Nicholas Collon kept it sober and tidy in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

How does the wrath of God sound? If we are to believe the grande dame of Russian composing, 90-year-old Sofia Gubaidulina, the Creator clears his throat with hellishly low tubas and trombones. He whips the sinful eardrum with a sniffed symphony orchestra. But fortunately he also has moments of grace, with the peaceful chatter of piccolo and glockenspiel.

Gubaidulinas Der Zorn Gottes (2019) had its Dutch premiere on Friday in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. Unfortunately, the composer, who has lived in northern Germany for three decades, was not among them. Gubaidulina is bedridden and hopes to complete one more piece. She already has the title of her goodbye, not meant ironically: prologue†

For the staunch Russian Orthodox composer, God’s wrath is an existential matter. More existential than British conductor Nicholas Collon and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra showed in the Avrotros Friday Concert. The tubas snarled and the chimes echoed. But nowhere in those seventeen potentially sublime minutes did Collon tap into the feelings Gubaidulina must feel to her very marrow. Fear of God’s wrath, hope of eternal bliss.

Collon, who was chief of the Hague Residentie Orkest for three seasons, also kept it in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto sober and neat. The Ukrainian soloist Valeriy Sokolov deserved a little more response for his surprisingly vain violin playing. Throw many a soloist into Tchaikovsky with blobs of feeling, Sokolov chose a path of introspection and precision. A pity, such a horn that bounces just too hard, or a flute that answers with steel to a mossy violin tone.