BBC SSO, Perth Concert Hall
★★★
FRIDAY night in Perth was effectively the 10th birthday night of Perth Concert Hall. Literalists will observe that the chronological date of the opening concert was Friday 16th, 2005, but flexibility around an orchestral concert is perfectly allowable.
And it always promised to be a special orchestral night. The programming was spot-on for a birthday event, with Sibelius’s Finlandia, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto with Alison Balsom as soloist, and Rachmaninov’s mighty, surging, and Romantically-pulsating Second Symphony on the menu, with the BBC SSO, ever the band for a special occasion, in charge of delivering the goods. Gosh, I thought, on the way up to Perth: barring an earthquake or the Apocalypse, this should be a cracker; the programme’s just about bomb-proof. I did wonder, fleetingly, if it would be conductor-proof. Director for the night, Norwegian conductor Eivind Aadland, was not a familiar name.
Such concerns were pretty inconspicuous in the SSO’s thrilling opening performance of Sibelius’ Finlandia, where the sheer golden and bronzed sound of the piece reached out from the SSO playing and filled every acoustical nook and cranny of the hall’s fabulous sonic chamber. And they were totally irrelevant in Alison Balsom’s near-pristine account of the Haydn, which was characterised by her power, strength of tone, command of Haydn’s super-concise wit and her own gob-smacking articulation, which was nicely-balanced by her gentle little encore, a tender Folk Song by an unfamiliar figure, Oscar Lindberg I think was the name.
Alas, things teetered a bit in the second half with conductor Aadland’s control of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, which was desperately four-square and rigidly-wooden, one of those performances with a conductor who seemed tied to the beat and the bar-line, effectively chaining the music to its seat. “Let them go!” I was mentally screaming at him. “Get it off the leash.” Not much luck. I’ve heard more flexibility from a plank. The characteristic intensity of the BBC SSO musicians, working their socks off, saved the piece, and the night.
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