Royal Albert Hall
Tchaikovsky – Symphony no.1
in G minor, op.13, ‘Winter Daydreams’ (revised version, 1874)
Szymanowski – Violin Concerto
no.1, op.35
Rachmaninov – Symphonic Dances, op.45
Baiba Skride (violin)
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko (conductor)
Some rather odd programming
here. I am the last person to say that we should revert to the ‘bad old days’
of wall-to-wall overture-concerto-symphony concerts, but in this case, it might
well have proved more coherent. Not that reworking of the programming would
necessarily have rescued Tchaikovsky’s hapless ‘Winter Daydreams’ Symphony. I
suppose it is worth giving such works occasional outings, if only to remind us
why they are not more often performed, but when there is such a host of fine
music that continued to languish in (concert, if not always recorded)
obscurity, do we really need a Proms Tchaikovsky symphonic cycle?
Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo
Philharmonic Orchestra – despite,
or because of the considerable number of female musicians in its ranks? –
nevertheless did their best by the work. It opened with wonderfully alert,
lively playing, perhaps especially from the woodwind section, whose colours
veritably shimmered. Petrenko imparted a strong developmental sense to the
music, if at times his reading sounded rather driven. (Tchaikovsky marks this
first movement Allegro tranquillo,
though what that might mean in practice is anyone’s guess.) It was enjoyable
enough if ultimately quite lacking in structural coherence. The slow movement
was songful, the Oslo woodwinds again offering especial delight: solo oboe (David
Friedemann Strunck) first among equals, though the other lines gathering around
his were in no sense inferior. Yet the movement soon began to outstay its
welcome, not helped by the bizarre outburst from the horns (again, a criticism
of the work, not its performance). The third movement came across with the
proper character of a scherzo: often delicate, but with definite rhythmic
drive; the trio evinced Romantic longing with considerable conviction. As for
the finale, there was a splendidly lugubrious build up to what ultimately is
little more than an incoherent succession of devices, contrapuntal writing in
particular sounding quite unmotivated by the material. It was played with
relish, but really...
What a relief then it was to
turn after the interval to Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto. Its single
movement – a span concealing, or rather revealing, a multitude of sins – opened
as if recollecting Dukas’s Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, before Baiba Skride’s sinuous, erotically-charged violin line
emerged as if from within. Tone was clean yet inviting, and could become richer
when required, especially when playing sul
G. (Again, I could not help but wonder how our unreconstructed conductor
could maintain his concentration, yet somehow he managed.) The discontinuities
that ultimately are continuities of Szymanowski’s radical form emerged just as
strongly as Tchaikovsky’s forlorn attempts at coherence. Purpose was present
throughout. Yes, the music is perfumed, yet that it is only a small aspect of
the composer’s writing, revel though we do – and did – in the post-Debussyan,
post-Straussian, and yes, post-Schoenbergian harmonies and colours. Petrenko
shaped the great orchestral climaxes surely, but it was the silvery violin and
delicate woodwind that lingered longest in the mind. Not, of course, that the
violin does not have its more energetic, incisive moments, and they were
splendidly despatched. Above all, there was a true sense of directed fantasy
from all.
The last time I had heard
Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances had been in
a
typically slapdash effort from Valery Gergiev. If the programming on this
occasion were a little unsatisfactory, it nevertheless helped Rachmaninov more
than Gergiev’s placing him after twelve-note Schoenberg had. It is difficult
not to think a work such as this, written in 1940, a little retrograde – and not
in the Bachian sense Schoenberg would have had in mind. Yet here at least
Rachmaninov’s music was able to resound with integrity, ironically sounding far
more a statement of exile than it had in Gergiev’s LSO series, allegedly
organised around the idea of ‘exile’. One heard the composer grappling in so
many senses with a New World: remaining himself and yet adapting, reluctantly
or otherwise, to some aspects of modernistic common currency. Petrenko offerd a
first movement as alert as anything we had heard so far, rhythm and colour once
again equally to the fore. The saxophone solo offered not our last recollection
of Ravel. If there were times when a little more orchestral weight might not
have gone amiss, especially in the developmental music, Petrenko and his
players offered in general a good balance between heart and wit. That balance
was also well struck in the second movement, whose waltz music benefited from a
gorgeous lilt. It was nicely elliptical too, no easy answers being offered. A
life-long obsession with the Dies irae
chant sounded genuinely revisited, refreshed, in the finale: a different
variety of dance, yet a dance nonetheless. And, whatever one’s opinions about
the backward-looking nature of Rachmaninov’s music, the ending, unlike that to
Tchaikovsky’s symphony, convinced.
