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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,115,2],"tags":[67,86,55,3666,62],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-classical","tag-conductor","tag-orchestra","tag-oregon","tag-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-8A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13608,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/12\/07\/rare-sibelius-and-americana\/","url_meta":{"origin":532,"position":0},"title":"rare sibelius and americana","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Friday night we played the first of three concerts of what is, both on paper and in the flesh, a very unusual program. Firstly, it essentially runs in reverse. Rather than an \"opener, concerto, intermission, big symphony\" format that we've become quite accustomed to, the program starts with a rarely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"James Gaffigan | Photo: Matt Henneck","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/gaffigan11_high-500x501.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/05\/26\/and-boy-were-our-arms-tired\/","url_meta":{"origin":532,"position":1},"title":"…and boy were our arms tired!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night we played our last concert in the concert hall until next September. It was a program to thank our many donors who have given of their time and money to help support the symphony. They deserved a hearty thank you from all of us on stage, and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.vajdag.com\/graphics\/vajda2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13957,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/12\/08\/sibelius-150th\/","url_meta":{"origin":532,"position":2},"title":"sibelius’ 150th","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Birthday, Jean Sibelius! I love the symphonies of Sibelius (with the possible exception of No. 2, and that's only because of the endless scale patterns that annoy me to play - I love listening to it), and I have since before there was ever an inkling that I'd make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "arts journalism\/criticism"","block_context":{"text":"arts journalism\/criticism","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/arts-journalismcriticism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/sibelius-1233768543-hero-wide-1.jpg?fit=618%2C298&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/sibelius-1233768543-hero-wide-1.jpg?fit=618%2C298&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/sibelius-1233768543-hero-wide-1.jpg?fit=618%2C298&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4501,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/25\/the-midori-paradox\/","url_meta":{"origin":532,"position":3},"title":"whither midori?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night we played our first of four concerts with the violinist Midori, who is performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto with us this weekend.\u00a0 Her visit here has been a puzzling one for me and perhaps for others in the orchestra as well. Midori has been on the forefront of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/midori-goto.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":989,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/23\/a-look-back-pt-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":532,"position":4},"title":"a look back, pt. 1","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought I'd start off next Monday by taking a retrospective at the 2007-2008 OSO season, both on stage and off. But for now, a list of the works we performed this season on the Classical Subscription and Inside the Score series. I'm always somewhat dumbfounded when I look through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3998,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/06\/karen-gomyo-plays-prokofiev\/","url_meta":{"origin":532,"position":5},"title":"karen gomyo plays prokofiev","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This weekend's set of Classical series concerts at the Oregon Symphony feature the Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo, who I had a chance to hear several times when she was still just on the cusp of a career, most recently when she came to play the Bruch G minor Violin Concerto\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}