PhilPaine.com

The com­pos­er scowls men­ac­ing­ly over lit­tle chil­dren play­ing in Toron­to’s Sibelius Park

Hur­ray! As my read­ers will know from con­stant ref­er­ences, I’m an ardent Sibelian… giv­en to mak­ing pil­grim­ages to his stat­ue in Toron­to’s Sibelius Park, for exam­ple. The Toron­to Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra will be per­form­ing all sev­en Sibelius sym­phonies, in sequence, in their com­ing sea­son, under guest con­duc­tor Thomas Daus­gaard. Daus­gaard is a Dan­ish con­duc­tor with a good rep­u­ta­tion, but I’ve heard none of his record­ings. The tests will be how he han­dles the finale of the Fifth Sym­pho­ny… the last bars must be timed per­fect­ly to get the effect I think Sibelius was after, and many of the record­ings I have screw it up com­plete­ly. But most of all, it’s the sub­tleties of the grim and ambigu­ous Fourth Sym­pho­ny that mat­ter to me. Only one mod­ern con­duc­tor, Col­in Davis, sat­is­fies me for this sym­pho­ny. If Daus­gaard comes even close I’ll be in ecstasy.