Hannu Lintu conducts Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra
Hannu Lintu, a Finnish conductor and a student of Jorma Panula at Sibelius acedemy conducts two weekend concerts here with MPO. The review here is the first week consisting of Stravinsky, Bartok and Sibelius. Somehow after listening to Karajan's BPO recording of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta I've became a freak of that particular piece. Acclaimed as probably the finest piece he ever composed (apart from overplayed Concerto for Orchestra), I believe this masterpiece is best listened (and viewed) live, especially with particularly the innovative orchestral arrangements of two seperate string orchestra for antiphonal effect and central placements of percussion instruments.
The "appetiser" of Stravinsky's Symphonies for Wind Instruments starts off quite deliciously and the MPO stringless ensemble shows off myriad of various tone colours despite some weak attacks from the brasses. Particularly the lower brasses and basses are superb, the wind playing had fine phrasing. I'd definitely enjoyed this piece better than the boring London Philharmonic/Franz Welser-Most recording. When it comes to the highlight of the evening, I was ecstatic. The effect of muted strings in the first movement are good although the contrast are not as deliberate as the Karajan recording when the mutes are removed. When one first hear the celesta in a live concert, it can send spine-chilling goosebumps and the instrument responsed brilliantly to the fine accoustics of Dewan Filharmonik Petronas.
For the fast movements, Maestro Lintu and the MPO responded to the difficult rhythmic writings of Bartok and the antiphonal exchanges between two string orchestras are executed well with few minor lapses, or what I rather call "lags" but not too unsteady. The tempos employed are not volatile and hard driven, but thankfully not as cool as Boulez with his CSO in the DG recording. When it comes to the evocative and surreal third movement, timpanist Paul Thilbert's pedal-timp control almost cracked laughter throughout the whole hall when someone actually farted *whoops*, or rather creaked the seat. What followed made that up when the spooky violin solo episode came along. The background violin slides is highlighted instead of buried in the background as I heard in recordings and as it passes to the nightmare passage of harp, celesta and piano arpeggios to the central climax, it was truly terrifying.
I think it's rather difficult to get correct tempo for the opening of the last movement and along with Karajan, maestro Lintu managed to get that right. There was massive brakes when it comes to the dance interlude where it slowed down quite sluggishly and that was the only disappointing moment for the whole piece. Maestro Lintu ends the whole movement with massive ritartando, unwritten in the score but perhaps he didn't want the whole work to end so abruptly especially to n00bs (if you know what I mean). Overall, the Bartok was a great success.
The experience was dulled by some rather bombastic Sibelius, and maybe it would've been better to just walk home at the interval. I admire maestro Lintu's ability to draw wave after wave of pounding climaxes in crucial moments, but as much as exhilirating the accelerated race at the coda of first movement, it was vulgar. The winds didn't show the same commitment in Stravinsky as the slow movement with detached and sloppy wind phrasings. It shows MPO lacked ability in long-breath works like Bruckner, whatmore this symphony. At the third movement, the brasses dominated the whole movement to such extent the opening oboe passages was almost drowned by the horns. Not a particularly impressive Sibelius by a Finnish conductor if you ask me.
The "appetiser" of Stravinsky's Symphonies for Wind Instruments starts off quite deliciously and the MPO stringless ensemble shows off myriad of various tone colours despite some weak attacks from the brasses. Particularly the lower brasses and basses are superb, the wind playing had fine phrasing. I'd definitely enjoyed this piece better than the boring London Philharmonic/Franz Welser-Most recording. When it comes to the highlight of the evening, I was ecstatic. The effect of muted strings in the first movement are good although the contrast are not as deliberate as the Karajan recording when the mutes are removed. When one first hear the celesta in a live concert, it can send spine-chilling goosebumps and the instrument responsed brilliantly to the fine accoustics of Dewan Filharmonik Petronas.
For the fast movements, Maestro Lintu and the MPO responded to the difficult rhythmic writings of Bartok and the antiphonal exchanges between two string orchestras are executed well with few minor lapses, or what I rather call "lags" but not too unsteady. The tempos employed are not volatile and hard driven, but thankfully not as cool as Boulez with his CSO in the DG recording. When it comes to the evocative and surreal third movement, timpanist Paul Thilbert's pedal-timp control almost cracked laughter throughout the whole hall when someone actually farted *whoops*, or rather creaked the seat. What followed made that up when the spooky violin solo episode came along. The background violin slides is highlighted instead of buried in the background as I heard in recordings and as it passes to the nightmare passage of harp, celesta and piano arpeggios to the central climax, it was truly terrifying.
I think it's rather difficult to get correct tempo for the opening of the last movement and along with Karajan, maestro Lintu managed to get that right. There was massive brakes when it comes to the dance interlude where it slowed down quite sluggishly and that was the only disappointing moment for the whole piece. Maestro Lintu ends the whole movement with massive ritartando, unwritten in the score but perhaps he didn't want the whole work to end so abruptly especially to n00bs (if you know what I mean). Overall, the Bartok was a great success.
The experience was dulled by some rather bombastic Sibelius, and maybe it would've been better to just walk home at the interval. I admire maestro Lintu's ability to draw wave after wave of pounding climaxes in crucial moments, but as much as exhilirating the accelerated race at the coda of first movement, it was vulgar. The winds didn't show the same commitment in Stravinsky as the slow movement with detached and sloppy wind phrasings. It shows MPO lacked ability in long-breath works like Bruckner, whatmore this symphony. At the third movement, the brasses dominated the whole movement to such extent the opening oboe passages was almost drowned by the horns. Not a particularly impressive Sibelius by a Finnish conductor if you ask me.
posted by Corgan Sow at 12:11 pm
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