Sibelius featured on the first night of this year’s Proms, though the main celebrations of the Finnish composer’s 150th birthday have come later in the season with a series of concerts begun by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The second performance was given under the ensemble’s principal guest conductor, Ilan Volkov; the first under its chief conductor designate, the Danish Thomas Dausgaard, who was allotted the first two symphonies in the cycle of seven.
But he started with the barnstorming Finlandia, a frankly nationalistic piece written by Sibelius as part of a patriotic pageant in response to Russian oppression, and originally entitled Finland Awakes. While the strength of its musical material remains compelling, this was a rough-and-ready account, with some moments of untidiness, yet with a real sense of character. There was a genuine snarl to the opening phrases (representing the Russian forces pitted against Finland), and a movingly hushed quality to the central hymn, but occasionally the balance was off-kilter.
Dausgaard’s reading of the First Symphony that followed was a striking interpretation with some memorable solos, though again the orchestral texture was smudgy at times. Yann Ghiro’s initial keening clarinet solo set the instrumental bar high, and there was some expressively resonant tone from the orchestra’s string section; yet the performance remained curiously episodic, needing a more consistent sense of dynamism to help it cohere into an organic whole.
The Second Symphony went a good deal better, in a more measured reading that benefited from some particularly incisive work from the redoubtable brass section, but which also possessed a broader sweep as an entity, not only within the individual movements but in its meaningful progress from one movement to the next.
• Available on iPlayer. The Proms continue until 12 September.
