From Brahms’ early struggle with form and legacy, through Arvo Pärt’s abrasive pre-spiritual compositions, to Stravinsky’s vividly narrative Firebird, the concert moved steadily from inward conflict towards outward transformation.
The night opened with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, a work that began life in the 1850s amidst professional doubt and personal crisis. The concerto’s ominous opening brought despair to the doorstep immediately, announced by a blasting orchestral start before settling into sweeping violins. Ollikainen guided the ensemble with careful attention to dynamics, allowing the drama to unfold gradually.
When Fujita entered, the piano felt like it floated on top of the orchestral weight. It was masterful and tender, his hands sliding over the keys like fabric.
Before playing a single note, Mao Fujita laid a handkerchief across the Steinway’s tuning pins and waited. And waited. The pause built pressure before a release that would again and again feel like a boxing match or wrangling of some immense adversary. That is, taming the sheer mass of the orchestra. When Fujita entered, the piano felt like it floated on top of the orchestral weight. It was masterful and tender, his hands sliding over the keys like fabric. But then, after, exertion was visible, his phrasing evidently very intense. At times, he struck the instrument and then retreated, only to return again with more weight.
Throughout the forty-two-minute piece, solitary French horn calls emerged from the back of the orchestra, breaking through the dense textures. The concerto felt tumultuous and often unsettled; an “up and down” voyage with themes that were less fixed than expected. Despite its historic position in the Romantic canon, the music often sounded boundary-pushing, with touch points of modernity interrupting its classical frame. Brahms (one of the “Three Bs” of German classical music), after all, was composing under the shadow of Beethoven, having first heard the Ninth Symphony the same year he sketched this concerto.
The second movement softened immediately. It was bittersweet, like looking out a train window and waving goodbye to someone forever. The piano became the emotional core, while the orchestra supplied grit and weight. Deep bass and horns defined the space. Flute and bassoon offered moments of comfort and balance. Eventually, the cello and piano began striding together, building momentum before the finale (Rondo: Allegro non troppo) returned to furious conflict. Sharp, accented “spikes” from around thirty violins, quivering piano figures, Fujita’s arms dropping to his sides between blows in this third round. Applause poured out for Ollikainen and Fujita.
After intermission, the programme moved further into musical radicalism with Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 1, “Polyphonic” (1963). Seeing Pärt’s name might suggest meditative stillness, but this early work, written before his spiritual awakening, was immediately discordant. French horns laid bare a sense of tragedy. Across the stage, instruments were deliberately pushed away from their purest sounds: muted trumpets, high-register pizzicato violins, downright loopy reeds. The percussion section included hi-hat cymbals and a pedal bass drum, laying down something close to a backbeat towards the end. Only the flutes sounded remotely “normal.”
There was no melody in the traditional sense, more an accumulation of texture. At times it resembled insect life, in its rapidity, brutality, and desperation. It hinged on change, like the shedding of an exoskeleton or the growth in a chrysalis of a caterpillar. Briefly, the concertmaster Jonathan Crow emerged in a quiet violin passage, only to be thereafter overwhelmed by smashing percussion. The marimba was struck hard, giving the moment an oddly comical motion. Then, the piece reached a fermata and stopped, suspended in animation.
But a phoenix must rise again, and it did, in a proud, extended crescendo that became the evening’s most satisfying moment.
Potentially what drew most audience members to the concert, and this included many young people, was Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite (1919). With that in mind, it has to be mentioned that this composition was the finale of Disney’s Fantasia 2000, which played on many a family’s VHS player back in the day. The music’s cultural afterlife is impressive.
And the sound was unmistakable. Immense, growling bass that chilled the room. Violinists pulling at their bows sounded like seagulls overhead. The stage had shifted again, with piano and harp placed to the side for added flourish and balletic flutter. The piece felt young and physical, like a newly regenerated phoenix. Film echoes were hard to miss; one could hear future traces of John Williams, particularly in moments reminiscent of “Leaving Hogwarts.” Though, in actuality, Stravinsky’s score follows Prince Ivan and the firebird, confronts the sorcerer Kastchei, endures chaos and enchantment, and ultimately frees the princesses, an arc Ollikainen brought into focus.
The second movement delivered the loudest dynamic of the night. A blast of sound even with the horns, including the tuba, fully muted. Hurried, assaulting rises left little room to breathe before the music slithered back into withered reeds and sparse piano. But a phoenix must rise again, and it did, in a proud, extended crescendo that became the evening’s most satisfying moment.
By the end of the night, a pattern emerged. Brahms looked ahead, wrestling with form and inheritance. Pärt looked inward and dismantled tradition. Stravinsky looked partly forward but remained more melodically grounded and romantic, shaped by ballet and folklore. Together, the programme captured these composers’ personal and historical challenges in real time on the Roy Thomson Hall stage.
