Compelling performances: Stephen Hough, YL Male Voice Choir, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Philharmonia launch Nordic Soundscapes

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Kullervo Sets Off for War
(Mural, 1901, in the Old Student House, Helsinki University)

Sigfúsdóttir: Oceans, Grieg: Piano Concerto; Sibelius: Kullervo; Stephen Hough, Johanna Rusanen, Tommi Hakala, Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat (YL) Male Voice Choir, Philharmonia, Santtu-Matias Rouvali; Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed 26 September 2024

A contemporary composer spanning orchestral and post-rock, and two 19th century composers balancing Nationalism and the Germanic symphonic tradition. A fascinating start to Nordic Soundscapes

Sibelius' Kullervo remains an intriguing, sprawling and sometimes mesmerising work whose importance is immense. It premiered in 1892, only the second large-scale symphonic work to come out of Finland and an important way-marker in the country's musical history and journey to political independence. But the work does not occupy a place on concert platforms as often as it might.

On Thursday 26 September 2024, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Philharmonia opened their 2024/25 season at the Royal Festival Hall with the first concert in their Nordic Soundscapes season, performing María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir's Oceans, Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto with soloist Stephen Hough and Jean Sibelius' Kullervo with soprano Johanna Rusanen, baritone Tommi Hakala and Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat (YL) Male Voice Choir.

Sibelius: Kullervo - Johanna Rusanen, Tommi Hakala, Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat Male Voice Choir, Philharmonia, Santtu-Matias Rouvali - Royal Festival Hall (Photo: Philharmonia/Mark Allan)

It was a long concert, Kullervo lacks the concision of Sibelius' later symphonic utterances, the young Sibelius had been listening to a bit too much Bruckner in Vienna. There was a sneaking suspicion that, perhaps, we did not quite need another performance of Grieg's eternal piano concerto, but then that was to countered by the remarkable charisma that soloist Stephen Hough.

Nordic Soundscapes: Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s fourth season as principal conductor of the Philharmonia opens with a focus on music, nature and the climate crisis

Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s fourth season as principal conductor of the Philharmonia opens with a season focusing on the relationship between music, nature and the climate crisis from a Nordic perspective, Nordic Soundscapes (26 September to 10 November) with music by Sibelius, Grieg and Nielsen plus seven UK premieres from contemporary Nordic composers, plus Notes on Nature discussions that will delve to the themes of the series.

Things open with something rather special, Sibelius' Kullervo where Rouvali and the Philharmonia are joined by the choir that sang at its premiere back in 1892, the YL Male Voice Choir. There is also Grieg's Piano Concerto with Stephen Hough and the UK premiere of Icelandic composer María Sigfúsdóttir’s Oceans. Rouvali's second concert features the UK premiere of Miho Hazma's What the Wind Brings (she is the Tokyo-born chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band), plus Nielsen's Violin Concerto (with Bomsori Kim) and Sibelius' The Oceanides and Symphony No. 3. Sibelius' Violin Concerto features María Dueñas as soloist, with Rouvali conducting a programme that includes the UK premiere of Swedish composer Mats Larsson Gothe's Submarea and Nielsen's Symphony No. 5.

For the Music of Today series, Chloe Rooke conducts the UK premieres of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's Semafor and Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen's Two Inger Christensen Song (with soprano Ella Taylor). The Philharmonia Wind Quintet will be performing Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen's Memoria and Nielsen's Wind Quintet.

Emilia Hoving conducts the UK premiere of Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen's Mosaics plus Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 and Sibelius' Symphony No. 2, and the final concert in the series features Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski’s Flounce, the UK premiere of Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg's Viola Concerto (with Lawrence Power) and Sibelius' Symphony No. 1.

There are also concerts outside the theme, Sir Andras Schiff directs the orchestra and is soloist in piano concertos by Haydn and Mozart, plus Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Marin Alsop conducts an all Mahler programme mixing the music of Gustav with that of Alma. Rouvali conducts Tchaikovsky and Khachaturian including his Violin Concerto with Nemanja Radulović.

Full details from the Philharmonia's website.

The Philharmonia Orchestra's residency at Cromwell Place continues

Members of the Philharmonia at Cromwell Place (Photo Cromwell Place)

Cromwell Place is a gallery and exhibition space based in five Grade II listed Victorian townhouses in South Kensington which includes the historic former studio of Sir John Lavery. This season, 2022/23, the Philharmonia Orchestra is in residence, presenting intimate chamber concerts in the gallery spaces. The second half of the residency begins later this month, and the orchestra is presenting four concerts at Cromwell Place between January and June 2023.

