The first movement (Allegro Moderato) with its orchestral ‘Greek chorus’ and repeated, sequenced themes had me thinking of a chook house, with its pecking order and flustered clucking responses ... also, perhaps a little unkindly, of gaggles of large-busted late-middle-aged women of a certain age who parade their busts before them, buttressed with formidable underwear and swaddled in either synthetic blazers or cardigans, depending on the locality – geographic and socio-economic. Like hens, flustered cackling and following the leader are good survival traits.
The Largo movement’s wistful strains and mild, almost-melancholy cadences found me, unobserved, behind the farmhouse window. I’m watching a child sitting and quietly humming to herself. Absorbed in her own world, she’s playing with strands of grass, lost to a personal grief, unintelligible to an adult.
Finally, the Presto – in complete contrast – had me thinking of kelpie-collie sheepdogs, whose purpose and joy is order and energy: the cheerful greeting of their little pack’s alpha, the farmer; the ultimate high of bringing that chorus of bleating sheep to the farmer’s order; the ecstasy of running to exhaustion at the end of the day.
[Recording: Pekka Kuusisto & Virtuosi Di Kuhmo]
No comments:
Post a Comment