Royal Festival Hall
Webern – Im Sommerwind
Schoenberg – Five Orchestral
Pieces, op.16
Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde (with first movement re-orchestrated by Colin
Matthews)
Lilli Paasikivi (mezzo-soprano)
Paul Groves (tenor)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)
The opening to Webern’s Das Sommerwind sounded ‘harmonious’ in
more than one sense, seemingly as much Webern’s answer to the Das Rheingold Prelude, an evocation of
the most fundamental nature of tonal harmony itself, as something more
programmatic, though that would come. Perhaps the Wagnerian antecedent lay in
Sir Mark Elder’s emphasis; perhaps it has been there all along, and it had
simply not registered so strongly in my experience before. At any rate, it
intrigued, invited. Sweet-toned reminiscences of Mahler and Strauss, the latter
in Till Eulenspiegel-like good
humour, followed, the LPO woodwind principals gratefully taking their
opportunity to shine. One would hardly have guessed the composer; indeed, one
never would during the course of this piece preceding Webern’s life-changing,
history-changing meeting with Schoenberg. Whilst some of the orchestration is already
approaching the level of masterly, some is perhaps a little gauche, the
instrumentation standing out a little too obviously. (But then, if we are
comparing someone to Mahler and Strauss, or indeed the later Webern, the
standards are stratospheric.) It was, however, a wonderful opportunity to hear
the piece loving performed, with an apt summer glow most welcome in freezing
London. This strange, quite uncharacteristic beginning to Webern’s
extraordinary orchestral career has received tighter performances – inevitably,
for instance, from Boulez – but a more rhapsodic approach does it no real harm.
If it lingers, perhaps being the only piece by Webern that outstays its
welcome, it nevertheless does not deserve a mobile telephone contribution
during its closing bars. Shame upon the perpetrator!
The move to Schoenberg’s
op.16 Pieces underlined the gulf between a fascinating early work and a
towering masterpiece. Elder presented ‘Vorgefühle’ with commendable clarity,
even if it emerged a little four-square. It gathered momentum nicely, however,
and soon turned magnificently monstrous. Mahler on acid, haunted by ghosts of
Brahms: what could be more Viennese than that? ‘Vergangenes’ was languorous, in
a state of seemingly perpetual dissolution, yet nevertheless continuing. It
seemed at times to prefigure the Klangfarbenmelodie
of its successor – a cunningly highlighted link here in performance – and yet
the background of a piece such as the First Chamber Symphony, op.9, with its
tight-knit motivic writing, was equally apparent. Halluncinatory celesta tones
(Catherine Edwards) almost stole the show, but in reality that instrument was
only first amongst equals in a London Philharmonic Orchestra on fine form. And
my goodness, what an astounding score this is! ‘Farben’ was mysterious,
reticent, innig, to employ an
indispensable, untranslatable German word. This performance sounded as if it
were a laudable attempt to regain something of the piece’s initial revolutionary
quality, not through aggression but through a subtler resolution to make us
truly listen; Nono, Schoenberg’s posthumous son-in-law, would have understood.
There was a true sense of loss when its brief stay was over. ‘Peripetie’
emerged very much in the mould of the first piece, ominously dramatic.
Developing variation proved key to our aural understanding of ‘Das obligate
Rezitativ’. Occasionally one might have wished for heightened colouristic
awareness, especially earlier on, and a richer string tone after the fashion of
that great Schoenbergian, Daniel Barenboim, but narration was as clear as in
any conventional recitative. Again, we were compelled to listen. We emerged as
if from a dream, shaken and uncertain.