Emerging Art (28 January 2023) features Adrián Varela – violin, Jan Regulski – violin, Yukiko Ogura – viola, and Yaroslava Trofymchuk – cello in Dvorak's String Quartet No. 12 ‘American’ a work written whilst Dvorak was in the USA as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. The movements of the quartet will be interspersed with other pieces, an arrangement of the Spiritual Deep River by Harry T Burleigh, a student who introduced Dvorak to Spirituals, Mexican composer Diana Syrse's Pyramids in an Urban Landscape and Yshani Perinpanayagam's We Folk Disquieten, written for the concert.

During March, Cromwell Place focuses on women in art for Women’s History Month and to complement this on 11 March, four cellists, Richard Birchall, Alex Rolton, Ella Rundle and Karen Stephenson present a programme that mixes music by women composers with music associated with memorable female characters. So we have music by the 17th century Barbara Strozzi and two contemporary women, Roxanna Panufnik and Rosie Trentham, plus arrangements of the finale trio from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (which features the opera's three leading female characters), Henry Mancini's Moon River (memorably associated with Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's) and music from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Art in Conflict (1 April 2023) features music by Ukrainian Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895-1968) and Russian Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), composed during the Second World War, Both won the Stalin Prize, but also had their music denounced by the regime. The concert includes Lyatoshynsky's String Quartet No. 4 and Shostakovich's Piano Quintet. Then the final concert of the season on 1 June 2023, features Samuel Coles – flute, Yukiko Ogura – viola and Heidi Krutzen – harp in trios by Debussy, Bax and David Heath whose new trio was commissioned by flautist Samuel Coles with support from the Philharmonia, to complement the other pieces in the programme.

Full details from the Philharmonia's website.

Prokofiev, Mahler and much more: Santtu-Matias Rouvali launches his second season with Philharmonia Orchestra

Santtu-Matias Rouvali & Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall

The young Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali became chief conductor of the Philharmonia last season, and he makes a strong contribution to the orchestra's 2022/23 season. Rouvali will be conducting 10 concerts in London, opening the season with a pair of concerts featuring Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1 & 5  and he closes the first half of the season in January 2023 with  violinist Nemanja Radulović in a programme including Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Alongside these Rouvali conducts music by Beethoven, Korngold, Shostakovich, George Walker, John Adams and Anna Clyne. Clyne is the season's featured composer and her works feature in several concerts and she will be curating a programme of work by women composers for a free Music of Today event.

The season's featured artist is cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason who will be performing both of Haydn's Cello Concertos at a concert in September conducted by Marin Alsop alongside music by Richard Strauss and Ravel. Still in a cello kind of mood, Norwegian conductor Tabita Berglund makes her Philharmonia debut, with her former cello teacher Truls Mørk, in one of Prokofiev’s last completed works, the Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra. A revised version of Prokofiev's Cello Concerto from 1933/38, Prokofiev dedicated the revised work to Mstislav Rostropovich, who premiered it in 1952 with Sviatoslav Richter conducting (the only instance of Richter conducting). Cellist  Alisa Weilerstein takes the title role in Strauss’s Don Quixote with Jordan de Souza, who conducted the Philharmonia in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at Garsington Opera last year, making his Royal Festival Hall debut.

RVW's 150th anniversary is not neglected and the orchestra joins the Bach choir for an all-RVW programme including the Sea Symphony.

As well as the season at the Southbank Centre, there are concerts at The Anvil, Basingstoke, Bedford Corn Exchange, De Montfort Hall, Leicester, Windsor Castle,  New Wimbledon Theatre, The Marlowe, Canterbury, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at Royal Albert Hall with Toby Purser conducting and the Crouch End Festival Chorus, plus concerts at the Wimbledon International Music Festival.

Full details from the Philharmonia website.

Finns to the fore: the Philharmonia's new season showcases new principal conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and featured artist, violinist Pekka Kuusisto

Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Philharmonic (Photo Kaupo Kikkas)

It is all change at the head of many of the UK's orchestras, and this season Santtu-Matias Rouvali takes over as principal conductor of the Philharmonia. Not surprisingly, the orchestra's 2021/22 season very much showcases the young (born 1985!) Finnish conductor. He opens the season with a pair of concerts which include orchestral showpieces from Richard Strauss and Stravinsky alongside the UK premiere of Bryce Dessner's Violin Concerto (with Pekka Kuusisto) and music by the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas (1889-1940). 

Pekka Kuusisto is a featured artist for the season and he reappears as soloist in Sibelius' Violin Concerto, music by Vivaldi (guess what) and conducting the premiere of a new piece by Isobel Waller-Bridge, as well as curating the Philharmonia's Music of Today series with works by Gabriella Smith, John Luther Adams and Anna Thorvaldsdottír.

