Mustonen and the MSO bring the chill of the north to bear on an April night in Melbourne.

Melbourne Recital Centre

April 5, 2014

Tapiola, written in 1926, was the opening piece and namesake of MSO’s first orchestral outing in the Metropolis Festival Series. The first of three programs devised by guest conductor and composer Olli Mustonen, it well and truly defined the evening’s theme: contemporary retellings of ancient stories using the Finnish master’s harmonic language.

Tapiola was Sibelius’ last major orchestral work before he rendered himself compositionally mute. He lived for another thirty years, alive but musically silent. The opening strings felt too hesitant in the immediate acoustic of the Melbourne Recital Centre, but that was only momentary – soon the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra found their feet with a rich, golden, tutti sound.

The score for the work is headed with an inscription:

Wide-spread they stand, the Northland’s dusky forests,
Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams;
With them dwell the Forest’s mighty god,
And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.

Sibelius’ expansive harmonic texture wove the gloomy magic secrets. The piece traverses a constant, looming darkness with creeping textural changes, as the audience passes green forests and traipses unwittingly into a Nordic storm....