Grote Zaal, Concertgebouw
Concerto for violin and cello
in A minor, op.102
Symphony no.1 in C minor,
op.68
Renaud Capuçon (violin)
Gautier Capuçon (cello)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Bernard Haitink (conductor)
Nothing anyone says will
prepare a newcomer for the acoustic of the Concertgebouw. This was my first visit,
and I hope it will be the first of many. (There will certainly be at least one
more, a second Brahms concert.) I shall not try to describe the sound, suffice
to say that it must be the warmest, most rounded I have heard, with the
possible exception of the very different Musikverein. Such things come to
naught without musical excellence, of course, but once again a visit abroad, or
even out of London, makes one realise how unfortunate we are in terms of
orchestral-size concert halls.
It was a chamber orchestra we
heard on this occasion, not a small chamber orchestra, but one of what I should
think of as Mozartian proportions, with a string section extending down from
twelve first violins to four double basses. (Not, I hasten to add, that Mozart
cannot sound wonderful with a larger orchestra!) Before hearing this concert, I
should have been something of a sceptic concerning chamber-orchestral Brahms. Doubtless
the warmth of the acoustic played its part, but so did the crack players of the
Chamber Orchestra of Europe. There was not a single occasion during the Double
Concerto when I wished for a larger orchestra, much as I should have loved to
hear the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on home territory. (Next time, maybe!) I
have heard wonderful things about the COE’s recent, quite intensive
collaboration with Bernard Haitink, but again, one has to hear these things for
oneself. Joined by the Capuçon brothers, there was here a sense of that
celebrated line from Die Meistersinger,
perhaps as close as Brahms and Wagner ever came: ‘Es klang so alt und war doch
so neu!’ Haitink imparted the wisdom of an old Meister, of course, and yet there was nothing remotely stuffy,
pedantic, or set in its ways, to his interpretation. The COE sounded just as
invigorated as he did, lifting itself to something different from an orthodox
symphony orchestra, but equally different, or perhaps more so, from the small-scale
nature of what has come to be thought of as chamber-orchestral playing, the twin
intimacy and intensity that seem to be taken as read from an Abbado-founded
orchestra being equally present even many years on. And the violinist and
cellist brought both youthful vitality and a true sense of old-world style.
Truly, then, this appeared to offer the best of all possible worlds.
Gautier Capuçon’s opening
phrase resounded with a depth that set the scene for the rest of the
performance. This was actually the only occasion on which I heard a little
intonational slip, but it mattered not a jot, Beckmessers will be alarmed to
note. Naturally it was Gautier who made the greater impression at first, simply
on account of Brahms’s writing, but the sweetness of Renaud’s violin tone was soon
an equal wonder to savour; likewise his perfectly judged portamenti. Rubato and
tempo variations, both in the first movement and later on, were never confused;
Haitink knew what he was doing, never exaggerated, but let the music speak for
itself, an illusion (Wahn) perhaps,
but when a latter-day Sachs is conducting, all the better for it. The grand
scale of that first movement made its point in a personal yet not idiosyncratic
manner. It was not granitic; if anything, it seemed to have the mark of a
master Wagnerian upon it. Haitink’s perhaps surprisingly Romantic view of
Brahms was not that of, say, his great Amsterdam predecessor, Willem
Mengelberg. It was marked rather by a freshness – many thanks here to the
superlative COE woodwind – that took inspiration from Mendelssohn and Schumann,
without reducing Brahms to the status, as it were, of a late early Romantic.
The slow movement was heard
as if a song sung in a single breath. Again Schumann and Mendelssohn sprang to
mind. All sorts of duets, trios, quartets, etc. were to be heard, as the
soloists conversed with their orchestral counterparts. I could not help but
think of Così fan tutte. Indeed, it
was possible to imagine Fiordiligi and Dorabella playing games as they chose –
what an impossible task! – between the blond player and his dark brother. The
finale seemed ‘right’ in every respect. It had the character of a finale:
perhaps an obvious point, yet it is hardly to be taken for granted. Not for the
first time, we heard the shadow, productive rather than forbidding, of
Beethoven – and not least in the combinations of harmony, rhythm, and colour,
again especially with respect to the woodwind. This was musical, not
artificial, excitement, every participant seeming to draw out the best from
everyone else. A truly outstanding performance, the best I have ever heard of this work.
Had it not been for that
performance, I doubt that I should have had any qualms whatsoever about that of
the First Symphony. Any reasonable person would not, and this was by any
standards again a masterly reading. Of the four Brahms symphonies, this one took
the longest for me to ‘get’: not in the sense of arrogantly assuming to
understand it, but for me not simply to be bemused by it. Some people – more
than you might expect – would claim that the fault lay with the composer; cue
turning round Brahms’s notorious reference to ‘boa constrictors’ and the form
of Bruckner’s symphonies. They would be wrong. It was doubtless partly a matter
of my own immaturity, but also, I think, a matter of waiting for the right
performance to come along, since this symphony suffers especially with respect
to conductors who do not comprehend its tightly-knit organisation. (It stands
at least as close as the Fourth to Schoenberg, indeed, if anything, closer.)
Hearing within close succession Daniel Barenboim conduct the work with the
Staatskapelle Berlin and then Furtwängler on record marked my eureka moment a
good few years ago.
Haitink’s account with the
COE was only the second I have heard that made sense of the work, the first
having been Barenboim’s. That in itself ought to be commendation enough. And
indeed it possessed many of the virtues of the concerto performance. Throughout
there was a strong sense of line – strong enough, indeed, that I wondered what
the problem could ever have been held to be with the work. The first movement’s
introduction led as naturally as could be into the exposition proper; tension
never sagged. Brahms’s two inner movements evoked both kinship and difference –
and, most importantly of all, progression, as did the four movements as a
whole. The woodwind section proved as verdant as previously. And if there were
a few occasions when I felt a pang of regret that there were not more strings,
this Mozartian complement worked wonders and never sounded in the slightest bit
stretched, their tone in general as glowing as the acoustic – insofar as one
could make such a distinction. The conductor’s refusal, or better
disinclination, to linger in the Andante
sostenuto was no sign of brusqueness, nor of unwillingness to yield; but it
brought the music closer to a Schumannesque intermezzo than one often hears, a
reading perhaps especially valid for a chamber orchestra. Schubert was heard to
be just as much Brahms’s progenitor – that Harmoniemusik!
– as Bruckner’s in the third movement. Haitink’s
unwavering yet subtly flexible sense of line guided the twists and turns of the
finale. ‘That’ theme was lovingly, faithfully, yet individually connected to
Beethoven, and there was triumph in the final arrival.
And yet… I retained a
lingering doubt, alongside wholehearted admiration for Haitink’s sureness of
touch. Had it perhaps sounded a little too easy, too comprehensible? Barenboim,
I seemed to remember, had exulted in the very difficulty of Brahms; his reading
had stood closer to Schoenberg’s ‘Brahms the Progressive’. Certainly there had
been more metaphysical striving, and a darker, more ‘German’ tone to his great orchestra. Rank ingratitude,
of course; this was a noble, dignified, in many ways revelatory account. Yet
one cannot have it all; Brahms’s symphonies are greater than any one
interpretation will ever permit. So
maybe the ‘problem’, not really a problem at all but an opportunity, a provocation even, lay partly
with Brahms after all.
