Royal Festival Hall
Poulenc – Piano Concerto
Prokofiev – Symphony no.7 in
C-sharp minor, op.131
Poulenc – Stabat mater
Alexandre Tharaud (piano)
Kate Royal (soprano)
London Philharmonic Choir
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor)
None of these works is
over-exposed in the concert hall, though Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony perhaps
comes closer to regular performance. It was only really in Poulenc’s Stabat mater, however, that the performance
made a relatively strong case for the work in question.
Poulenc’s Piano Concerto is
certainly a work that needs an excellent case to be made for it. Here it
sounded disjointed and often somewhat lacklustre; indeed, there was an air,
whether accurate or otherwise, of under-rehearsal to the performance that
emerged. Whilst one could sense an attempt at ‘authentic’ orchestral sonority –
whether one really wants that somewhat watery early-twentieth century string
sound is another matter – the first movement lacked a sense of overall sweep
and was also disfigured by too many orchestral fluffs. Balances were often
peculiar too, for no apparent reason. Perhaps an understandable desire on
Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s part to avoid sentimentalism had shaded too far into
brusqueness. Alexandre Tharaud’s somewhat self-effacing account of the piano
part imparted a fluency not always present elsewhere. Certain passages sounded
comfortingly Ravel-like, though this is hardly a work to place in such exalted
company. The slow movement was more settled: partly a matter of the material,
but also of the performance itself. Tharaud offered some gorgeous piano tone to
float above the orchestral cushion, but again the LPO’s performance was far
from flawless. Quite what the musical connections are between the contrasting
material here continues to elude me, but that is either my fault or the
composer’s. The succession of melodies was cherished in the finale, probably
the strongest section of the performance, and the ending proved splendidly
deadpan.
Prokofiev’s symphony opened
in gravely beautiful fashion, though I could not help but wonder whether
Nézet-Séguin’s first-movement tempo was a little fast for Moderato. The LPO seemed more at ease, though there remained cases
of tentative playing. An ‘heroic’ idiom familiar from the Fifth Symphony still
registered, albeit, rightly so, in more ambivalent fashion, the disquiet of the
toyshop equally apparent. Waltz rhythms proved nicely balletic in the scherzo.
Unfortunately, the performance seemed rather to lose its way, continuity being
lost. Nézet-Séguin made partial amends with a relatively frenzied orchestral climax;
the problem remained, however, that it was not quite clear where it had come
from. The slow movement, though, was handled in loving fashion, its songfulness
imbued with a sense of drama that harked back to its origins in incidental
music for Eugene Onegin. A ghost from
the Fifth Symphony again haunted the finale, as did reminiscences of Prokofiev’s
ballet writing, Nézet-Séguin opted for the original ending, returning us to the
mood of the opening, albeit somewhat darkened. Even if the performance as a
whole had not lived up to expectations, a properly unsettled mood was
engendered at the close.
The London Philharmonic Choir
did Poulenc’s Stabat mater proud.
Indeed, one sensed that Nézet-Séguin’s roots in choral conducting generally
lifted the level of performance. Though the choir brought out echoes of Fauré in
the opening chorus, there was no mistaking the composer’s individual, if
synthetic, voice. Stravinskian echoes (Œdipus
Rex) resounded in the orchestra, yet the mood was overwhelmingly one of
serenity. Nézet-Séguin highlighted the neo-Baroque dotted rhythms in ‘Fac ut
portem’ to telling effect. Choral fury was heard in the ‘Cujus animam gementem,’
but some of the most touching moments were to be found in Poulenc’s a cappella writing, for instance in ‘O
quam tristis’ and ‘Fac ut ardeat’. Some of the composer’s response to the text
strikes me as peculiar, if not quite on the surreal level of Rossini’s;
nevertheless, the performers responded in kind, even if that response
necessarily jarred somewhat with the text. Kate Royal sang in an attractive-enough,
generically ‘operatic’ fashion; alas, it was well-nigh impossible to discern
all but the occasional word of what she sang. There was certainly an
embarrassing contrast with the diction of the choir. It was a serious blemish,
but ultimately there remained much to admire in the performance as a whole.