Philip Glass' film environmental film Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance will be screened in the Royal Festival Hall with the score played live with conductor Michael Riesman, Synergy Vocals and the Philip Glass Ensemble. The film is part of the orchestra's Human / Nature: Music for a Precious Planet series which looks at  how composers across the centuries have responded to the natural world, and exploring the ways today's composers are addressing the global climate crisis. 

Other new works in the season include the premieres of Gabriel Jackson's The Promise and Richard Blackford's Vision of a Garden performed as part of conductor David Hill's concert with the Bach Choir, Fauré’s Requiem: Music for Reflection and Hope. 

Rouvali returns during the season conducting more Strauss, Wagner's The Ring without Words, Sibelius, Beethoven, Rossini, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite. Other artists include Elim Chan conducting RVW, Brahms, Prokofiev and Gabriella Smith, Xhiang Chang conducting Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with Dame Sarah Connolly and Andreas Schrager, Andras Schiff directing Mozart from the keyboard, and Philippe Herreweghe conducting Bach, Mozart and Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 1 with Steven Isserlis.

Full details from the Philharmonia's website.

2020/21: Philharmonia Orchestra says goodbye to Esa-Pekka Salonen & celebrates its 75th anniversary

Esa-Pekka Salonen and Philharmonia Orchestra

2020/21 is Esa-Pekka Salonen's last season as principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra (as it is that of Vladimir Jurowski at the London Philharmonic Orchestra). He will be conducting a series of concerts inspired by Greek myth, including Richard Strauss' Elektra and the UK premiere of his Gemini. For 2020, Philharmonia at 75 celebrates the orchestra's 75th anniversary with events including Riccardo Muti returning for the first time since 2010 conducting Verdi's Requiem and Isata Kanneh-Mason in Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto. Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the orchestra's principal conductor designate, conducts three programmes including Shostakovich's Symphony No. 12.


With a focus on music inspired by Greek myth, in Origin Stories: Greek Myth in Music, Salonen conducts Scriabin’s Prometheus: The Poem of Fire with Yuja Wang as soloist and Strauss’ Elektra with soprano soloists Irene Theorin and Lise Davidsen. To close the season, Salonen conducts Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe (complete) alongside the European premiere of his own work Gemini.

Salonen also takes over as curator of the Philharmonia's Music of Today, with music by Tyshawn Sorey, Víkingur Ólafsson, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Bryce Dessner.

Jonathan Dove's Gaspard's Foxtrot receives its London premiere, conducted by Holly Mathieson; based on children's books by Zeb Soans the piece will be narrated by Soanes and live-illustrated by James Mayhew.

Jakub Hruša conducts Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin paired with excerpts from Richard Strauss' Salome with Malin Byström as Salome, Susan Bickley as Herodias and Peter Hoare as Herod.

Full details from the Philharmonia website.

Music of Today: Philharmonia's 2018/19 Composers Academy

Composers' Academy, Chia-Ying Lin, Alex Woolf, Benjamin Ashby; Philharmonia Orchestra, Geoffrey Paterson; Royal Festival Hall Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 February 2019
Three contrasting works for mixed octet from the current members of the Philharmonia Orchestra's Composers' Academy

The Philharmonia Orchestra's 2018/19 Music of Today concert series at the Royal Festival Hall ended on Sunday 2 June 2019 with works from the three composers who took part in the Philharmonia's Composers' Academy, in partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Society. Geoffrey Paterson conducted members of the Philharmonia Orchestra in Chia-Ying Lin's Intermezzo to the Minotaur, Alex Woolf's Octet and Benjamin Ashby's I've been planning for an Impromptu.

All three works were for mixed octet, each taking a slightly different line-up of instruments, and all three had been workshopped in February by Paterson and the musicians as part of the Composers' Academy, allowing the composers to experiment and develop the material in ways which might not always be possible with an official commission. What was fascinating was the three very different routes the young composers took for writing for eight instruments.

Centenary Menuhin and vintage Blomstedt - Philharmonia Spring season

The 88 year old Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt will be returning to conduct the Philharmonia in Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 (24 April) at the Royal Festival Hall. The orchestra's Spring season also includes Edward Gardner (a mere stripling at 41) conducting Elgar's Symphony No. 2 (5 May), and Vladimir Ashkenazy (78 years old) continues his Rachmaninov Project with Symphony No. 3 (3 March) and Symphonic Dances (14 April). Jonathan Biss, who is is part of the way through recording Beethoven’s piano sonatas, will perform Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Jakub Hrůša conducting.

