Star Isle - Takemitsu
Violin Concerto - Sibelius
Symphony No 4 - Mahler
The Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, founded 40 years ago in Sapporo, the major city of Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido, played at the Waterfront Hall on Sunday as part of the Belfast Festival's participation in the ongoing celebration of Japan 2001.
Toru Takemitsu, who died in 1996 at the age of 65, is the best-known Japanese composer of the 20th century. His often French-flavoured style shows a fondness for dreamy, nature-influenced impressionism, marked by an exceptional colouristic sensitivity.
Star-Isle of 1982, with its Messiaen-like opening on brass, followed by wistful writing for woodwind and nostalgic indulgences on strings, is hardly one of his strongest pieces. And, oddly, it was given the least impressive performance in the Sapporo orchestra's programme under Tadaaki Otaka on Sunday.
Impressionism may not be the strongest suit of an orchestra which seemed to revel in coolly distinct detailing rather than more warmly-blended textures and colours. The approach seemed ideally suited to the similarly impartial playing of Kyoko Takezawa in Sibelius's Violin Concerto, where the orchestra's ability to refine their support to an audible whisper greatly added to the strength of the performance.
The straight-dealing style, downplaying any undertones of middle-European angst, made for an appealingly direct account of Mahler's Fourth Symphony, with soprano Rebecca Evans fitting in nicely in her account of the innocent picture of heaven that Mahler set in the finale.
