VoxCarnyx

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

We all hear music differently, but conductor Joseph Swensen’s introduction of the Sixth Symphony of Jean Sibelius as an ineffably sad work of proto-minimalism that needed the balance of an encore of the same composer’s Valse Triste to send us home with a spring in our step did seem a little eccentric.

If his view of a piece that is more usually seen as surprisingly buoyant given the composer’s personal circumstances at the time of its composition did not compromise a programme that had attracted a very full house, there was still a suspicion that it affected some of his tempo choices, although the occasional lapses of rhythmic rigour sat oddly with the supposed kinship to minimalism.

That unbilled encore worked well though, as a closing statement by a string ensemble (albeit with a few wind soloists added) which had opened the evening with Grazyna Bacewicz’s 1948 Concerto for String Orchestra. Like Sibelius 6 it looks to early music – although Baroque rather than Renaissance – for some of its material, but the orchestration is often redolent of contemporary film scores, the interweaving textures topped off with solos from guest musicians – at first cello and in the front desk of the violas – before leader Stephanie Gonley was featured in the finale.

As well as the familiar figure of Swensen on the podium and the appeal of Sibelius, the excellent attendance at  the Queen’s Hall spoke of the popularity of concerto soloist Geneva Lewis. The young New Zealand violinist has just finished two years as a BBC Radio 3 Young Generation artist, and coincidentally a fine Aberdeen performance of Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango with accordionist Ryan Corbett had been broadcast earlier in the day.

Lewis’s precision approach to the Sibelius Violin Concerto, a pinnacle of the orchestral repertoire for her instrument, was exemplary. There was no lack of feeling and expression in her interpretation but it was the pin-sharp focus on every note in the score that really impressed.

That was no less true of the cadenza in the long first movement, while the balance with the orchestra was pretty much perfect throughout, at least from my seat upstairs in the Queen’s Hall. This was a large SCO for the venue, with five horns and five brass, but her top line was always clear. She and Swensen were not quite in sync at the last bar, but that hardly mattered.

There was an odd hesitancy about the questioning conclusion to the symphony as well – another of the composer’s challenging endings – as well as an uneasiness in the pulse at the start. Given his introductory remarks, perhaps this was all part of the conductor’s interpretation, but it was unlikely to be to all tastes. If there was a clarity about the pacing of the concerto – although the Adagio was probably as slow as it could stand – the symphony seemed much less assured.

But perhaps that is exactly how Swensen sees the difference between the two works.

Keith Bruce

Picture of Geneva Lewis by Matthew Holler