Barbican Hall
Beethoven – Violin Concerto in D major, op.61
Beethoven – Violin Concerto in D major, op.61
Henze – Being Beauteous
Schumann – Symphony no.2 in C
major, op.61
This was very much a concert
of two halves. A well-nigh unlistenable performance of Beethoven’s Violin
Concerto was arbitrarily pulled about to an extent I had never heard before,
and hope never to hear again. It was followed by a truly ravishing performance
of Henze’s Being Beauteous, and –
given Sir Simon Rattle’s record in the Beethoven – a surprisingly convincing
account of Schumann’s Second Symphony. The London Symphony Orchestra, it should
be added, proved to be on fine form throughout, though how one longed to hear
it play Beethoven under the likes of the late Sir Colin Davis or Bernard
Haitink.
The concerto did not start so
badly, though even the opening orchestral tutti had some oddities: strangely
accented notes, eccentric highlighting of certain parts. (A tendency that has
bedevilled much of Rattle’s work with the Berlin Philharmonic, doing something
simply because the orchestra has the technical capability of doing so,
reasserted itself here with the LSO. It is perhaps not entirely fanciful to
think that Rattle’s best work has often been either with works of great
technical complexity, less prone to allow space for interpretative
eccentricity, or with orchestras of less than the first rank.) Unfortunately,
matters became worse once Veronika Eberle had made her entry, suggesting that
the responsibility lay at least as much with her as with Rattle, an impression
furthered as time went on. In some sections of a movement that seemed to go on
forever, there was barely a phrase that was not pulled about in one way or
another. Any sense of basic pulse was lost. There is plenty of licence in the
cadenza (Kreisler), of course, but Eberle somehow even went beyond the bounds
of the permissible, or at least the comprehensible, there; shape and direction
were entirely lacking. Her tone was often light, edgy even, though matters
improved in that respect, if in few others. A tendency of Rattle towards
dynamic extremes, especially in the register beyond pianissimo, was felt still
more strongly in the slow movement, which was taken very slowly indeed, more of
an Adagio than a Larghetto. There were ‘interesting’ moments, but it all felt too
much like hard work: being made to sing rather than singing freely. The mood of
enforced rêverie was rudely shattered by an aggressive, though less mannered,
finale. It was an improvement, and the LSO continued to play very well indeed,
but it remained too little, too late. The audience for the most part, however,
seemed to think otherwise, responding rapturously.
Henze’s Being Beauteous, a Rimbaud cantata for coloratura soprano, four
cellos, and harp, was given its premiere by members of the Berlin Philharmonic,
so it seemed particularly fitting for a successor to Karajan and another
Berlin-based musician, Anna Prohaska, to revisit it. The performance – let us
not forget cellists, Rebecca Gilliver, Minat Lyons, Alastair Blayden, and
Jennifer Brown, and harpist, Bryn Lewis – was utterly beyond reproach. Here, at
last, there was no point-making, but music-making of the very highest and
indeed most erotic order. The intensity of string playing brought out Henze’s
debts to the Second Viennese School, yet equally apparent was the ‘Apollonian’,
Stravinskian side to his musical identity. Prohaska’s performance, moreover,
underlined, consciously or otherwise, potential connections with Schoenberg’s
Second String Quartet, a work of which she is also a distinguished exponent, and perhaps even the same composer’s Herzgewächse, surely an ideal piece for
such a voice. For the floating of the high notes was something truly to be
savoured, especially against such an instrumental background, expertly shaped
by Rattle, of musical and sexual frisson and fulfilment. Moreover, this was
true chamber music: the way in which voice and cellos would slide together, as
well as differentiate themselves from each other, was second to none. This
remained German, dialectically questing music, but there was no denying the sultry
lyricism, whether in work or performance. It was rather as if Wagner had after
all heeded Nietzsche’s call, ‘il faut méditerraniser la musique’. Oh! nos os sont revêtus d’un nouveau corps
amoureux…
Then on to Schumann’s Second
Symphony. After an oddly subdued introduction to the first movement, the music
continued in unobjectionable, if somewhat unremarkable fashion, relatively ‘straight’
and all the better for it. Pointing of details was not excessive, and the
orchestra was largely permitted to get on with performing the work. The
graceful phrasing of the LSO strings was a joy to hear – and a meaningful joy
at that. I have heard the movement’s Beethovenian echoes resound more strongly,
but this was nevertheless a reading of purpose, quite unlike the actual
Beethoven we had heard. The scherzo was taking at a bracingly fast tempo, but
was never garbled, the LSO’s fabled virtuosity here a necessity rather than a
luxury. There were some agogic touches which I could have done without, but
they were not unduly disruptive. Likewise, whilst the trios arguably slowed too
much, that was not to the point of breakdown. Indeed, there were revealed in
that context suggestive affinities with Schumann’s piano music. The slow
movement was – what a relief! – very much at ease with itself. It sang; it had
line. There was excellent playing from all concerned, whether the burnished
strings or the Mozartian wind-band; the horns in particular sounded ravishing. It
was a pity that one unduly mannered passage of ultra-quiet playing disrupted
the general flow, but normal service was soon resumed. The finale was taken
quickly: more in the line of Mendelssohn than Beethoven or Brahms. However, its
levity of mood, its buoyant good humour, proved infectious. Fluctuations of
tempo made sense, as opposed to seeming arbitrarily applied. This offered a
fitting conclusion to a generally impressive reading.
