This week we’re rehearsing for the Classical 6 series: Sibelius’ Sixth Symphony, Haydn’s D major Cello Concerto, and Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, under the direction of Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu. It’s an interesting program. So far we’ve only rehearsed the two symphonies, but they bring surprises, both in comparison to each other and in their own right.
The Sibelius, along with the Fourth Symphony, is to me the least known of his seven. It’s a bit of a tough nut to crack. Not in terms of being a difficult listening experience – it’s vintage Sibelius with its soaring lines for strings, brass and woodwinds, along with scurrying, almost minimalistic figurations in the strings. It is, in fact, the way that each of the movements end that is most curious and at odds with the standard Western way of ending a symphonic movement.
Usually, the coda (Italian for “tail”) section of a movement is somewhat proportionate to the length of the movement as a whole. This generally allows for the tension that has built up over the course of the movement to be relaxed and to tie up the various themes into a nice little package that brings the movement to a satisfying end. Sibelius, however, ends the movements of his Sixth Symphony with tiny, minuscule codas – in the case of the the first two movements, each encompasses the astonishingly small length of four measures! The third movement scherzo basically ends in mid-sentence, and the last movement has the most extensive coda which is, however, much shorter than the average.
As we were reading through the piece for the first time on Monday morning, Hannu Lintu explained that these clipped endings are in fact quintessentially Finnish in character. He said “In Finland, when you are saying good bye to a friend, you don’t say ‘Have a great evening, say hello to your wife from me, let’s do this again soon’, instead we’re all business: a simple ‘good bye’ suffices.” This symphony seems to be (and it’s Lintu’s favorite of the seven) an essentially Finnish statement, written more for domestic consumption than foreign favor, and a very personal expression on a smaller scale. I look forward to getting to know this piece much better over our series of performances.
The Beethoven is also somewhat of a black sheep in his symphonic output. It’s a relentlessly cheerful and optimistic work, full of lean muscularity rather than padded, orotund statements of great import. I always forget how tiring it is to play this symphony – the constant high-volume scrubbing in the inner parts is very tiring, and I awoke on Tuesday morning with a sore bow arm as a result. Lintu is taking rather brisk tempos in this piece, and it should be a test of the orchestra’s virtuosity this weekend. Great fun.
The Haydn D major Cello Concerto is a beast! It’s often considered the ultimate test in classic virtuosity and the ability to play cleanly and elegantly under duress. It’s a beautiful work to listen to, however, and the best performers will be able to toss it off with little apparent effort. Know, however, that they’re sweating it out every moment from beginning to end! Ralph Kirshbaum is a very highly regarded soloist and teacher who is making his first appearance with the Oregon Symphony this weekend. It should be a treat.