Transported to the Land of the Midnight Sun: BSO Performs Sibelius, Nielsen, and Tarkiainen

Despite the windy morning, there was a great turnout for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s open rehearsal on Feb. 29 ahead of their weekend performances. The orchestra members were dressed casually for the rehearsal, creating a more intimate atmosphere in which the audience witnessed the group make their final musical adjustments. The stage was bathed in soft green and cerulean lights that highlighted the architecture’s gold accents, and the orchestra’s rich, encompassing sound evoked the Scandinavian settings which inspired the pieces in their program.

Led by Finnish conductor John Storgårds, the BSO opened their program with Outi Tarkiainen’s “Midnight Sun Variations,” followed by Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto featuring Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto in his BSO debut. After the intermission, they played three tone poems by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius: “The Oceanides,” “The Bard,” and “Tapiola.”

“Midnight Sun Variations” transported the audience to Arctic summer nights, where the sun shines for 24 hours a day. The opening created a vivid soundscape as runs traveled down through the piccolo, flutes, oboes, and clarinets, with natural-sounding ornamentation from percussion instrumentation including vibraphone, wind chimes, tam-tam, and a number of bowed percussion instruments. Despite the plethora of musical details, the emergence of eerily moving string lines and successive crescendos transformed the piece into a cohesive story.

Inspired by the birth of Tarkiainen’s son, “Midnight Sun Variations” is also about giving birth and bringing new life into the world. This facet of the song’s meaning proved even richer than its inspirations from nature, particularly because childbirth is a rare subject in the traditionally male-dominated field of classical composing. The BSO’s emotional rendition was a highlight of the night.

Moving into Nielsen’s concerto, the BSO — and particularly Pekka Kuusisto — showcased their technical talent. At the beginning of the first movement’s prelude, the orchestra hits set off the reflective violin solo. Kuusisto leaned into the personality of the part, performing the cadenza-like lines to create an antagonistic relationship between him and the orchestra. Even when the orchestra resumed, the violin floated above the sound. The swift Allegro cavalleresco, the crisp accents and solo violin’s trill led into the orchestra’s entrance, creating a pyramid of sound that filled the hall. The repetitions of classical chords, which turned dissonant in their final repetition, set off a run in the violin solo, which the soloist masterfully performed.

The second movement’s opening Adagio section featured expressive lyrical woodwind solos and a darker texture within the orchestra, allowing the music to convey deeper emotions. At the start of the rondo, the powerful dynamic shift from quiet to loud caught the audience’s attention. Although the brass sometimes slightly overpowered the strings, the soloist’s final cadenza shimmered through Symphony Hall with its high register, anticipatory trills, and dramatic timpani accompaniment. BSO’s first performance of this Danish concerto displayed depth in how the soloist and orchestra balanced both the classical and modern aspects of the piece.

After a brief intermission, the second half of the program returned to Finnish compositions with some of Sibelius’s tone poems. The first, “The Oceanides,” started softly, the light flutes singing like light twinkling on the ocean. The ominous brass and timpani parts built dramatic tension while the harp arpeggios continued to provide twinkling decoration, leading to a high point like the crash of a wave. The orchestra’s expression throughout this piece made it the most moving of the tone poems, as the group mirrored the changes in the moods of the sea.

The highlight of the second and shortest tone poem, “The Bard,” was its reflective and somber harp solo. The restrained dynamic urged the audience to pay attention as if listening to a bard’s story, and the harp’s rolled chords created a structure for the divided strings in an exploration of the chord progression.

In Sibelius’s “Tapiola,” which draws inspiration from the Finnish national epic “Kalevala,” the BSO once again returned to the forests of Finland. Sections traded around melodic motifs until they gradually moved together, while in other moments, pure sound with no established melody evoked the remote and mysterious landscape. Storgårds moved across his conducting podium, expertly drawing out the movement in the piece and successfully leading the orchestra to finish their Scandinavian narrative.

With a variety of subjects, composers, and styles performed with technical prowess and musicality, the morning’s program achieved a great feat by successfully transporting the audience to the locations that inspired the pieces, showing the pride and significance that the Scandinavian land provides for its people. From Tarkiainen’s current work to Nielsen and Sibelius’s pieces in the early and mid-20th century, the program’s use of classical styles with unique twists told a variety of stories and emphasized the magic of when music has a meaning.

—Staff writer Hannah M. Wilkoff can be reached at hannah.wilkoff@thecrimson.com.