian roots , her ‘peasant background ‘ and its influence of gypsy themes on 20th century jazz . With the Matthew Barley ensemble she has toured the world with her album’ The Peasant Girl’. Her latest incarnation as a performer comes inspired by her love of songs by Brazilians Antonio Carlos and Claudio Nucci. The C.D. ’Stradivarius in Rio’ is diversity at its most daring, incorporating Viktoria’s love of Bach with Brazilian originality. One to watch. She played Prokoviev’s brilliant and original Violin Concerto No 2 with verve. I have to confess that the second movement was just so beautiful , tears simply came into my eyes spontaneously. All the sparse audience could do was to clap to exhaustion to show how much we appreciated this gifted virtuoso before us.
The concert ended with a second half filled with Sibelius, his Symphony No 5. “Drank in approaching spring air, haze and mist. The new symphony is breaking out - walked in the Sunshine. Had violent impression of symphony Number five the new day that spring crescendoing” wrote Sibelius ( somewhat incoherently- as he felt the inspiration rising for this epic work. And we could feel that powerful genius of a brilliant composer thrill through the auditorium as keenly as the cold Baltic air blew through the Corn Exchange doors.
It is Spring for us and despite the difficulties, it is art like this which will bring us through.
As Maestro Jaime Martin announced at the end, in that unmistakable wry European way, ‘ We hope that music will help in the crisis to come”
