In Thursday’s (4/15) Toronto Star (Canada), Jon Terauds writes, “For Thomas Dausgaard, the symphonies of Jean Sibelius engage his entire being. ‘It’s a bit like climbing a mountain,’ he says on a day off from rehearsals with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. ‘While you’re with it, you feel part of something bigger than yourself.’ The Danish conductor leads a 10-day orchestral expedition that set off last night from Arthur Ericsson’s circular temple to music. Along the way, audiences at Roy Thomson Hall will get to experience the peaks and valleys of all seven of Sibelius’s symphonies, as well as a selection of pieces for violin and orchestra. Wednesday and Thursday night, it was Symphonies No. 1 and 2, which date from 1899 and 1902, respectively. Saturday’s program features the next two, as well as a joint performance with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and a coalition of local choirs of Sibelius’s most famous work, Finlandia. On April 21 and 22, the last three symphonies get their turn. The soloist for the other pieces is young Finnish violin firebrand Pekka Kuusisto. … Dausgaard gave the Sibelius marathon a test run in 2007, when he was part of a musical celebration of the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death in Copenhagen.”
Posted April 15, 2010
