Passion from the North

 

Perhaps Italians like Antonello Manacorda should conduct the proud music of the Northerner Sibelius more often. For Sibelius saw himself as a passionate admirer of the European South, for whom “Nordic melancholy embodied the longing for the South idealised from afar” (Tomi Mäkelä). Before the Finnish composer’s proud Symphony No. 5, music by Camille Saint-Saëns floods the concert hall. The well-travelled French Beethoven admirer composed two cello concertos, one more brilliant than the other, and perhaps for that very reason not epically rambling. So Maximilian Hornung can demonstrate his skills on both works at once. But Saint-Säens lays out the red carpet for himself (and for us), a catchy tune with an almost devilish grin: “La Danse macabre”.