CBSO/Oramo Symphony Hall, Birmingham ****
No one has ever accused Sibelius of writing the same symphony over and over again. But it isn't until you hear two of the symphonies side by side that you realise how different they can be. Sibelius began his one- movement Seventh Symphony soon after finishing the four-movement Sixth; they are genuinely worlds apart.
It is rare to find a conductor who can be equally convincing in both works. Conductor Sakari Oramo did better than most. His reading of the Seventh Symphony was a triumph, without qualification. His Sixth was interesting and in places very beautiful, but in this symphony the success was patchy.
The first movement began very well. The strings' soaring polyphony - the nearest Sibelius ever came to imitating his idol Palestrina in orchestral terms - was almost vocal in its calm radiance. But later in the movement minute tempo changes undermined the sense of flowing current: the pace seemed forced, under pressure.
The hushed Nordic forest-scape in the second movement was full of mystery, but that was exceptional. When it works, there is something intimate and elusive about this symphony. Here a lot of it seemed a degree too forward, too obvious.
But the Seventh Symphony was magnificent: a vital, confident musical organism from first to last bar. Every tempo or modulation of tempo seemed absolutely right. The climaxes were elemental and the moments of quieter reflection just as rivetting. Oramo and the orchestra were also very persuasive in the four Interludes from Joonas Kokkonen's opera The Last Temptation, a piece which has been revered as a classic in Finland since its premiere in 1975 but is little known outside.
I am tempted to say that the Last Temptation music gets better the less Kokkonen tries to be up-to-date - the finest music is in the moving and frankly tonal hymn in the final Interlude. But critics once said very similar things about Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto, and what a classic that now seems.
Violinist Vadim Repin sounded completely at home in both the romantic-lyrical and the naughty boy-modernist music, and he shaped it all with great assurance.
