Having survived the Great Millennial Arctic Snow Deluge of 2005, I'm ready for, uh, a big blizzard of concerts. January's surfeit of Nordic notation continues with the Cincinnati Symphony at Carnegie on Monday: Paavo Järvi, son of Neeme, leads a program much like one that Anu Tali, also Estonian, conducted in New Jersey two weeks ago: again the Grieg Concerto, again the Sibelius Fifth, now Sallinen's Eighth Symphony. Tuesday and Wednesday bring installments of Juilliard's Soviet Avant-Garde festival, commemorating Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Ustvolskaya, and others voices of the Communist twilight. Also on Wednesday, the Lyric Society of New York presents Shostakovich's Brezhnev-era Blok songs. On Thursday I go to the New York City Ballet: Terry Teachout will tell me when not to applaud. Friday offers a tough choice between Pierre Boulez explicating The Rite of Spring at Carnegie and Reinbert de Leeuw conducting Gubaidulina's Stimmen ... Verstummen and Shostakovich's Fifteenth at Juilliard. I've said before and I'll say again that de Leeuw is one of the best conductors working. As for Boulez, he drops it like it's hot. (De Leeuw's concert is free; Boulez's has a top price of $35.) Saturday, Boulez is back with another Rite. And Sunday, Osmo Vänskä's Lahti Symphony closes out Nordic month with a concert at Avery Fisher. Vänskä is a brilliant musician who is moving the Minnesota Orchestra into the top echelon. Here he'll be conducting the Sibelius Second, and if you think that work is a worn-out warhorse you've never heard Vänskä's take on it. His 1996 performance with the Iceland Symphony was one of the most intense experiences of my listening life.
