Article #249737

Norwegian Chamber Orchestra/Kuusisto/Amidon
(Platoon)
The Finnish violinist-conductor strips back The Lark Ascending to revelatory effect in an album that moves from searing grief to radiant, folk-infused transcendence with Sam Amidon

‘We aren’t deleting notes,” says Pekka Kuusisto, “but deleting ketchup.” The Finnish conductor and violinist is talking about Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, a work of such innate Britishness that it regularly tops UK classical music popularity polls. Kuusisto’s Lark isn’t RVW-lite, however, but a penetrating, convincingly honest account that strips the music back to its essential roots in the English folk tradition. Opening with a breathless whisper, it flutters and soars before vanishing into a realm of spiritual tranquillity.

The album, entitled Willows and featuring the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, is in part a reflection on grief and loss: Ellen Reid’s Desiderium, a visceral howl for solo violin, is dedicated to Kuusisto’s gifted brother Jaako, who died in 2022. Elsewhere, Caroline Shaw’s Plan & Elevation, an orchestral version of her 2015 string quartet, picks up on the arboreal theme in a work that maps out Washington DC’s Dumbarton Oaks estate. Architecturally conceived, the piece takes Mozart and Ravel as its guides in flickering lines crisscrossing five assorted movements.