"NORTHERN COOLNESS? NOT ALL ALL"

All of the ensemble’s strength unfolded after the interval in Brahms’ First Symphony.   The performance was enormously powerful, yet balanced and never brash. Thomas Dausgaard is an extremely charismatic conductor, from whom radiates an aura of energy, and the musicians instinctively know what colours he wants from them.

The evening was made even better with the performance of the soloist Kit Armstrong in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. The US-Wonderchild, who wrote his first symphony when he was just seven years old and who is also highly gifted in maths and languages,  celebrated his 19th birthday on the same evening.  The audience was rewarded: with a light-fingered, thought-through performance, coherently phrased and beautifully balanced with the orchestra. Standing ovations and refined Debussy as an encore followed.

In Beethoven's First Piano Concerto Armstrong combines a completely effortless dexterity with a crystal-clear view of architecture, which he works out extremely economically setting accents and colours. Yet the clarity, beauty and unpretentiousness of the melodic line seems to be lacking in the physicality and sensuality as characterized by the string sound of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. The moments which were the more affective were when there was an exchange of ideas, when he matched or imitated the pizzicato contours of the orchestra ...The emotional highlight of the evening however was Brahms' First Symphony:  With a transparent, vibrato-less sound – that seems to be inspired by historical knowledge – and fiery conducting, Brahms’ first symphony works rocks with the aftershocks of Schumann.

With his performance Armstrong built up a good tension with his accompanists, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard.  The Ensemble and its conductor favour a sharpened, high-energy sound, malleable to aggressive in form, with chamber-music like contours fanning through the wind section. This musical approach avails right from the opening work - the colourful, distinctive “A Freak in Burbank” by the modern Swedish composer Albert Schnelzer.

At the end came Brahms’ First Symphony. Here too the ensemble showed the benefits of a purified core-sound as opposed to symphonic opulence:  a gain in accuracy, flexibility and intensity.  The slow introduction, which is so often blurred in performance – was a prime-example of the excitement to follow. And how Dausgaard used the three driven semiquaver motive to come out of the second theme’s through – that was of the finest.

The main focus of the programme was Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto.  Armstrong played the work with a perfectly controlled approach.  With regard to Beethoven he is no dare-devil, no wild youngster but instead a classic. Nevertheless, his performance is in no way precocious or overly trained, rather deeply heartfelt. The first theme of the C Major Concerto was played with a seldomly heard delicacy.  He executed the runs and ornaments with a light hand, but at the same time creating glass-clear contours. With a singing tone he personalized the Largo, whilst in the End-Rondo he brought the music to dance through the buoyant rhythm.  Framing the concerto was the remarkable performance of the opening orchestral work “A Freak in Burbank” written by the Swedish composer Albert Schnelzer as a homage to Haydn inspired by the garish Hollywood-Director Tim Burton, which was not without humour and was interpreted as such by Dausgaard.

At the end came Brahms’ First Symphony. Despite a small (string) section the Swedish Chamber Orchestra created a wonderful sound, whereby the very accented and rhythmically precise playing avoided any romantic indulgence. The solo violin / horn unison in the slow movement nevertheless opened up the heart. For the encore the orchestra gave a seamless performance of Brahms’ First Hungarian Dance.

In the last concert of the “Johannisberg International” series the 18 year old, who is still a very young pianist, performed Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto in C Major.  Conductor Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish musicians created a light, often soft and inwardly-romantic shaped Beethoven. An interpretation which matched the pianist: coaxingly he developed the melody line in the “Allegro von Brio” – always breathing with the orchestra.

The orchestra opened the evening with Albert Schnelzer’s overture “A Freak in Burbank”:  the idiosyncratic searching music, which exchanges rhythmic and harmonic patterns, is in the best of hands with the Swedes and conductor who directs with his whole body. That also applied to Brahms’ First Symphony. The lightness with which they performed this complex work gave no hint of the 14 year long struggle that the composer had with the work. The first movement opens, romantically suspended with dynamic contrasts and magical horn solos. Expressively and poetically the melody of the “Andante sostenuto” gradually pares down – with a yearning farewell from solo violin and horn.

Idyllic and gently rocking, sometimes with an indefinite blurring, the three part “Allegretto” is a musical jewel. In the final movement, with its horn-motive, string-pizzicato and choral-like trombone call, the musicians remove the monumental gravity: The conductor Dausgaard demands short phrasing and a way of playing that purifies the music of romantic-pathos.  Rightfully there followed a standing ovation for which the orchestra thanked the audience with a lively performance of Brahms’ First Hungarian Dance.

A standing ovation was also given to the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard – and that was only too right. This version of Brahms’ Symphony No.1 was characterized by exciting tempos, outstanding solos, in particular from the oboe, and additionally an orchestral sound that was both transparent and full of warmth. The encore, a Hungarian Dance by Brahms, teemed with young freshness, vitality, liveliness and pleasure. Huge applause.