Royal Albert Hall
Mozart – Le nozze di Figaro, KV 492: Overture
Ayal Adler – Resonating Sounds (UK premiere)
Kareem Rouston – Ramal (UK premiere)
Ravel – Rapsodie espagnole
Alborada
del gracioso
Pavane
pour une infante défunte
Boléro
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| Images: BBC/Chris Christodoulou |
The times could hardly be
more tense with respect to ‘external’ politics and the lands in which the young
musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra live. Who knows what discussions
take place amongst them? However, they certainly played – and looked as though
they were playing – together not only as an orchestra but as friends; the
warmth of their embraces at the end of the concert told its own story. This
year, we had not Beethoven and Boulez, but music with Spanish associations (the
Figaro Overture and Ravel), alongside
the British premieres by an Israeli and a Syrian composer.
Daniel Barenboim is of course
one of our very greatest Mozartians. I could find no fault with the Overture,
nor had I any wish to do so. It simply sounded as Mozart should: perfect. Quicksilver,
without being harried, sunny without complacency, this reading showed once
again Barenboim’s crucial attention to the bass line, thus to harmony, thus to
form. (I still find it extraordinary how many conductors seem entirely
uninterested in such matters, as if they were somehow optional extras!) The
Divan players articulated Mozart’s magic beautifully as Barenboim attended,
inobtrusively, to the longer line.
Ayal Adler’s Resonating Sounds refers, in the
composer’s words, ‘to an echo, or a reminiscence of sound, lingering after the
cast chords slowly fade away. This sonic image opens the work as the whole
orchestra plays an immense cluster, followed by a delicate string section of
transparent melodic fragments in a high register.’ That is certainly what we
heard at the beginning, from a considerably enlarged orchestra. Now it was time
for the WEDO to display precision of a somewhat different kind, but also
orchestral fantasy. Although the opening is generally led by strings, other
instruments join, with a considerable role for percussion, both tuned
(including piano) and untuned. Trombone slides make there presence felt,
alongside a barrage of other colouristic effects, often, in Adler’s words, ‘merging
and melting into one another’.
Kareem Rouston’s Ramal, also first performed this year,
takes its name from one of the sixteen (pre-Islamic) metres used in classical
Arabic poetry, each of which, according to the composer’s helpful explanation,
is made up of ‘multiple variations of the verb fa’al, which means “to do”’. The variation of the ramal metre used
in this work translates into the musical metre 8/8 – 7/8 – 5/8 – 7/8, thus providing
a structural framework, added to (by rests) and later contracting (taking away
those rests). Ramal has a very
different opening from Adler’s work: furiously rhythmical (as one might expect
from the foregoing), though quickly subsiding – or not really, since tension is
maintained throughout. The metrical play has at times an almost
post-Stravinskian effect. Again, there is a keen sense of fantasy, whether in
fast or slow sections. ‘Although the work is not programmatic in its design,’
Rouston writes, ‘its emotional drive and changing metres reflect the unsettled
state of the world, specifically the devastating current situation in Syria’. A
keen sense of that came across from work and performance.
For the second half, we moved
to Ravel. Rapsodies espagnole opened
with a fine sense of atmosphere, enabled by Barenboim’s balancing of his
musicians. Spacious, pregnant, the ‘Prélude à la nuit’ had its colours and harmonies
tell without indulgence. The ‘Malagueña’ was precise, yet one could feel the
heat, whether at climaxes or in sultry languor. The ‘Habanera’ was nicely
dreamlike, yet again retained necessary precision; this was certainly not to be
mistaken for Debussy. In a vivid ‘Feria’, one could almost see, feel, breathe
the celebrations. Alborada del gracioso
combined urgency and grace. Perhaps its opening was a little brash compared
with, say, Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, but the comparison
is doubtless unfair. In any case, there was plenty of magically pp playing to draw one in. Ravel as
modernist was apparent throughout, not least in the hints, perhaps more, of La Valse-like desolation in the central
section. Pavane pour une infante défunte
received a relatively fleet reading, though not unreasonably so: such is
unquestionably preferable to making a meal out of it. Occasionally I wondered
if it were a little too restrained, but again that is preferable to erring in
the opposing direction. Barenboim let his players do the work for much of Boléro, confident in their abilities so
as to leave them un- or barely conducted. Clockwork precision remained, the
tension added to in a good way. It was inexorable and, yes, hypnotic; there was
at least the illusion of orchestra with
music.
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| Barenboim sitting out the final Carmen encore |
As I suspected, partly
because I had heard an all-Ravel second half to a concert Barenboim gave in Berlin a couple of years ago, Carmen provided four short encores, the
last of them again without conductor. The passion and character had one wishing
to hear more – and we did, but from something else: an Argentinian tango (for
woodwind, brass, and percussion), learned from the orchestra’s recent visit to
Barenboim’s country of birth. The concert was, of course, broadcast live by BBC
Radio 3; ‘highlights’ –an insult born of the BBC’s decision to excise new music
from television broadcasts – will be seen on BBC Four on Friday 29 August at
7.30 p.m, the works by Adler and Rouston thus being available only on iPlayer.
