
As i’ve often remarked here (usually in connection with yet another Proms commission) i’m not a fan of contemporary works that seek to ‘respond’ to earlier music. It’s a lazy commissioning approach, usually producing dismal musical results, with the only successes emanating from composers who aren’t particularly fussed about how closely they cleave to the original. Apropos: The Firehearted by Elis Hallik, an orchestral piece from 2021 originally commissioned two years earlier as part of a programme celebrating Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, which ultimately never happened due to the pandemic. One assumes that that intended concert might have included Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, as it’s material from this work that appears throughout The Firehearted. But what’s so interesting about this – and from my perspective so refreshing – is that Hallik’s ‘response’ to Beethoven is about as far from an homage as one could possibly imagine, opting for an approach that’s so wonderfully irreverant it borders on being downright malicious.
There really are no holds barred in this piece. In a way not dissimilar from her recent symphony, Phos, Hallik creates a dense, vibrant texture, and does so very quickly indeed, immediately suggesting there are multiple things happening. We start to hear some of the familiar Leonore rhythms in the strings (0:34), tune fragments in the winds (1:13), whereupon, after a mere 90 seconds, the orchestral fabric seems to split in two with a crash, as if the music were being cleft open and all of these fragments were spilling out. There are variations in the level of intensity; Hallik pulls away from momentum into a slow, trilly tempestuous episode (2:10), yet there’s still the impression of many things playing out at once, and when Leonore makes a more assertive effort to be heard (3:15) it’s half buried.
All of this is quite the contrast to Hallik’s chamber music which, though it allows for twin impulses of lyricism and unpredictability, tends to result in music that speaks with more certain clarity. Here, there’s such glee in the way she piles things up, practically overloading them, it’s impossible not to be caught up in the sheer mischief of it all. A bass drum thud triggers another almost-emergence from the Beethoven (3:52), which Hallik doesn’t so much embellish as drown in splashy cymbals, tam-tam swells and loud trumpet trills. At this point it’s like a completely separate piece of Hallik’s and Leonore being played simultaneously, and while there’s a cheeky moment shortly before the end (4:58) that suggests the music might finally open out and allow in some air, and even stumble upon a resolution (there’s a pedal point to reinforce that possibility), the piece instead drives on without let up, finally wiping out everything in a huge metallic swell.
This performance of the world première was given by the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Olari Elts in September 2021, and it’s interesting to compare it with another, with the same orchestra, conducted by the one and only Neeme Järvi, released an on otherwise unremarkable album of Beethoven-related music last year. The most striking thing is that, where Elts gets through The Firehearted in under 6½ minutes, Järvi takes nearly nine. One might leap to the conclusion that this is simply the product of an older conductor slowing down with age, but this is Neeme Järvi, many of whose recordings – particularly of late Romantic repertoire – rank among the most stunningly clear and vivid ever made. There are aspects of Järvi’s interpretation that i prefer: there’s much more the sense of a complex machine cranking up to full speed, with real weight and power; the Leonore elements are teased out more within the texture wherever possible; and in general Järvi is evidently aiming to get everything across as abundantly clearly as possible. That performance demonstrates there are times when taking longer doesn’t mean diminished energy; it’s an extremely hefty rendition of the piece. From what i’ve experienced of him, Olari Elts isn’t so interested in this kind of subtlety, and i can’t help wondering whether, in a piece like this, that actually counts for a lot. Elts makes everything more tight, even taut, occasionally exaggerated, and one genuinely feels we’re in the presence of music that’s practically deranged. Either way, i’m so glad The Firehearted exists, and i wish more contemporary composers would ‘respond’ with such impious joy as this.