VIENNA — Stepping in for Hilary Hahn, who was to play Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto but had to cancel because of a double-pinched nerve, Kyrgyzstan violinist Alena Baeva was guest collaborator with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra on Jan. 28 in a meaty program of early 20th-century music at the Konzerthaus under the ensemble’s principal conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali.
In Prokofiev’s concerto — a transparent, lyrical work composed between Paris, Russia, and Azerbaijan in 1935 — Baeva impressed most in playful passages and rapid harmonics in which she communicated effortlessly with the orchestra.
The mysterious solo that opens the first movement, however, could have benefited from more legato. More convincing was the singing tone she achieved with a melody toward the middle of the movement that bears the influence of French folk song.
Baeva never lost sync with the orchestra, at times lunging forward rhythmically with a fierceness that recalled the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. In the slow movement, she mastered her instrument’s upper range, yet the melting opening melody lacked warmth. Nevertheless, she and the orchestra skillfully brought out sarcastic moments in the Finale. As an encore, Baeva offered the opening movement from Ysaÿe’s Fifth Violin Sonata, again displaying her affinity for wild harmonics.
The concert opened with Sibelius’ En Saga, heard at the Konzerthaus for the first time (how fitting that Rouvali, a Finnish native, should conduct). The work emerged shortly after the composer studied in Vienna, in 1890. It was here that he developed the courage and discipline to pursue a personal style that veered from certain ideals in the German academic establishment, becoming Finland’s first national composer.
While initially sent by Ferruccio Busoni to study with Johannes Brahms, Sibelius was passed on to Carl Goldmark, a leading composer in Vienna at the time (his opera The Queen of Sheba is a neglected masterpiece). Sibelius also experienced Bruckner’s Third Symphony in December 1890 and declared him “the greatest of all living composers,” shortly thereafter joining the Wagner Society.
En Saga, begun in 1892 and revised in 1902, clearly reveals this aesthetic influence with its shimmering textures and pulsing brass over ostinato strings. Syncopated rhythms and folkloric melodies, meanwhile, surfaced after Sibelius studied the folk music of Karelia — a region on the Russian border at the heart of Finland’s national movement — in the summer of 1892.
Rouvali and the Philharmonia opened the work with clean and elegant phrasing, avoiding sentimentality. A sense of passion grew as the violins picked up the first folkloric theme, building into a climax capped with a cymbal crash. Rouvali led with flowing but rhythmically concise, at times metronomically clear gestures. The strings invested the final measures with a homogenous, floating pianissimo.
Concluding the program was Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, begun as sketches for a ballet in 1915 and completed on Long Island in 1940, a year before the composer’s death. The Philharmonia brought stateliness but also a light touch to the opening movement, which is packed with colorful, unexpected instrumentation: A solo pianist suddenly enters into dialogue with the winds and strings. The inner Andante con moto, a dark waltz with at times virtuosic orchestration, was by turns menacing and playful.
In the final movement, a Dies irae quote recurs in various guises, at one point sending the strings scampering away. Rachmaninoff further integrates everything from punchy Spanish rhythms to lush, cinematic Romantic scoring in what would be his final composition. The performance stayed true to the music’s sense of nostalgia and to its forward drive.
