Royal
Festival Hall
Strauss – Tod und Verklärung, op.24
Das Rosenband, op.36 no.1
Allerseelen, op.10 no.8
Ruhe, meine Seele, op.27 no.1
Waldseligkeit, op.49 no.1Cäcilie, op.27 no.2
Beethoven – Symphony no.5 in
C minor, op.67
Angela Denoke (soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Andris Nelsons (conductor)
I struggled to find much of
an idea behind this Strauss and Beethoven programme. Both Tod und Verklärung and the Fifth Symphony open in C minor and close
in C major, but their trajectories are very different: perhaps that was the
point? Maybe it was just a matter of having Andris Nelsons and Angela Denoke
available on the same evening. At any rate, if the combination did not especially
enlighten, nor did it jar in the sense that the briefly-popular Eroica-plus-Ein Heldenleben did. (How could the latter work not pale by
comparison, even if one did not tire of E-flat major?)
Nelsons has built quite a
reputation already as a Straussian. However, on this occasion and to my ears,
it was only intermittently fulfilled. The ‘heartbeat’ to the opening of Tod und Verklärung was as aural-pictorially
convincing as Strauss could ever have hoped for: tribute of course to the
Philharmonia’s excellence as much as that of Nelsons. Moreover, that figure was
properly integrated in musical terms; it did not simply stand out as an ‘effect’.
The soft, sometimes very soft, playing drew one in, despite a
less-than-well-behaved audience. Unfortunately, what had sounded as though it
would be a very fine performance lost its way somewhat, vehement assertions of
the hero’s life coming across in all too hard-driven a fashion. The brass
sounded uncharacteristically crude, clearly acting under instruction. It might
have been Sir Georg Solti conducting, were it not for Nelsons’s hyperactive
podium manner. (The problem with such things is that if the musical results are
good enough, for instance in the case of Bernstein at his best, no one will
care; the moment they are not, the manner will irritate. And in general, it is
difficult to imagine the greatest conductors – Furtwängler, Klemperer, Kleiber père or fils, Boulez, et al.,
jumping around in demented fashion.) What was lacking was a stronger sense of
overall line, indeed of (post-)symphonism. Still, the performance certainly did
not deserve its blighting by a mobile telephone; leader, Zsolt-Tihámer
Visontay, whose solos had been exquisitely taken, was not the only orchestral
musician to glare into the audience at that point. At least the Philharmonia’s
glorious echt-Straussian glow offered
some ultimate compensation. Moreover, Nelsons’s shaping of the close, a little
orchestral untidiness notwithstanding, showed significant return to form – in more
than one sense.
Interestingly – and not necessarily
unusually – Nelsons seemed more relaxed, certainly more fluent, as ‘accompanist’.
Denoke is not possessed of the most ideally soaring of soprano voices for
Strauss, yet from the opening of Das
Rosenband she communicated the words most ably. Is that enough? Perhaps not
in this case, ultimately, for as Julian Johnson remarked in his excellent
programme note, in Strauss’s vocal music, it is often ‘the rich quality of the
voice itself that seems to embody what the poem promises’. Nevertheless, there
was much to enjoy, not least in the Philharmonia’s ability to offer almost ‘chamber’-like
transparency without reduction in string forces. The orchestral stirring of the
wood in Waldseligkeit sounded nicely
Wagnerian, Siegfried in particular
coming to mind; it was good to hear the harmonium too. However, it was in this
song, that Denoke’s enunciation became less distinct. Matters were put right in
Ruhe, meine Seele! If her soprano
remained somewhat hard-edged, she marshalled her resources well, turning the
song arrestingly – even if this should not be how one would always wish to hear
it – into something approaching a musico-dramatic scena. Again, Wagnerian harmonic echoes in the orchestra were well
conveyed. Orchestral warmth, including delectable solos on flute (Samuel Coles)
and violin (Tihámer-Visontay) was a hallmark of Allerseelen, though arguably it dragged a little. Cäcilie, however, sounded reinvigorated,
from the magnificent wash of orchestral sound with which it opened onwards.
Denoke’s operatic experience was put to good use in communication of meaning,
though her intonation was not always spot on. Zueignung was offered as an encore; if one could not help but long
for a Jessye Norman or a Gundula Janowitz, one could still appreciate the
musical and verbal acuity of Denoke’s account. What a pity, then, that a vulgar
audience member saw fit to bawl ‘Bravo!’ before the orchestra had ceased to
resound!
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is
an extraordinarily difficult piece to bring off, partly on account of the great
performances from the past that retain their hold in our memories, individual
and collective, partly on account of the stature the work has accrued in our
general cultural consciousness, partly on account of its intrinsic performative
difficulty: there are so many awkward ‘corners’ to navigate, even before one
begins to consider vexed questions of meaning. (Of course, to separate score
and meaning is already to fall short; the latter is not somehow something to be
‘applied’ once the notes are there. A still worse course is somehow to pretend
that there is no meaning; that this is just a collection of notes, a superior
sewing-machine pattern.) Nelsons’s first movement did not start off badly at
all. There was nothing objectionable –today, alas, that itself is almost a mark
of distinction – save for his strange reluctance to give full due to the first
pause of the opening motif, both at the opening and upon its every recurrence.
(One can still observe a distinction between the first paused note, a minim,
and the second, a minim tied to a second minim, without sounding peremptory, as
here.) Everything was well executed and there was highly creditable depth once
again to the Philharmonia’s sound. Formal concision certainly came across. And
yet, there never quite seemed to be enough at stake; there was little sense of
struggle, and Beethoven without struggle really is not Beethoven at all. The
coda was excitable rather than awe-inspiring, that initial wrench to the tonic
minor barely registering. Once again, podium hyperactivity began to irritate; I
could not help but wish for a little of the sobriety of Wolfgang Sawallisch, to
whose memory this concert was dedicated.
Some unfortunate woodwind
slips – much to my surprise – marred the slow movement early on. Nelsons’s
overly-moulded direction of the opening cello-section solo made for somewhat
uncomfortable listening too, despite commendably rich cello tone. Ultimately,
this proved to be episodic, harking back to the Strauss performance; the longer
line was not maintained as it might have been. It was not too grievous and
indeed there was a sense of real dignity to some of the episodes, but with
Furtwängler, Klemperer, Kleiber, Boulez, Barenboim, et al. in the back of one’s mind, it was difficult not to wish for
more. A barrage of coughing ensued once the movement had concluded, offering odd
preparation for the scherzo. It was
really rather fine first time around: implacable, defiant, mysterious. Above all,
it was harmonically grounded. The hushed reprise suffered a little from
imperfect balancing, though one could ‘fill in the gaps’ aurally without too
much ado. The transition to the finale was not helped by a further outbreak of
bronchial terrorism; it nevertheless promised much.
Unfortunately, that sublime
moment of arrival was blunted by a lack of gravity, excellence of orchestral
playing notwithstanding. Nelsons once again proved too excitable. His basic
tempo, whatever the dreary empirical ‘truth’ of the metronome, simply sounded
hasty. Rejoicing was more suggestive of an end-of-term party than
musico-metaphysical victory or presumed victory. There were fine moments, but
moments alas are not enough. Without the greater whole, the heavens will not be
stormed and shivers will not be sent down the spine. Despite this relative
disappointment, I shall not give up hope yet that we might one day hear a fine
Beethoven Fifth from Nelsons; perhaps it is just too early. A little reading of
Wagner’s wonderful essays, On Conducting
and Beethoven, would do no harm in
the meantime. Better still, he – and we – should listen to Furtwängler.
