BSO presents bold, chilling winter concert

Sunday’s Bangor Symphony Concert at the Maine Center for the Arts started with the music of revolt and ended with a jolt of nationalistic pride – both marked by the chilling, terrifying peaks of Scandinavian landscapes. If ever music represented dramatic marches to the edge of thematic cliffs and visions into the depths of terror and joy, this was it.

Twentieth-century Norwegian composer Harald Saeverud, the late grandfather of BSO concertmaster Trond Saeverud, wrote “Ballad of Revolt” as a protest against the German occupation of Norway in World War II. The music is marked by slicing strings, a thrumming bass line and a profound sense of doom. Yet it also pays tribute to Norwegian folksong in tender, dancing tunes.

It’s likely that most audience members had never heard this robust work or of its composer before Sunday. It’s equally likely the audience will not forget either, particularly given this country’s own wartime context and the bold expressiveness of the piece under Maestro Xiao-Lu Li.

More than once, Li has exhibited an enthusiasm for patriotism with rousing renditions of the national anthem. If the Saeverud opener at yesterday’s concert suggested even a subtle criticism of colonialism and occupation, the final work on the program – Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major – was a fortissimo tribute to one of music history’s symbols of nation loving.

Sibelius is a hero of Finnish-ness, and his music never pretends to hide that fact. It’s no wonder that his melodies are often imitated in scores for epic Hollywood films. Indeed, the Russian government forbade performances of his symphonic poem “Finlandia,” written in 1900, because it represented the glory of Finland’s independent countrymen.

Li clearly understands the power of stirring an audience on the grandest possible scale. If he seemed heavy-handed in leading the brass and strings in frightfully big sounds, it is because this is an unapologetically heavy-handed score of big skies and panoramic scenery. Big and bigger are correct on this one.

The orchestral players – especially the strings, brass and winds – showed expert pacing, patience and icy atmosphere. The splendid performance wasn’t so much rugged or even nuanced as it was rocking with great intensity and conviction.

As dedicated at Maestro Li is to flag-hoisting themes, he is also admirably devoted to youth culture, and the BSO classical concerts have become a test ground for talented fledgling musicians. One of them, Gal Nyska, a fourth-year cellist at the Juilliard School in New York City, offered a sometimes lyrical, sometimes labored rendition of Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme,” followed by an encore of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. In keeping with the wintry Scandinavian theme, the BSO also played Edvard Grieg’s Norwegian Dance No. 2.