The final concert of this year's season of the Brno Philharmonic was devoted to works by Antonín Dvořák and Jean Sibelius at the Janáček Theatre. On Thursday, 20 June, Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt, who had not appeared before a Brno audience since January last year, took the lead of the Philharmonic. In the first half of the programme, the orchestra was accompanied by violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky.
Thursday evening opened with the Violin Concerto in A minor by Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). The work, one of the highlights of the composer's Slavic period, combines an imaginative arrangement of a traditional instrumental concerto with strong folk music influences, which are particularly evident in the expressive melodies. The orchestra, conducted by Michael Schønwandt, started with precision and coped well with the strongly rhythmic passages. Violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky began his part in a similarly convincing manner, having to cope with shorter, yet demanding runs in the very beginning, which ended on very high notes. There was no problem with the first, but the soloist did not quite hit that highest note on the second ending. But that was only a minor flaw, and did not happen again. Sitkovetsky wowed the Brno audience with his mastery of technique, which the composition put to the test in the fast passages, with the trickier rhythms, double beats and repetitive octave jumps. In contrast, the singing, lyrical parts gave full expression to the violinist's beautiful velvety tone. However, in a few places his playing was slightly drowned out by the overall sound of the orchestra, to some extent caused by the Janáček Theatre's less than ideal acoustics.
The orchestra put on a decent performance under Schønwandt's baton. During the work there was no major problem in the orchestra itself; it did a fine job with the dynamics and the short solo pieces by the individual instruments were great. The performance of Dvořák's concerto could have done with a little more energy. Not that the musicians themselves were lacklustre; more that the result lacked an expressive edge in some places. That did not come until the final movement, where, especially at the very beginning, the conductor perfectly guided the orchestra to bring out the expressive differences between the soloist's accompaniment and the places where the Philharmonic had the main say. The musicians were also hugely successful in their individual tempo changes, both abrupt and gradual. This was especially evident during the third movement, though there were a few places where the orchestra and soloist were not completely in sync. In these passages it would not have hurt if the conductor had responded a little better to the violinist. The first half of the concert ended with an encore by the soloist, who showed not the slightest hesitation in performing the Sarabande from the Partita in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
The second half of the evening was given over to Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) and his Symphony No. 1 in E minor. Although the work has no specific extra-musical context, it is clearly inspired by Finnish culture, nature and folklore. The composition begins with a more extensive clarinet solo, under which only a few timpani beats can be heard. The clarinettist gave a confident and very fine solo. He kept the dynamics low throughout, showing an absolutely exemplary pianissimo, especially at the end. After the strings came in, under Schønwandt's direction the musicians managed a hugely impressive accelerando, and overall the orchestra did an excellent job with all the tempo changes. From the first notes, it was clear that Sibelius' music suited the conductor a little better than Dvořák's. Under his baton, the Philharmonic was well-coordinated and where it was needed, the orchestra was not afraid to put in the energy the piece needed. There were only a couple of notable flaws: at the end of the first movement the pizzicato of the strings was not perfectly in tune, the orchestra was slightly out of sync at the end of the third movement, and the short appearance of the double basses in the final movement could also have been a little more settled. In contrast, all the short yet technically demanding solos played by the various instruments of the orchestra sounded absolutely perfect.
The last concert of the Philharmonic season offered two works strongly inspired by folk culture, the first Czech and the second Finnish. Although there were a few minor mistakes in the piece, the soloist and the Brno Philharmonic conducted by Michael Schønwandt generally gave a fine performance, making for a pleasant and dignified end to the 2023/24 season.
Antonín Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Alexander Sitkovetsky - violin
Brno Philharmonic
Michael Schønwandt - conductor
Thursday 20 June at 7:00 p.m., Janáček Theatre
Photo Štěpán Pulcar
No comment added yet..