There are occasions where murky things become crystal clear, others where the truth is obscured behind dark clouds. When both become apparent during one evening, the mind sometimes has difficulty with comprehension.
The Northern Lights Hong Kong Philharmonic concert at the Cultural Centre was to be a Scandinavian sandwich of the great Sibelius 7th, followed by four of his Finnish songs and three of Grieg's Norwegians to be sung by soprano Inger Dam-Jensen, ending with Nielsen's 4th "Inextinguishable" symphony all performed under the expert guidance of the score-free Thomas Dausgaard (what a feat!). Unfortunately, despite a week of preparation, said soprano's voice succumbed to a cold leaving her free to watch hotel telly all evening.
Jean Sibelius, the fabulous famous Finn, put his 7th symphony together during the early 1920s. Having been born when Finland was a Russian Principality, Sibelius' romantic music eventually became the perfect accompaniment to stirring nationalist sentiment and pride (each year the 8th December, his birthday, is marked as the Day of Finnish Music –an occasion where the Finnish flag is flown). The 7th symphony, however, goes further, deeper than mere flag-waving, just as, in the obverse, the catchy 'Rule Britannia' cannot be said to sum up British national sentiment.
Perhaps the most obvious thing about the 7th symphony is that it is in one movement, or more precisely that the usual divisions between movements have been abandoned. The shackles of classical symphonic form (quick/slow/quick movements) could not contain his ideas. By writing in the key of C, considered passé at the time, Sibelius also demonstrated his compositional brilliance as it actually aided and fully enabled his themes and ideas. Wholeheartedly Wagnerian in form, as you can hear here at the clear dawn-like beginning, it was to be his last symphony: his subsequent symphonic efforts failed to fully realise his vision and perished in the flames of his dining room fireplace.
That he was a virtuoso violinist is apparent in his delivery of form for the strings, ensuring a construction of melody without effort, form without ostentation. In fact, he makes it all sound so easy.
The beautiful and much-loved symphony, despite all the perfected craftsmanship at his disposal, descends into a pessimistic conclusion. Did Sibelius mean to describe how our inevitable human darkness eventually overcomes us? This mature declaration is often compared with olympian scenery –the final all-encompassing view of the glorious mountain in evening light and thence into ultimate, sombre and quiet darkness back in that key of C.
Danish composer Carl Nielsen's Symphony No 4, however, is more optimistically labelled Inextinguishable! It premiered during the middle of the First World War, eight years before the Sibelius 7th. The acrobatic complexity pursues a relentless major/minor battle in which it is not hard to discern the struggle for life. Another one-movement symphony, Nielsen emphasised this struggle with the twin timpani (usually positioned like fortresses on either side of the orchestra) which fire devastating salvos at each other in the final section as can be heard in this section.
Interestingly, Nielsen's title refers not to the music, but to the inextinguishable nature of life itself. In a letter to his wife, Anne Marie, he wrote,
"I have an idea for a new composition, which has no programme but will express what we understand by the spirit of life or manifestations of life, that is: everything that moves, that wants to live ... just life and motion, though varied—very varied—yet connected, and as if constantly on the move, in one big movement or stream. I must have a word or a short title to express this; that will be enough. I cannot quite explain what I want, but what I want is good.
As a result, the symphony delves into all sorts of uncomfortable and moody regions, only fully and finally emerging at the end into the light, the light so dearly longed-for all over war-torn Europe. But is it the unwitting optimistic antithesis of Sibelius' 7th?
It would be wrong to say these two symphonies contrast each other. Although they are both single-movements symphonies, their ideas are completely different, the first composer embracing more Wagnerian sweeping structures, the second rejecting all that the Teutonic giant stood for.
Light into darkness, darkness into light might have been a bit of an overly-simplistic title, but at the end of this concert, having sat through each of the titanic 20-minute symphonies I left feeling somewhat confused. Exactly where is humanity heading –are we rising or falling? The two intellectual perspectives encapsulated in each work are, I'm sure, not completely incompatible, but I'm not sure how the two symphonies would fare in the other order. Would we feel safer with darkness first and then light, or the other way round? Heaven forbid a featureless, grey blend!
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