Crouch End Festival Chorus & LSC Tenors & Basses
Thomas Ades - Conductor
London Symphony Orchestra
Susan Bickley - Mezzo
Raimo Laukka - Baritone
Royal Albert Hall
29 August 2002

Thomas Ades - America
Sibelius - Kullervo Symphony

BY John Moore (audience)

In Sibelius' Kullervo symphony - a work which is normally more the preserve of Finnish musicians than his numbered symphonies - it was a delight to hear a British conductor, orchestra, chorus and soloists (apart from solitary Finn Raimo Laukka) pull off such an enormously compelling performance.

Curiously, what came across most was a raw, earthy, perhaps even mythic, quality - something which one might expect to require native musicians to produce. Susan Bickley's mezzo contribution as Kullervo's sister was astounding, her voice impassioned yet somehow primaeval-sounding.

This combined with Ades' wonderful highlighting of details I had never heard before - which I now feel to have been hitherto 'smoothed over' - to give a totally thrilling performance. And can such darkly Finnish-sounding singers really come from Crouch End? Certainly something for Raimo Laukka (who was also wholly admirable) to go back and tell his compatriots about. JOHN MOORE.

Thanks to BBC Online for this review.