Sometimes it is the quality of the playing that bowls you over from the start. There are of course top-drawer orchestras all over the world, but hearing the Estonian Festival Orchestra at the Pärnu Festival for the first time was like finding a sparkling jewel in the most unexpected place. Drawn from the cream of European players, Paavo Järvi has created in the EFO an ensemble which is not only astonishingly flexible but which also has a depth of tonal resources not often matched elsewhere.
It was the string section that had the first opportunity to shine. Lutosławski’s Musique funèbre à la mémoire de Béla Bartók carries the only dedication which he gave to another composer in any of his works. Completed in 1958, it is more than simply a tribute to a great predecessor and lover of experimentation. Like many other short but powerful pieces for string orchestra, it takes the listener on an emotional journey of grief and loss. Järvi built this lament inexorably from the opening pair of cellos, voices murmuring as if from afar, through the shuddering intensity of the Apogeum section where upper strings cut and sliced with a rare ferocity, balanced by thudding counterpoint from the lower sections. This was a collective howling and moaning like winter winds tearing through a desolate landscape, eating into the soul, before the piece exhausted itself in a morendo for the principal cello. Throughout the clarity of articulation was stunning, all Lutosławski’s individual textures braided together into a rich tapestry of sound. In its combination of finesse and power this performance had a rare quality.
The EFO also proved themselves to be warmly supportive accompanists in Stefan Dohr’s performance of the Horn Concerto no. 2 by Richard Strauss, in which the sunlit uplands of the central Andante were especially striking. From an opening graced by a fine oboe solo and Dohr’s soft legato entry, there were distinct echoes of the famous Act 3 trio from Der Rosenkavalier, moments of compositional recall tinged with aching nostalgia. Equally impressive was a feathery-light impishness which Dohr found in the Finale, a fleet-footed catch-me-if-you-can approach, to which his Messiaen encore was the perfect foil as well as being an excellent example of his prodigious range.
In Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony Järvi never over-indulged the brooding that retards some accounts of the opening Andante, keeping the mood buoyant with prominent clarinets and a lightness of tread in the following Allegro con anima section. Later, there were already intense sparks of electricity that Järvi struck from the strings and especially the imposing trombones, tempered only by the mellifluous character of the woodwind, and this galvanising energy carried through to the sweep of the Finale. The entire performance was all of a piece, aided by having the briefest of pauses between movements.
Both the Andante cantabile and Valse benefited from a balletic elegance which seemed to come from the far reaches of Tchaikovsky’s favourite composer Mozart. As the slow movement wound down from a powerful climax there was a touching tenderness at its close.
How would Järvi end the Finale? Would it be a triumphant victory over Fate or a stoic acceptance that Fate cannot be defeated? Järvi chose the former, making the blood race with the tingle factor. It was like being sucked inextricably into a vortex from which there was no escape. Bracing, heady and ultimately very satisfying.
This evening’s parade of formidable music-making at the highest level came to a stirring conclusion with two orchestral encores: the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and the Shepherd Girl’s Dance from Hugo Alfvén’s Bergakungen.
Alexander's press trip was funded by the Pärnu Music Festival and Visit Estonia
