BBCSSO, 19/05/2022

Nielsen : Symphony No. 1

Mozart : Clarinet Concerto (Jörg Widmann, clarinet)

Nielsen : Symphony No. 4 "The Inextinguishable"

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Thomas Dausgaard

The BBCSSO brought the season to an end with the last instalment of their Nielsen symphony cycle, also marking the end of Thomas Dausgaard's appointment as Principal Conductor.  Dausgaard began as he meant to go on, the symphony bursting into vigorous movement from the outset, while the second movement built up steadily in passionate intensity.  The musical language is more romantic than Nielsen's later work, the orchestral textures a little more opaque - Nielsen's symphonies are all scored for fairly substantial forces, but in the later ones, his orchestration is  leaner and more subtle - but the unsettled tonality and rhythmic shifts are already there, as are certain melodic fingerprints, like the oscillating figure in the winds of the Scherzo which curiously prefigures that skirling wail of the 5th Symphony.  It's a very assured work for a First Symphony from a young composer, and Dausgaard let us see that.

Jörg Widmann is a composer and conductor as well as an instrumentalist, and there were moments during the Mozart concerto when it seemed as if he was itching to conduct the piece himself, as well as being the soloist.  In the first movement in particular, he was almost more playing to and for the other musicians than to the audience; he spent more time turned towards the orchestra, one side or the other, and even almost completely turning his back at times, and this was, I felt, a little alienating for us, we became completely secondary to the moment, unimportant observers.  Fortunately, the second movement was more focused outwards, into the hall, eloquent and serene, and the third found a decent compromise between the two positions. Otherwise, his playing was exemplary, liquid of tone, effortless and persuasive, and Dausgaard and the orchestra were clearly on the same page with him,

I've heard these same forces play "The Inextinguishable" before, not quite 9 years ago, one of Dausgaard's first concerts with this orchestra.  The world was a rather different place in 2013, though, and I think Dausgaard was reflecting that in his current reading, which was darker than I remembered from last time.  The lyrical theme of the first movement which eventually concludes the whole symphony struggled more to assert itself against the assailing forces around it, while grimmer aspects, like the 'storm' which follows the first big cadence of that theme in the first movement, were very striking.  The Scherzo was delightful in its quirky delicacy, but in the end, if the hope offered by that lyrical theme was present, it was something that, for all its sunburst radiance, clearly needs to be striven for.

[Next : 21st May]