By Robert Croan
Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto (in D minor, Op. 47), completed in its final version in 1905, is the composer’s only concerto, and one of the most technically challenging by any composer for this instrument.
In performance with the South Florida Symphony Orchestra under its music director, Sebrina Maria Alfonso [seen March 12 in The Parker], 30-year-old soloist Siwoo Kim tossed it off with deceptive ease and a sense of fun. It was a spectacular rendition, in which the performer visibly reveled in the work’s manifold complexities. Kim was no less impressive in the concerto’s quieter moments, floating high-lying melodic lines with poignance and sensitivity.
The Korean-born violinist, who now resides in Columbus, Ohio, has been playing this craggy piece since he was 13, so he knows how to sell it to an audience — and he did, earning a standing ovation before intermission, and rewarding his listeners with an unaccompanied encore of virtuoso variations on the familiar hymn tune, “Amazing Grace.”
A quirk of this concerto is that Sibelius placed the first movement cadenza in the middle rather than at the end, replacing the traditional development section. It was a breathtaking segment of a 35-minute tour de force.
It is said that Sibelius, at the time of writing this concerto, suffered from alcoholism and was lured from the taverns to complete this concerto in part because he had aspired to be a violinist. This might account for the technical demands of the solo writing. It should be noted, however, that despite severe lifelong physical and mental issues, Sibelius died in 1957 at the ripe age of 92.
It’s not just the violin soloist who matters in this work. The concerto’s challenges extend to the integral orchestral part, and the players came through under Alfonso’s deft baton, in accuracy of ensemble with the soloist (some tricky passages with principal cellist Chen Chen), rhythmic crispness and intermittent mini solos from the first desk players.
Up to the mid-19th century, symphonic music was dominated by the German-speaking countries, opera by Italy. Opera brought in larger income, however, and in 1817, Franz Schubert (who never wrote a successful opera) wrote two overtures in the style of the very successful Gioachino Rossini, as a kind of audition. His Overture in D major, now known as Overture in the Italian Style, opened the program. It’s pleasant and the orchestra played it nicely, though Schubert’s lightweight score lacks Italian verve as well as the profundity of his more significant compositions.
Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 (in G major, Op. 88), on the other hand, is from that composer’s top drawer. Always an audience favorite from its premiere in Prague in 1890, this work, which occupied the concert’s second half, was a crowd pleaser that sent the SFSO audience home with a feeling of elation.
The concert highlighted national trends that developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, with Sibelius depicting Nordic frigidity, and Dvořák exploiting his own origins, integrating his native Czech melodies and dance rhythms into mainstream European symphonic forms. Dvořák here created his personal counterpart to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, consciously evoking the Bohemian countryside in ways that he would later evoke Americana in his New World Symphony.
In the present rendition, the opening Dvořák movement bounded with energy, with suggestions of delicate bird calls and a robust storm. The Adagio showcased the group’s excellent wind players. The Scherzo benefited from the songful legato playing of the violins, while the finale, in quasi-military style, gave the brasses — marked by some splendid trumpet playing from principal Gil Hoffer — their moments to shine.