The orchestra will be opening and closing the Yehudi Menuhin competition which, in Menuhin's centenary year, takes place in London. The Philharmonia opens the Competition on 7 April with former winners Tasmin Little, Jiafeng Chen, Rennosuke Fukuda and Ray Chen performing works connected with Menuhin , and the orchestra joins the Junior and Senior Competition winners for their debut concert performances in the closing Gala Concert on 17 April, with the 1995 winner Julia Fischer performing Bartók’s First Violin Concerto.

The music of German composer Friedrich Goldmann (1941-2009) features in the next concert in the Philharmonia's Music of Today series of free concerts of contemporary music. Tito Ceccherini conducts  Philharmonia players in Linie/Splitter 2 for clarinet, horn, accordion, violin, cello and piano, and Fast Erstarrte Unruhe 3 for ensemble.

Full information from the South Bank Centre website.

Napoleon, Oedipus and Virtual Reality - the Philharmonia Orchestra's 2016/17 season

Virtual Reality comes to the Royal Festival Hall as the opening weekend of the Philharmonia Orchestra's 2016/17 season will see the orchestra presented in virtual reality to viewers outside the concert hall whilst the orchestra plays live inside. Elsewhere in the season there Stravinsky staged by Peter Sellars, Tansy Davies's new Concerto for Four Horns and Orchestra and the return of Abel Gance's Napoleon played live with Carl Davis's score.

For the opening weekend of the 2016/17 season, principal conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the orchestra will be performing the third movement of Sibelius's Third Symphony on stage whilst viewers will be able to experience a 360° 3D video & audio performance via Virtual Reality headsets, available to view for free in the foyer spaces. Another hi-tech innovation, the orchestra's award-winning walk-through installation of Holst's The Planets, Universe of Sound, will come to the Clore Ballroom Floor in the Royal Festival Hall for two weeks (see my review of it at the Science Museum).

Philharmonia Spring season - early evening concerts, a contemporary trumpet concerto and a new oratorio

John Powell, whose Prussian Requiem premieres in March

The Philharmonia Orchestra's Spring season includes the world premiere of an oratorio by John Powell, a composer more familiar for film music, Håkan Hardenberger in a programme of varied trumpet music including the trumpet concerto by Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson, John Wilson conducting RVW's Sea Symphony, as well as the programme of early evening concerts full of delights.

Håkan Hardenberger completes his series, The Trumpet Shall Sound with a trio of concerts on 28 January 2016 including Rolf Martinsson's Bridge, Trumpet Concerto No. 1 and Sibelius Second Symphony, an early evening programme with the Philharmonia Brass Section plus students from Wandsworth and Hounslow musicwhich includes music by Piazzolla, Rautavaara, Dukas and Turnage, and late event including more Piazzolla, and Kurt Weill.

John Wilson conducts the orchestra with Sally Matthew (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone), Bristol Choral Society, Philharmonia Voices and Gloucester Choral Society in RVW's Sea Symphony, and Finzi's Clarinet Concerto (with Mark van der Wiel) (24 January 2016).

Film composer John Powell (The Bourne Identity, X-Men, Ice Age) has written a Prussian Requiem with text by multi-media artist Michael Petry. The work commemorates the First World War (you can hear excerpts on the Philharmonia website) and the Prussian of the title refers the Prussian aide-de-camp Helmuth von Moltke. The piece focuses on the evening before the start of World War I in 1914, as Helmuth von Moltke, who had been Commander in Chief of the German army since 1906, insisted that the full-scale conflict should go ahead, even though the Kaiser still had the option of negotiating with France and/or Russia. As Powell has explained, “The piece itself is a story driven by a man who took a moment in history and stood between the chance of peace and the chance of war. His own pride made us go to World War I and basically destroyed the 20th century. Everything bad that is still happening, you can trace to this one moment in history at the end of July in 1914.” The work was written as Powell took a sabbatical from film composing in order to try and find his voice as a composer of concert music. Having trained at Trinity College of Music, London, Powell had always intended to be a concert composer but the difficulty of earning a living in this area led him to film composing. José Serebrier conducts, with the Philharmonia Chorus, and the concert also includes RVW's The Lark Ascending (with Jennifer Pike) and Elgar's Cello Concerto (with Sol Gabetta) (6 March 2016)

The orchestra's free 6pm early evening concerts include some fascinating repertoire which extends the reach of the more popular programmes in the main evening concerts. Philharmonia Chamber Players perform Mozart and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht before the performance of Mahler's Third Symphony (6pm, 11 February), Darrell Ang (conductor) and Isang Enders (cello) perform Ligeti's Sonata for solo cello, Boulez's Messagesquisse and Salonen's Mania for solo cello and ensemble, in advance of the main evening programme of Ravel, Mozart and Debussy (6pm, 18 February)

Full information from the Philharmonia website.