Hidden songs
for orchestra
Orchestration
2(2)-2(1)-3(1)-3 4-2-3 time perc:2 hp str
Duration
30 minutes
First performance /Commissioned by
First performance in Stavanger, 2006
Commissioned by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra
Review...
"Musical Steam Bath"
W
e already heard after a few measures of the opening number, Sibelius's tone poem Pohjola's daughter, that the young Swedish conductor Stefan Solyom had worked well with the orchestra: The heavy sounds that are Sibelius's signature never became monotonous. The mythical-musical material was prepared in detail, with richness of nuance and precision. Part of the exciting thing about this season's SSO program has been the mix of new and old. On Thursday evening we had a first performance: Knut Vaage's "Hidden Songs", a half-hour-long orchestral piece in which all the instruments have a part to play. Considering the short trial period, this was a solid performance by both conductor and orchestra; the pace was high, the precision as well. It is a large format that Vaage has adopted here, and the format utilizes the possibilities of the large symphony orchestra. Vaage is a master at clarifying the timbre of the individual instrument groups. It is rare that a Norwegian composer has such a superb grasp of the instrumentation. Vaage develops processes from the bottom up, from the level of detail, and not from a set framework. I think the engine in the process is the shift between figure and ground, the melodic and the rhythmic: the latter Vaage has a special talent for. In terms of ideas, the work may not be that big of a thought, but we sense a musical thinking that has to do with "natura naturans", nature in its way of working, and not something to be represented. Sound is also resonant in this work, animal and bird sounds that give the imagination extra stimulation.
Brahms' great works were in their time compared to a steam bath. It is apt, not least for a first piano concerto. English John Lill manages to convey this better than most of the star pianists. One would easily say solid about this pianist, who without any facts sits there, concentrated in his own weight, and just oozes both brilliance and bravura from his sleeve. He is also chemically free of the presumably spirited glancing at the ceiling in slow, romantic parts:
But it was precisely in the slow second movement that things started to happen with the interpretation, after the first movement was in no way remarkable. In the last two movements, the range was large. Stefan Solyom was exceptionally responsive and alert at a pace that was extremely slow and at the breaking point of (not) bearing. Lill's estimate runs deep. It does not come from the fingers, the wrist or the arm, but from the stomach. The performance was a demonstration of this relatively banal truth.
Written by Arnfinn Bø-Rygg, Stavanger Aftenblad, 9 December 2006
