Finland
David Nice
Fashionable concertgoers, if you'll forgive the oxymoron, may have missed the raciest heartbeat of a dizzying week. While Barenboim's Beethoven and Vänskä's Sibelius packed in the cognoscenti at the Royal Festival Hall, kids tagging along to the BBC Symphony Orchestra's "Family Music Intro" and a hardcore of rare-repertoire collectors at the Barbican were treated to a parade of oddball scores dazzlingly communicated by another of those amazing Finnish conductors, Susanna Mälkki, and Portuguese pianist Artur Pizarro.Make no mistake, these are dense programmes the BBC insists on offering, not Read more ...