After Susanna Mälkki arrived with a typically thoughtful program of Strauss, Ravel, and the living composer Luca Francesconi, her compatriot Santtu-Matias Rouvali returned to lead a performance of their homeland’s ultimate musical avatar: the proudly nationalistic Fifth Symphony of Jean Sibelius. His concerts also included the music of Julia Wolfe and even more Strauss: this time, Vier Letzte Lieder, with Miah Persson making a rare local appearance as the soloist. I heard the second of four performances on Friday, November 8.

Although hardly a rarity, Strauss’s valedictory contribution to the song repertoire hadn’t been performed by the Philharmonic since 2001, prior to this week. The work lends itself to a variety of vocal approaches, having been performed by Wagnerian sopranos and lighter lyrics alike. Persson emerged initially in the Susanna-and-Sophie mold, though as she has aged, she has taken on more substantial assignments, including the Marschallin and Countess Madeleine.

From past experience hearing her at the Met and Carnegie Hall, I recalled Persson’s voice as sunny and bright but possessing the quintessential “ping” that allowed it to carry easily throughout the auditorium. Even post-renovation, though, I wondered how she might fare in David Geffen Hall, not known for its supportive vocal acoustic.

The current run might not be the best opportunity to judge the current state of her ability. Persson canceled the dress rehearsal on November 7—she was replaced there by the American-born, Berlin-based Sara Jakubiak—and still seemed uneasy the following day. “Frühling” began tentatively, with Persson’s volume decreasing noticeably as she moved between registers, and an unfortunate tendency to insert catch-breaths into the melismatic line. Here and in “September,” she offered little variation in detail or phrasing, preferring a lightness of tone that made a certain sense in the former piece but removed a sense of contrast from the latter, as the tone of the cycle grew darker.

Throughout those opening salvos and into “Beim Schlafengehen,” Persson received scant help from Rouvali, whose reading removed any sense of mystery or romantic longing from the piece. He eschewed rubato almost entirely, and the orchestra’s attempts to keep up with his fast tempos found them playing at less than their best—the massed strings sounding too bright and buzzy, the woodwinds curiously wan. Even effective moments, like concertmaster Frank Huang’s violin solo in “Beim Schlafengehen,” would have sounded better with a hair more restraint and introspection. Persson also seemed taxed, exhibiting a sense of connection to the themes of the piece only in her silent response to Huang’s solo line.

Persson sounded most secure at the lower end of her range, which served her well in “Im Abendrot,” but the overall impact of the performance made me wonder if the heavier Strauss repertoire was the best bet for the current stage of her career. And while it might be unfair, learning of Jakubiak’s Einspringerin moment made me slightly jealous of the rehearsal audience.

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The concert opened with Wolfe’s Fountain of Youth, written in 2019 for the Miami-based training orchestra New World Symphony. The piece featured many of the composer’s signature touches: thick walls of sound, entire sections that seemed to be fighting each other, unusual instrumentation, and the suggestion of non-classical genres folded into the fabric of the work. Some aspects genuinely intrigued, such as how the string tone almost sounded like a mass of distorted amplification. But rather than demonstrating any sort of thematic drive, the total effect came across as merely novel. And although Rouvali kept the many moving parts of the score swiftly progressing, I felt for the first time since Geffen Hall’s renovation familiar problems creeping back in. Brass and percussion subsumed the woodwind and strings.

In the past two years alone, I’ve been lucky to hear some of the best Finnish conductors perform the Sibelius Fifth, including Mälkki, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Dalia Stasevska. Each brought a differing approach to the music, but its sense as a national monument remained abundantly clear. Rouvali offered a reading notable for its stateliness in the opening and Andante, allowing for particularly fine solo playing from bassoonist Judith LeClair, but as the music moved into more hard-charging territory, he gave the effect of shock and awe without much underlying thought. The result was often exciting and rather crude, especially in the overworked final bars.

After the dispiriting political events this past week in America, though, it felt good to momentarily escape into a composer’s vision of his country at its absolute best. There is clearly a reason why Finnish conductors and international audiences remain drawn to this piece. It engenders a feeling of optimism and pride—emotions I hope to feel toward my own homeland again someday.

Photos: Chris Lee