Violinist Elina Vähälä:
Fine Finnish finish in the details
March 26, 2008The widely heralded appointment of young conductor Gustavo Dudamel as music drector of the Los Angeles Philharmonic has brought attention to the very impressive music-education program of his native land, Venezuela, but in my book Finland (which produced Dudamel's predecessor, Esa-Pekka Salonen)remains unsurpassed in that category.
Thanks to the education ministry's support of orchestras, opera companies, festivals and the Sibelius Academy, where a top-flight conservatory education is free to all who are accepted, great Finnish singers, instrumentalists and composers are nearly as common as gas stations in metro Houston, with about the same population count.
San Antonio has had but rare acquaintance with Finnish musicians since conductor Jussi Jalas (Sibelius's son-in-law and the Sibelius Academy's first conducting professor) appeared often with the San Antonio Symphony during the Alessandro years. Hannu Lintu, a rapidly rising young star, is scheduled to conduct the orchestra this May. Otherwise, the Tuesday Musical Club has been the only local importer of Finnish goods, in my memory. The TMC staged a major coup by presenting the great baritone Jorma Hynninen in a superb recital in the 1980s, and cellist Jan-Erik Gustafsson followed in 1998. When the Eroica Trio appeared on the series in 2006, violinist Elina Vähälä substituted for the ailing Adela Peña, and the young Finn impressed enough to merit a solo booking.
Vähälä's recital on March 25 with pianist Mika Rännäli -- both are Sibelius Academy graduates -- was a splendid example of the depth of Finnish musical training. Her program included sonatas by Debussy, Copland and Fauré and the Suite Italienne (after "Pulcinella") by Igor Stravinsky.
Vähälä invested great care in details of color, inflection and dynamics, giving each note and phrase a weight and shape specific to its place in the whole. That specificity was especially effective in the Debussy, but also in the Stravinsky, whose neoclassicism is often rendered more generically. Vähälä's impeccable aim gave Copland's triadic melodic intervals a chiseled character. Her instrument, a 1678 Stradivarius on loan from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, produced a huge, richly grained sound with a very substantial high end.
One might have wished for greater flexibility of rhythm on occasion, and at times the details seemed too deliberated, but on the whole this was a highly satisfying performance.
Rännäli was a worthy partner, clear and just flexible enough, and admirably objective in Debussy.
Mike
Greenberg
