The UK premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Festen Suite was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo at the Royal Albert Hall. The suite is drawn from Turnage's opera adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film Festen, which deals with the exposure of incestuous child abuse during a patriarch's 60th birthday party.
A Vivid Orchestration
The eight-movement suite captures the film's festering atmosphere. The prelude is vividly orchestrated with percussion wallops maintaining a lurching faux-jollity. Subsequent movements ricochet between lyricism—the gentle melancholy of Blue or Green, pastoral tenderness in Grandma's Song—and denial, slinky in the Conga with its rictus grin, sleazy in Interlude I. Revelations break the surface in the jabbing thrusts of The Fight, where brass and woodwind land clean punches. The suite is cleverly made and musically satisfying on its own terms, without the dramatic scaffolding of the opera. It is predicted to be heard frequently in future.
Sibelius and Britten
Oramo's conducting of Sibelius's second symphony was straight and clear, guiding through the symphony with momentum rather than release, until the brass was unleashed for a finale with grandeur and overflowing joy. Britten's cello symphony featured soloist Guy Johnston, who stayed scrupulously faithful to the composer's conception, often a part of the texture rather than its focus. The performance's subtleties were better captured on radio than live in the hall. The concert is available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September.
