MAGNIFICENT NIELSEN AND BARNSTORMING RACHMANINOFF FROM RAISKIN, VOLODIN AND THE VSO
Alexei Volodin (piano), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra/ Daniel Raiskin (conductor): Music of Vasks, Rachmaninoff and Nielsen: Orpheum, February 21, 2025.
This concert featured the first VSO performance of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony no. 2 ‘The Four Temperaments’ that I can recall. And a very good effort it was: Daniel Raiskin, currently conductor of both the Winnipeg Symphony and the Slovak Philharmonic, performed the work with all the conviction one could ask for. He combined this with a lovely Latvian opener, Peteris Vasks’ Musica Serena. Collaborating with fellow St. Petersburg pianist Alexei Volodin, the other highlight was Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, given a truly old-world blockbuster performance, though rather unrefined for today’s tastes.
Vasks’ Musica Serena opened the concert in inviting fashion. Written in 2015, it is the most recent of his three important works for strings alone, and is the gentlest and most beautiful: Musica Dolorosa and Musica Appassionata preceded it. The high string sequences throughout are reminiscent of Sibelius, but its overall reach and stirring emotional resonance might link it closer to Barber’s Adagio. While it does have more cutting instrumental interjections to go with its long expressive lines – one turbulent lower string interjection is very memorable – it still maintains the feeling of a ‘ceremonial’ work. In fact, it was written to honour the composer’s long-standing friend, Finnish conductor Juha Kangas, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It was played here with the fullest commitment.
Daniel Raiskin’s performance of Nielsen’s Second Symphony 2 was absolutely excellent, catching its power and spirit very well. While the composer’s 4th and 5th symphonies are performed with some regularity, the 2nd is not, and the VSO deserves strong praise for taking on a work that I’m certain no one in the orchestra had ever played before. The work is not necessarily easy to negotiate, since it requires an integrated symphonic response to the four different moods (personalities) that Nielsen intriguingly assimilated from a local Danish pub painting around 1900: choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine.
The opening ‘Choleric’ had all the cut and thrust and impetuous motion that it needed, yet the conductor consistently bound it together through Nielsen’s fluid lyrical line. ‘Phlegmatic’ was beautifully set, rustic and full of fragility and innocence. ‘Melancholic’ is possibly the finest movement, and was presented with great depth of feeling, and built to an overwhelming sense of catharsis at its two climaxes. The closing ‘Sanguine’ exhibited exactly the right type of carefree playfulness, but Raiskin was also careful to bring out both its darker allusions and its dramatic, almost nationalistic, thrust. Throughout, one felt that this was really Nielsen, and one could only revel in the orchestral originality displayed in the work. There can be no higher compliment to the conductor and orchestra. The brass were magnificent, especially in the third movement.
The reading of Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 with pianist Alexei Volodin couldn’t have differed more, being a rather barnstorming affair, with pushed tempos and a focus on crowd-pleasing excitement and sentiment. It contrasted markedly from the type of lyrical warmth, refinement and sensuality we often find in Rachmaninoff concerto performances these days. Nonetheless, with Russian performers on hand, one might think that this was truly a Russian performance of the old days, but I don’t think it really was: Richter and Gilels never played Rachmaninoff like this after the war, though Horowitz might have been tempted. However, the quick tempos were in line with the composer’s own performances.
Superficially exciting as it may have been, the main problem in this performance was the pianist Alexei Volodin, whose approach to his part can only be called driving and motoric. He seems to be a spinner of brightly-etched notes, with no subtle inflections, little plasticity of phrase, and few reductions in volume. Accordingly, all one perceived was the onward motion of the music, free of contemplation and repose, with the pianist speeding up even more as climaxes approached. On the other hand, the conductor and orchestra were somewhat heavy and bludgeoning, and noticeably rough-and-ready in their coordination with the soloist, perhaps reminding me of the way Yevgeny Svetlanov used to conduct when he was not in a good mood. Though slightly more relaxed in the slow movement, where a salon-type melancholy sometimes broke through, the above characteristics dominated both the opening and closing movements. The endings of both were pushed with brilliance and consuming fire.
Performances of this type typically occur only when the performers consciously want to wow an audience, or they have played a work once too often. The galvanizing Russian power of this approach definitely appeared to overwhelm this audience, and there was a considerable Russian and Ukrainian contingent present. They might have been digesting what this display actually meant for them in their current state. Nonetheless, the standing ovation witnessed must be tempered with the recognition that many of the city’s concertgoers are currently afflicted with SFA (‘Stand for Anything’), so I’m not fully sure what information was revealed.
The Nielsen was the real highlight here. I should remark that I think Daniel Raiskin is a conductor of genuine stature, and he has already demonstrated some of his talents in his recordings of Mahler and Shostakovich.
© Geoffrey Newman 2025