Read on to find out the Concert Heaven and Concert Hell performances of conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali...
Santtu-Matias Rouvali... Concert Heaven
R Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra; An Alpine Symphony
Philharmonia Orchestra
Royal Festival Hall, London, 2021
Obviously, there are so many great memories, but I think my Concert Heaven would be the first Royal Festival Hall performance after the pandemic. We played Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and An Alpine Symphony to a full hall. It was a perfect feeling, because we were allowed to perform with over 100 musicians on the stage and the auditorium, of course, was crowded! Also, it was the opening of the season and my very first season as the principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. So it really was the full package; it was quite a moment.
A welcome end to pandemic restrictions...
I had done concerts during the pandemic, but they were so restricted; we were playing without audiences and with reduced forces in the orchestra, and that went on for, let’s say, two years. I can’t actually remember what my last time on the podium was before that.
We were really lucky with the programme at the Royal Festival Hall that evening because it was already planned like that and we were just hoping that the restrictions and rules would be over. We were able to have a normal amount of rehearsal time together, and it was so great for the orchestra to be back together. It was all just perfect timing.
Santtu-Matias Rouvali... Concert Hell
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5
Philharmonia Orchestra
Palacio de Congresos de Zaragoza, April 2022
For my Concert Hell I am going to pick one where I became unwell on tour right before the concert. I was touring with the Philharmonia Orchestra in Spain in 2022, playing in Madrid and Zaragoza, and I began to feel really sick just three hours before the concert in Zaragoza. I must have got food poisoning, or something like that. At first my colleagues thought I was joking, and they didn’t actually believe it. ‘Santtu, stop that!’ they said.
There was no time to find a conductor and so our concertmaster (lead violin) Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay had to conduct, and thank goodness he did, otherwise we would have had to cancel. Cancelling is the worst thing; it’s terrible for the audience, terrible for the orchestra and terrible for the venue.
Santtu-Matias Rouvali: 'I was throwing up in the toilet'
It was so lucky that Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay had done a bit of conducting, and as the concertmaster he knew the piece quite well – again it was lucky that we were playing Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, a standard repertoire piece. I think it must have been Concert Heaven for him! The orchestra were certainly kept on their toes but they made it, all while I was throwing up in the toilet. So that really was a hell for me.
It’s a worst nightmare scenario, as you don’t want to let people down. It’s a terrible feeling when you want to go on but just can’t. And this time I simply couldn’t. We tried everything; we even brought a doctor in and I got a jab but it didn’t help. By then my fever was racing and I was shaking in my bed, so there really was no chance.
I heard lots of positive things about the concert, though, so it was certainly the right decision. Thankfully, I recovered during the night and so I was able to do the next one. But ‘no seafood before a concert’ is my motto now; I’ve learned my lesson. I just stay in my room and roll my fingers through my hair! Nothing else.
Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s albums of Shostakovich Symphonies 6 & 9 and Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty are out on Philharmonia Records in November, distributed by Signum Classics.