Today we had the first rehearsals for our upcoming classical series concerts with Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen. He’s a guest conductor that we’ve never worked with before, and he’s very new to the U.S. conducting circuit – this is his second US orchestra ever, his first having been the Cincinnati Symphony in February.
Pietari Inkinen, conductor (photo: Tanja Ahola)
The first meeting of a new conductor and an orchestra is always an interesting experience. There are many, many variables involved in these encounters. These include: the physical appearance of the conductor, the reputation (or lack thereof) of the conductor, the orchestra’s relationship with their own music director, the repertoire being performed, how tired the orchestra is, the quality of the other guest conductors, etc.
The Sibelius En Saga which opens the program is a long tone poem which is not well known to the orchestra at all. It is a fairly rambling piece which needs a firm hand to keep the pacing so that the climaxes are prepared properly. I’m not sure it’s the best piece to showcase a young, Finnish conductor with – there are plenty of more well-known pieces that might showcase both he and the orchestra better, including works by living Finnish composers, such as Rautavaara, Saariaho, Lindberg, and Salonen. It’s an enjoyable enough piece, with some striking orchestral colors, but the jury is out on this piece so far.
The Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony is a piece which we’ve seen a lot of over the years. Most string players groan when they see it listed on a program, as it’s very tiring – long stretches of loud dynamics, very little time to rest, lots of loud, fast passages. Plus the brass are very loud, so the ear gets fatigued as well. What I most would like out of an interpretation of this piece is for someone to put their unique stamp on it, make it their own, and get us out of the last 10 performances’ rut that we’ll go to if we don’t see something compelling. It’s a piece that you could give to a troop of untrained monkeys to perform and it would get a great audience response.
The Stravinsky Violin Concerto is also relatively unfamiliar to most of us (having not been performed here since before 1990), and it’s a tricky piece to put together, with a lot of concertante elements in the woodwinds and brass that must mesh seamlessly together with the soloist. Today we ran through it with the soloist (another Finn – Pekka Kuusisto) right after he jumped off the plane from Finland (dressed in garb that made him look as if he’d just climbed Mt Hood circa 1920), so I’m not going to say anything about it – tomorrow will tell…
Pekka Kuusisto, violinist (photo: Tanja Ahola)
Inkinen seems to be well-mannered, speaks very good English, and is polite. He does have a bit of that same sort of vagueness with his gestures that is in common with Hannu Lintu, but it remains to be seen if his largely hands off approach will reap dividends in performance. I remember not being super impressed with Lintu at his first couple rehearsals, these Finnish conductors do a slow burn sort of thing, where you’re not all that hot on them, and then the sneak up on you and you’re blown away.