Royal Festival Hall
Overture: Leonore no.2, op.72a
Piano Concerto no.2 in B-flat
major, op.19
Symphony no.4 in B-flat
major, op.60
Maria João Pires (piano)
Orchestra Mozart
Bernard Haitink (conductor)
The ‘back story’ to this
concert almost requires a chronicle to itself, though mysteries remain; indeed,
almost the only thing that is clear is, sadly, the ill health that led Claudio
Abbado to absent himself. Quite how Maria João Pires, who had withdrawn many
months previously, citing ‘scheduling difficulties’, somehow managed to return
to the fold once Abbado had withdrawn has not been explained. (A squabble is
a possible explanation, but the apparently level-headed Pires does not seem the most likely
candidate for such behaviour.) Much to the astonishment of those of us who had
bought tickets – I had done so on the day they went on sale to the public –
Martha Argerich had been announced as a substitute; she presumably withdrew on
the grounds that her long-standing musical partner was no longer able to
participate. Yet again, a hope that I might hear Argerich in the concert hall
was confounded. By the time that Bernard Haitink was announced as a replacement
for Abbado, the original programme, nicely composed of Haydn and Mozart – as it would happen, hardly foreign territory to Haitink – had been
replaced with an all-Beethoven listing, though I think the precise nature of
the programme may have undergone yet another alteration. (My memory has become
a little hazy, and the tale is a little too convoluted.) Constant, however, was
the participation of Abbado’s Orchestra Mozart, in what I believe – though I
should happily be corrected – to have been its London debut.
The problem and fascination I
have with Beethoven’s two earlier Leonore
Overtures is that I tend to hear them as ‘deviations’ from the third, so seared
is that masterpiece, more a symphonic poem than a mere overture, into my
consciousness. Yet the freshness of the Orchestra Mozart’s performance and
Haitink’s musical integrity conspired to have me soon hearing Leonore II as groping towards its successor
and eventually to hear it more or less as a thing-in-itself. There was real
orchestral tumult; this was not a performance that condescended towards
Beethoven. Woodwind delicacy, a hallmark of the entire concert, was equally
remarkable, likewise the translucent quality that spoke of this as Abbado’s
orchestra. It was a variegated performance that yet did not lack (relative)
weight. Moreover, the trumpet call sounded as though it meant something,
contrasting strongly with memories of Leonore
III at ENO’s
recent Fidelio, Edward Gardner
there having harried the overture so that in musical terms it went for little.
The end sounded a kinship with the Siegessymphonie
from Egmont – a kinship which, so it
happened, would be renewed at the end of the concert.
The orchestra emerged smaller
for the Second Piano Concerto, first violins reduced from seven desks to a mere
five, and so forth. As the first movement began, it sounded wonderfully spruce,
but it took a little time, once Pires had entered, for balance to be achieved.
To begin with, she sounded a little insistent, even heavy-handed, though the
problem was soon rectified, but for much of the movement, rather to my
surprise, she sounded more soloist than collaborative musician. The cadenza was
certainly projected on a grand scale, seeming to want to associate itself,
understandably, with a later, less ‘Mozartian’ – protest the typology though I
might – Beethoven than Haitink and the orchestra were providing. (And I do not
think that was only a matter of the admitted stylistic disjuncture that
Beethoven’s cadenza, written later, already tends to suggest.) Any tensions,
however, seemed fully resolved by the gravely beautiful opening to the slow
movement. Haitink ensured that it was a slow movement in the truest sense, a
matter of character as much as of tempo; he and Pires proved equally adept at
maintenance of the long line. Neither for the first time nor the last, we
savoured the delectable quality of the orchestral woodwind. The finale was
nicely pointed throughout, woodwind offering true enchantment. What I missed
was the sense of risk, which often though not always pays off, Daniel
Barenboim brings to this music.
The first movement of the
Fourth Symphony benefited from a similar level, if anything heightened further,
of musicianship, both from Haitink and the orchestra. An expectant introduction
exposed Beethoven’s building-blocks even before the exposition proper, which
thereby proposed a change of register, of impetus, whilst undoubtedly remaining
cut from the same cloth. This performance was detailed without pedantry, urgent
without being unduly driven. The development section sounded both wondrously,
thrillingly concise and yet directed towards its goal, the recapitulation then
registering as necessary and newly-minted. I might have preferred something
bigger-boned, but there were compensations, not least of which once again was
the woodwind section, which here and elsewhere seemed to evoke the world of the
Pastoral Symphony. The slow movement
flowed in a good sense – as opposed to ‘flowing’ as a euphemism for being taken
far too fast. Haitink, as it happens, took it at a relatively swift tempo, but
made that work, not least through his communication of line. A buoyant scherzo
communicated understanding that rhythm and harmony must work together, indeed
become one. The finale once again proved eminently musicianly and offered in
that respect a well-nigh perfect realisation of perpetual motion. What I missed
here and to a certain extent throughout the symphony was a sense of struggle
and ultimately the hard-won quality of victory. (Again, Barenboim is one of the
few conductors alive still able to have us believe in that.) It was, ultimately, a performance which,
whilst undoubtedly Haitink’s, seemed to a certain extent accomplished through
Abbado’s means.
In that context, the encore,
the Egmont Overture, offered
something of a surprise with its darker, weightier character. All of the
virtues of the rest of the concert were present, but more seemed to be at
stake. The two extra horns certainly made their mark, but so did the entirety
of this excellent orchestra. When the moment of triumph sent a shiver down my
spine, I realised that to have been the first such occasion of the evening.
Beethoven’s spirit at last was fully realised.