I wish I had not read the
programme first. That is not intended as a criticism of Gavin Plumley’s note,
but rather because I wonder how I should have reacted to the first movement,
had I not been aware that Colin Matthews had been commissioned by Elder to
re-orchestrate it. Would I have noticed? I should like to think so, and am
pretty sure that I should have realised that something was awry, or at least
different. The difficulties tenors have this with this movement are notorious,
and Matthews is quite right to point to Mahler’s tinkering both with other
composers’ scores and his own. It sometimes sounded thinner, even shriller,
though I think at times that might have been a matter also of Elder’s
conducting; it also sometimes sounded restrained, even constrained, as if the
fuller scoring were attempting to burst through its reduction. Without hearing
Matthews’s work again, or better still seeing the score, I shall leave the
matter by saying that I could not help but long for what Mahler wrote, not out
of any fundamentalist Werktreue but
simply because, vocal difficulties notwithstanding, it simply sounds more ‘finished’
– to me. As it was, the movement remained something of a shout for Paul Groves,
though there could be no gainsaying his audible and visible commitment. I
wished that Elder would relax a little at times, but that was a matter of
degree.
‘Der Einsame im Herbst’
revealed first an excellent oboe solo (Ian Hardwick), suffused with melancholic
longing, soon joined by equally splendid woodwind colleagues, and then by Lilli
Paasikivi, her voice deeper than one often hears today, even in this repertoire.
There was more than a touch of the earth-mother to her performance: rather
wonderful, I thought. Elder paced the movement well and maintained its flow.
Although there were a few instances of instrumental smudging, there was nothing
too serious. The final stanza brought true passion, almost operatic, or at
least a symphonic-song-shadow – I realise I am in danger here of succumbing to
the Wagnerian selige
Morgentraum-Deutweise disease – of Mahler’s work in the opera house. Groves
contributed a winning, appropriate earnestness to the third movement, almost as
if revisiting the Wunderhorn songs of
Mahler’s (relative) youth, now invigoratingly set against orchestral chinoiserie and the LPO’s buoyantly sprung
rhythms. Both orchestra and Elder were really at their best here, lilt and
colour equally impressive.
‘Von der Schönheit’, by
contrast, suffered from a curious tendency towards the rhythmically distended,
making it difficult to discern Mahler’s guiding thread, undeniably incidental
beauties notwithstanding. Paasikivi, however, was never less than engaging as a
narrative and dramatic guide. Orchestral brashness and Elder’s driven
conducting in the middle of the movement had it veer uncomfortably close to
Shostakovich. Mahler should sound so much more interesting, so much more
variegated, than that. Groves struggled with Mahler’s admittedly strenuous
demands in ‘Der Trunkene im Frühling’, though again he threw himself headlong
into the great challenge. Elder shaped the structure far more keenly than he
had that of its predecessor. Pieter Schoeman’s sweet-toned violin solo was
especially worthy of note.
The ominous tread to the dark
orchestral opening of ‘Der Abschied’ said it all. Mahler’s sparing
orchestration sounded close to the ‘real’ Webern’ – as of course it is. The
warmth of Paasiviki’s tone would have melted the stoniest of hearts. An
unmistakeable echo, both in vocal line and orchestra, of the Third Symphony’s Nietzschean
‘deepness’ of the world was to be heard as the world fell asleep: ‘Die Welt
schläft ein!’ If only that had not occasioned a barrage of coughing from
certain sections of the audience. Elder exhibited a commendable command of
line, though there were times when I wished again that he would relax a little
more. As the breeze ran through the shadow of the pines, we heard, however, a
truly terrifying stillness, flute set against double basses, as the soloist implored:
the pain of harren, of waiting. That
line, ‘O Schönheit! O ewigen Liebens-Lebenstrunk’ne Welt!’ came forth with what
I can only call exhilarating sadness, poised between the block rejoicing of the
Second Symphony – a memory, though perhaps no longer attainable – and Webern’s Klee-like
pointillism. The great orchestral interlude that followed was shaped by Elder
with great understanding of Mahler the musical dramatist, thereby rendering all
the more desolate what was to come. And yet, consolation, when it came, was
properly, wondrously earned, not least by Paasikivi. It was Mahlers Verklärung; it was our
transfiguration too.
