BERKELEY, Cal. — There were two debuts of sorts at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on Oct. 18. One was the first appearance in the Bay Area of the youngish Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali leading his Philharmonia Orchestra of London in the early stages of a U.S. tour celebrating its 80th anniversary.
The other was the first full-orchestra outing for a newly installed, upgraded sound system by Meyer Sound. Zellerbach had been the recipient of the first Meyer Sound Constellation System for a public space back in 2006, but the pioneering digital acoustical-enhancement installation had apparently reached its “end-of-life” point, needing “increased maintenance” and better compatibility with the university’s updated AV controls.
Rouvali, who turns 40 on Nov. 5 but looks a lot younger with his ample mop of curly hair, is yet another member in the extraordinary line of Finnish conductors (Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Klaus Mäkelä, and on and on) who have received training from the same teacher at the Sibelius Academy, Jorma Panula. Amazing how a small country, population 5.6 million, has made an impact on the global classical-music world all out of proportion to its size.
Rouvali became principal conductor of the Philharmonia in 2021, succeeding Salonen, but this is his first U.S. tour with the orchestra, which hasn’t appeared here since 2019. From the evidence of performances early on in this tour, he has kept the orchestra in good shape with his often-circular baton technique and savvy control over dynamic levels and phrasings. The highly disciplined strings were absolutely together in the quietest pianissimos, the brasses not too overpowering.
Coming along for the ride was the thoughtful Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson, who served up one of the most iconoclastic Beethoven Emperor Concertos of our time. With the massive, warm-sounding support of Rouvali and the Philharmonia, free of any and all period-performance-practice tics and clichés, Ólafsson indulged in a lot of ritards and rubatos, with tempos that sometimes slowed things to a crawl. Chromatic scales blew by in an amorphous blur. Ólafsson’s slow movement was an interior dialogue with himself, often one note at a time. The Rondo theme, while up to conventional speed, had a weird hesitation in the middle of the line that was repeated consistently on every recurrence.
While I think that Ólafsson is often misleadingly equated with the über-iconoclastic Glenn Gould by several critics, in this case the comparison rang true, for this Emperor reminded me a little of Gould’s drawn-out recording of same with Leopold Stokowski in 1966 — also on the strange side. While I disagree with some of Ólafsson’s choices, at least this Emperor was a provocative break from the routine standard performances.
Afterwards, Ólafsson tried to make a joke about the topic of the day, the “No Kings” demonstrations all over the country, noting that the protesters’ signs “didn’t say No Emperors!” He also complimented the hall’s new sound system, and then turned to J.S. Bach with an Alexander Siloti arrangement of the gentle Prelude in G minor as an encore.
A new work by the belatedly lauded Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz — whose music has been inescapable at the Los Angeles Philharmonic during Gustavo Dudamel’s tenure — is being played on the tour. The title is Si el oxígeno fuera verde — or “If Oxygen Were Green” — and it is supposed to trace, in four continuous movements, the process of chlorophyll in plants transforming light into oxygen and thus allowing all living things to breathe and exist. While the string harmonics and flutes at the outset are supposed to depict “fractal structures and sound particles floating in the atmosphere,” they sounded to me more like twittering birds. Then, sounds seemingly from the bowels of the earth, starting in the cellos, basses, and low brasses, developed momentum. Only at the close where the full band picks up some percussive push does the music start to approach the groove of Ortiz’s most winning pieces.
Naturally, Rouvali would grapple with the great shadow that even now still hangs over all Finnish musicians — that of Jean Sibelius. On this evening, it would be the mighty Fifth Symphony. Above all, Rouvali emphasized patience, letting those string tremolos marinate and generate anticipation at a low volume. The sound in the hall was a bit too in-your-face to produce much mystery, but Rouvali’s control of the tempo accelerations led to a satisfying, even thrilling run to the close of the first movement. He got the majestic horn theme in the finale to emerge at the tempo he set in the beginning of the movement, not slowing down self-consciously as do many of his colleagues (even some Finns). He followed Sibelius with a novelty encore, the Waltz from Shostakovich’s satirical musical Moscow, Cheryomushki, a genteel thing that becomes a full-blooded dance.
As has been true with every application of Meyer Sound digital systems I have heard, it was almost impossible to tell without knowing in advance whether we were hearing natural sound or digitally enhanced sound. Yet while the sound comes straight out at you, generally clear with adequate reverberation, no reflections come from behind you in Zellerbach — a sure sign of what would be a dead hall without the needed electronic enhancements. It shouldn’t even be a controversial topic anymore.
John Adams, who lives near Zellerbach, could be spotted in the lobby, and it triggered the thought that this was the place for him to be. Sibelius was one of his formative, once-overlooked influences, especially the Fifth Symphony, whose string tremolos found their way into his early breakthrough piece, Shaker Loops. And I always felt that Adams was parodying the back-and-forth, tonic-dominant tradeoffs of the Emperor Concerto in “On The Dominant Divide” from Grand Pianola Music, which nearly caused a riot at its New York premiere in 1983. I imagine that his irreverent side might have appreciated the creative disruptions that Ólafsson wrought.
I also happened to catch Rouvali and the Philharmonia at another tour stop in Santa Barbara’s Granada Theatre — a converted 101-year-old movie palace — on Oct. 20. The Sibelius Fifth sounded even better in the Granada, a wonderful performance with the same conception as in Berkeley but now deeper, more nuanced, and exciting, with greater detail revealed in a natural, albeit somewhat dry, acoustic. They also offered a passionate, vigorous rendition of Sibelius’ flag-waving Finlandia, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, in a perfectly paced rendition with high tension and thoughtful brooding in the right spots, and another choice excerpt from Cheryomushki, the madcap Galop, dashingly played.
From there, the Philharmonia went on to Costa Mesa in Orange County the next day; then to Ann Arbor, Mich. (Oct. 24); Bethlehem, Penn. (Oct. 26); Bethesda, Md. (Oct. 27); and winds up — as nationwide tours often do — at New York’s Carnegie Hall Oct. 28 and 29. The Philharmonia’s principal guest conductor, Marin Alsop, will lead the Oct. 26 and 28 concerts.
