I’d rather talk about last Thursday's (17.11) concert with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu.
For me, the high point of the cleverly programmed concert (‘Feria-sandwich’ as Lintu named it) is Anders Hillborg’s Dreaming River. In it, soundworlds and styles follow each other so seamlessly, that as a listener you don’t realise you’ve entered a new world until you are already well past the threshold and already in the midst of it. The same can be said about perception of dreams – but who can be certain. Dreaming River only deals with certainty and erected monoliths at the passing. The real focus is in the transition.
No, not in the same way as Him – this music is much more porous.
The concept of pebbles thrown into the water to create an immediate resultant percussion – and varying the impacts to create respective, different responses – is not unheard of, but Hillborg presents it with good taste. Two Chinese Suonas at either side of the nest that is the stage in the main concert hall of Musiikkitalo in Helsinki, incant the two pitches that set the particles vibrating; the vibrations further enhanced by the innate hoarseness the reedy sound. Wonderful interpretations of small disturbances in an otherwise quite smooth airflow follow: the piece grows very naturally out of this setting, but very quickly – and as stated above, somehow imperceptibly – changes into other, seemingly unrelated moods.
What a catharsis it is then, when near the end original material returns. We had forgotten about the proto-oboes. The performance can still be heard at the Yle web-player. The piece is also in Spotify, conducted by Salonen.
Is has to now be said, and I am baffled by this change of stance, that an English noun being qualified by an English adjective or by a present participle, which is a common format for the title of a piece of western art music since the 1970s, does not necessarily make it uninteresting.
Memo: The FRSO have gotten accustomed to their new home pitch, but the over-enhanced string section needs more space in the player’s consciousness (can’t wait to hear Apollon musagète, Music for SP&Celesta or Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony in there though; as the stage itself acts as though it is a string instrument of gargantuan proportions).
