Cadogan Hall
C.P.E. Bach – Symphony in B
minor, Wq 182 no.5
Birtwistle – Endless Parade
Honegger – Pastorale d’été
Davies – Sinfonia
Sibelius - Rakastava
A principal theme of this
year’s Proms has been the greater-than-ever variety of ensembles from across
the world, many of them making their debuts here, whether at Cadogan Hall or a
short walk away at the Royal Albert Hall. This Saturday Matinee offered the
Proms debut of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, the most northerly orchestra in
the European Union, conducted by its Artistic Director, John Storgårds, with trumpeter
Håkan Hardenberger joining for Birtwistle’s Endless
Parade.
To hear an orchestral work –
or indeed any work – by C.P.E. Bach is a rare treat. Unfortunately, the
performance of his ‘Hamburg’ Symphony in B minor, Wq 182 no.5 (a Proms first),
was not the most ingratiating; indeed, the first movement proved downright
abrasive, and not only on account of some dodgy intonation. The strangeness of
Emanuel Bach’s orchestral tessitura registered, as did the disjunctures – a
canny programming presentiment of Birtwistle? – but there is more to the composer
than that. A slightly fuller tone was permitted to the small orchestra
(4.4.3.2.1, expanded for the following works) in the slow movement, and the
finale was frenetic in a good sense. Still, it is sad to reflect that, on the
few occasions when modern orchestras feel able to perform this music, they
nevertheless so often feel constrained to ape ‘period’ mannerisms. If you have
modern strings, make use of them!
Birtwistle’s Endless Parade offered what the
composer, in a brief conversation with Clemency Burton-Hill, called a ‘piece of
permanent discontinuity’, after Cubism, and more particularly after Picasso.
The orchestra now sounded more at home, doubtless helped by the virtuosity and
musical understanding of Hardenberger. Indeed, it would be little exaggeration
to speak of ‘supreme command’ in his case. The piece was played as chamber
music writ large, material tossed between soloist and various orchestral
instruments. In its syncopation, it even approached ‘swing’, though jazz
enthusiasts would probably beg to differ. It is, of course, a typically perspectival
work, but I was struck – as was my companion, new to Birtwistle’s music – at the
continuity that yet dialectically emerged from discontinuity. As Birtwistle
commented, Beethoven is a true master in such matters, working, however, with
the disadvantage (!) of tonality. Birtwistle’s language, technique, and for
much of his career, eschewal of goal-orientation might seem to make him and
Beethoven odd bed-fellows, but the comparison is well worth reflecting upon. As
ever, of course, there was a keen sense not only of drama and landscape, but of
drama through landscape, and of landscape through drama.
Another great English musical
knight, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, was represented by his early (1962) Sinfonia, one of the works he wrote
after – in one sense or another – Monteverdi’s Vespers, which, in a performance under Walter Goehr, had so
inspired him and many others. (What a pity no recording seems to exist of any
of Goehr’s performances! If anyone knows differently, I should be delighted to
hear.) Davies admitted that he had not heard the piece since having conducted
it during the 1980s with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and that he would take
a red pencil to it now. I was interested to hear it, but should not necessarily
rush to do so again. The opening clarinet solo was properly ‘recitando’, the
first movement being marked ‘Lento recitando’, and that movement as a whole was
full of expectant energy. None of the piece, though, seemed especially
characteristic. The slow onward tread of the last of the four short movements
came across very well in performance.
I could not bring myself to
become excited about the other two pieces on the programme. Honegger’s Pastorale d’été ideally needs a greater
cushion of strings than was available here. However, the essence of the music
was well conveyed, greatly helped by steadiness in the rocking movement upon
which it rests. Woodwind playing especially impressed – as indeed it had in
Birtwistle. Sibelius’s Rakastava, the
third of the pieces receiving its first Proms performance (Sinfonia having been the second) received an idiomatic, committed
performance, if with smaller forces than it would doubtless often receive. (In
this hall, it did not seem to matter.) Despite the characterful muted playing
in the second movement, and especially fine solo cello playing throughout from Lauri
Angervo, it remained for me a largely bland work. The encore, a Romance by
Nils-Eric Fougstedt, was pleasant enough in a generic film-music sort of way.
