Review: Tarmo Peltokoski Makes His U.S. Debut with The San Diego Symphony Orchestra at the Southwestern College Performing Arts Center
A Varied Program introduces a Rising Young Finnish Conductor
We seem to be going through an unprecedented flood of young conducting talent. Finnland's Tarmo Peltokoski is an example. At 22 his recent-college-grad looks make it difficult to believe that he is the conductor or principal guest conductor of four European symphony orchestras. I attended the second of back-to-back performances in his U.S. debut with the San Diego Symphony and am now convinced that much of the hype is warranted.
If there was a unifying theme for the concert it wasn't obvious. Perhaps Peltokoski was demonstrating his versatility. Contemporary Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's impressionistic Ciel d'hiver (Winter Sky), was followed by the classical perfection of Mozart's third violin concerto. After intermission, the evening ended with Sibelius's second symphony, one of the greatest and most popular of Romantic-era symphonies.
Saariaho's Winter Sky is a work of eerie modern textures, an attempt to create the same sense of awe one often feels on a dark night under stars circling aloof and majestic above. Lily Josefsberg's pure and shiny piccolo rose with the first melody against a mysterious murmuring background of high and low strings. Associate Concertmaster Wesley Precourt took up the thread and woodwind solos continued the mood until the muted trumpet of Christopher Smith began a slow crescendo to a mildly discordant orchestral peak. The music softened to silence after a sea of glittering notes from harp, triangle, and celesta.
Peltokoski, expressionless yet clearly committed, conducted with quick decisive arm and hand motions. Despite his youth, he seemed to hold the attention of the San Diego Symphony's players, molding the tempos and dynamics to produce the effects he was after, and the piece achieved its ambitious goal.
Once a year since his appointment in 2004 Concertmaster Jeff Thayer solos in a concerto of his choice. He's nearing a total of 20 different concertos across a broad range of musical
history. For this concert he chose Mozart's third, composed when he was 19. (Mozart is widely known to have been a piano prodigy, but was also an exceptional violinist.)
The opening tempo was energetic, as called for, and Thayer demonstrated impressive technique, accurate in pitch and articulation even in the perils of the first movement's long cadenza. The excellent acoustics of the Southwestern College Performing Arts Center hall were a plus as Thayer's glowingly warm tone got the most out of Mozart's melodic second movement. The final movement was again taken at a good clip as soloist and conductor went successfully for unbuttoned fun.
Conductor Peltokoski proved an excellent accompanist, himself attaching what seemed a completely spontaneous and pleased "aaah" to Mozart's playfully unorthodox final notes. It was a well deserved compliment to the performance.
Sibelius's familiar second symphony is melodic and has some of the most stirring moments in all of symphonic literature. But it's difficult for a conductor to make the first two movements flow as though part of a unified whole, even though, in the end, they are. The second especially has a stop-and-go feel that somehow reminds me of Bruckner when he seems to be building to an overwhelming climax, but just before reaching the summit, suddenly slides back down to base camp.
Peltokoski, a fellow countryman of Sibelius, conducting Sweden's best-known symphony from memory, was only marginally more convincing in the first two movements than most conductors. But he again had a wonderfully responsive set of players, the strings delivering the opening of the second movement with ravishing sound, the brass absolutely thrilling in the climaxes of the last movement. For the first time in the concert, the conductor leapt from his platform to urge the orchestra for more, and they matched the excitement Leonard Bernstein brings in my favorite recording of the work as the evening reached a triumphant close.
A concert schedule for the remainder of the San Diego Symphony's current season can be found on the orchestra's website. The 2023-24 schedule is also now available.
Maestro Peltokoski's photo is from his agency website. Concertmaster Thayer's compliments San Diego Symphony
From This Author - Ron Bierman
Ron Bierman has performed on saxophone and flute in several college and other orchestras. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his studies included music theory as taug... (read more about this author)
Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY at San Diego's Civic Center TheaterMarch 15, 2023
Edo de Waart is now in his fourth year as Principal Guest Conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. In his long career he’s headed orchestras on four continents and taught in this country’s finest music schools. It’s no coincidence that his frequent conducting appearances in San Diego have coincided with the orchestra’s tremendous improvement in quality. De Waart knows what he’s doing in everything from Bach to his latest recording, a mystically moody contemporary symphony by Wim Henderickx No wonder then that he chose works from three different eras for his most recent San Diego concert: The Chairman Dances ( Foxtrot for Orchestra) by John Adams, Mozart’s 23rd piano concerto, and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd symphony.
Interview Part 2: NICOLAS REVELES OF SAN DIEGO OPERA'S PRODUCTION OF GHOSTS at The Balboa TheatreMarch 6, 2023
GHOSTS, an opera Nicolas Reveles completed shortly before his recent death, premieres on Friday, April 14. He was visibly ill when I interviewed him in January, but excited and enthusiastic about the coming production. Part 1 of my interview described how the new opera came to be written. This concluding part covers the fascinating background and career of the man who his many saddened friends called 'Nic.'.
Review: THE SAN DIEGO OPERA'S PUCCINI DUO at San Diego Civic Center TheaterFebruary 16, 2023
The big question for the evening was how mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe would do as the first woman in professional opera to sing the baritone title role in Gianni Schicchi. But the question wouldn’t be answered until the second one-act opera in San Diego Opera’s “Puccini Duo.” Blythe was first a contralto as the stern, unfeeling Principessa in Suor Angelica. This crushingly poignant half of the Duo is set in a 17th-century Italian convent where Sister Angelica has been living for seven years after her family banished her for the sin of giving birth to a boy out of wedlock. The one-hour opera builds slowly from a choir of offstage convent sisters singing adoringly of the Virgin Mary. From its first appearance the Opera company’s choir led by Chorus Master Bruce Stasyna sang with a solemn warmth consistent with the convent setting. When the sisters reach the stage, a monitor becomes the center of attention as she sings of a succession of minor sins and their punishments. Two sisters lose a day of holy celebration for arriving late to services, another is sent to her room for hiding two red roses in a sleeve of her habit.
Interview: Stephanie Blythe of SAN DIEGO OPERA'S PUCCINI DUO at The San Diego Civic TheaterFebruary 13, 2023
Stephanie Blythe looks for “creativity, imagination and curiosity” in her students. The first two are required of any good artist. Curiosity is a little less obvious, but she credits it for her ever expanding interests. Kate Smith led to reading about song writers, which In turn led to playing ukulele, then writing her own songs and designing new concerts and cabaret shows.
