Sibelius' Violin Concerto with Alina Pogostkina and Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen

Ghent composer Frank Nuyts wrote Different from Habit twenty years ago: music that sits well with the ear, occasionally swinging. No difficult contemporary composition that sometimes frightens concert audiences away. Concert hall De Bijloke is packed full, with audiences even sitting on the choir benches behind the orchestra.

Russian-German violinist Alina Pogostkina was barely seventeen when she came fourth at the Elisabeth Competition in 2001. She subsequently won the Sibelius Competition in 2005 with Sibelius's violin concerto, after which her international career took flight. She played it so often that after years she wanted to moderate somewhat. Now she plays it just a few times a year. She has thus grown into this concerto, one of the most well-known violin concertos in the repertoire.

Apart from one detail, she plays it flawlessly. It is often played in too dramatic a manner, especially the opening notes. She plays them without vibrato, as a thin, icy melody in a winter landscape. Impressive and daring, as Anne-Sophie Mutter did as well, in a famous recording from 1996. The concerto, especially the final movement, is a tour de force. Pogostkina plays brilliantly, but has she won all hearts? Am I too strict when I missed charisma, the aura of the great soloist? Certainly in a concert such as that of Sibelius, where you as a soloist must contend with the orchestra, the volume of the violin's sound matters, especially in a hall such as De Bijloke.

After the interval, Carl Nielsen's Fourth Symphony is on the programme. A work full of contrasts, in which Nielsen was inspired by indestructible nature. Nielsen is a romantic who is considered Denmark's national composer. Lovely melodies are alternated with threatening brass players. Virtuosic strings with dreamy passages in the woodwinds. The "inextinguishable," Nielsen titled this symphony.

Inextinguishable, indelible, tempestuous sounded especially the timpani in the final movement. A duel between the timpani, conductor Kristiina Poska told the audience beforehand. As if they were opponents, the two percussionists are also positioned apart from each other, one on the left and the other on the right towering above the orchestra. Especially the young man on the right pounds away wildly. Right behind him the audience sits on the choir benches. To judge by their faces, some ladies are startled by the timpani strikes, as if they hear thunder rumbling in Copenhagen.

In the gallery of great Romantic composers, Nielsen has a modest place. You hear all sorts of influences in his work, but he has not left his own mark on music history, except for that of his small country. It is therefore the question whether this inextinguishable or indelible symphony has made an indelible impression on the audience, except for the ladies on the choir benches behind the timpanist.