“Tarmo Peltokoski and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra: A High-Voltage Season Finale Concert”

The Latvian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO) needed an inspiration. After the years passed in the shadow of the covid pandemic and the previous one held without a chief conductor – 2021/2022. year – the season was acutely in need of not just another headliner, but a fiery personality who, with his energy, absolute love of music and self-sacrifice, is able to inspire everyone, break them out of the routine and lift them above the everyday. This is what the orchestra now has – the closing concert of the season, conducted by LNSO’s artistic director Tarmo Peltokoski on May 19 in the Great Guild, proved it. A symphonic evening, in the first part of which the Finnish coloratura soprano Anu Komsi was sung by Richard Strauss in a soulful transcendental and at the same time warm peace The last four songs, while in the second part we listened to Dmitri Shostakovich’s 10th symphony, the poignant, emotionally charged autobiographical message about life and the era of Joseph Stalin’s tyranny, turned into an exciting and inspiring musical adventure that appealed to everyone. Both those who played music and those who sat in the hall or listened to the live broadcast, because there were no tickets for a long time. Due to high demand, the dress rehearsal of the concert, which took place the previous evening, May 18, was also made available to the public. This was the fourth program of the last season that the LNSO played under the leadership of Tarmo Peltokoski.

High voltage zone

It is a great luck of the LNSO that last year it managed to attract the young, passionate and surprisingly erudite Finnish talent Tarmo Peltokoski as its artistic director and principal conductor, reacting quickly to the mutual chemistry between the orchestra and the conductor at the first meeting. The LNSO achieved this at the last moment before the rapid rise of the young conductor’s international career, which, after a brilliant debut with the German Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Bremen in 2022, was initiated by the status of principal guest conductor of this demanding ensemble. The LNSO managed to sign the Finnish musician, ahead of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, which soon announced Tarmo Peltokoski as its principal guest conductor, before the Orchester National de la Capitole de Toulouse had chosen him as its next music director. “Talent of the century” – that’s what a German publication called 22-year-old Tarmo Peltokoski daily mirrorand it seems that this “mirror” will not be mistaken.

The most important thing is not the bright career ladder, but the fact that when Tarmo Peltokoski makes music, everything else recedes and ceases to exist. There is only the world of sound, the high voltage in which he and the orchestra live at that moment. It is lived, not conjured or constructed. Therefore, it is impossible not to relate, not to resonate with. In addition, similar to how our stars from the world’s highest league come to play for the Latvian national team in the ice hockey championship, the LNSO season finale concert gathered the best forces of Latvian musicians. Vineta Sareika, first violin of the Berlin Philharmonic, sat in the LNSO concertmaster’s chair. Her emotionally filled violin solo in Shostakovich’s 10th symphony and her masterful leadership, which, as the musician accurately and sensitively perceived the conductor’s ideas, united the orchestra into one perfect musical instrument, were the highlight of the event. The brutally aggressive, grotesque was especially impressive in this tooth Allegro – a vivid portrayal of the dictator Stalin, which the composer could afford in his symphony thanks to the very recent death of the tyrant.

Nuance and precision

The former concertmaster of the flute group Tommāso Pratola, who is now the flute leader of the Rhine Philharmonic Orchestra and has therefore moved to Koblenz, also made a special return. In the course of the evening, we heard a whole constellation of excellent solos by orchestra musicians – starting with the glorious horn singing of Richard Strauss’ score and ending with clarinet, oboe, bassoon, flute solos (Anete Toča’s piccolo flute turns were dazzling). For the orchestra’s performance – also in the insanely fast, particularly shrill unisons, which could only be rivaled by Mercutio’s run and death in Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet– was characterized by adventurous freedom and passionate virtuosity, as well as nuance and precision.

Tarmo Peltokoski carefully and skillfully balanced the acoustic perspective of the sound. It even succeeded in interpreting the songs of Richard Strauss, despite how soft and quiet Anu Komsi sang. It was delicate, full-bodied, sensitive chamber music, performed only by a symphony orchestra – in refined half-whispers whisper, without overshadowing the singer’s voice.

By systematically following the performance of the LNSO over a longer period of time, it becomes clear that the end of the season concert is not an artificially “sweetened” exception. LNSO’s self-sacrifice and artistic level are not just an episodic phenomenon that we encounter only in concerts conducted by Tarmo Peltokoski. I would call it the tone of the orchestra season. This was also felt in the Latgale embassy Gore at the ten-year anniversary concert Bittersweet eternal On May 13, when the previous artistic director of the LNSO, Andris Poga, was at the conductor’s desk. In the Rēzekne concert hall, where symphonic music sounds best, Jānis Ivanovs’ symphonic performance Rainbow developed into real color painting. The emotional contrasts of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 15th symphony between the personal and the objective and the masterful play with easily recognizable allusions to the opera music of Wagner and Rossini and the dodecaphonic constructions of the New Vienna School of the 20th century from a completely “different opera” flowed smoothly and expressively. In turn, together with the State Academic Choir Latvia performed opus of Francis Poulenc Gloria the soul was Gunta Gelgote’s clear, bright soprano and the singer’s personality, which itself radiates a harmonizing light.