Royal
Albert Hall
Boulez – …explosante-fixe…
Ligeti – LontanoBartók – Concerto for Orchestra
First, …explosante-fixe…, one of the Boulez works I had yet to hear this
anniversary year, although I have heard its Originel
seed more than once, and shall do again this weekend at a Proms Matinée. Sophie
Cherrier, whom I had most recently heard in stunning Salzburg Festival performances of Répons,
joined SWR forces, including flautists Dagmar Becker and Anne Romeis, under François-Xavier
Roth. Cherrier proved as commanding and as malleable a soloist as one would
have expected, her flautist supporters just as impressive. It is an exquisite
work(-in-progress) and received an exquisite performance from all concerned,
certainly not forgetting the SWR Experimental Studio. If I felt slightly
dissatisfied, it was that my seat – too far to one side? – did not really
permit the electronics to resound, to incite as they might have done. Rather to
my surprise, the Royal Albert Hall seemed to work less well than the Queen
Elizabeth Hall had in 2011 for a mesmerising
performance from John
Cox, the London Sinfonietta, and Péter Eötvös. Still, the ‘exquisite
labyrinth’, to borrow from the title given to that South Bank series, of Boulez’s
music retained its fascination, its post-Debussyan seduction, and the
intangible yet surely present ‘modern classicism’ Arnold Whittall has
identified as a key component of Boulez’s later style. Form created itself just
as sonorities seemed to do so; if only the setting had been a little more
ideal.
Ligeti’s Lontano was given its first performance
by this orchestra at Donaueschingen in 1967. A beautifully judged performance
from an orchestra of at least Mahlerian forces was notable for its subtle
transformations; more than once, the word Klangfarbenmelodie
came to mind, without Ligeti’s procedures being reducible to the practice of
either Schoenberg or Webern. Indeed, as something equating to a tone poem, the
work – and performance – offered sepulchral brass with more than a hint of
Wagner and Strauss. Harmonics suggested electronic means that were not present,
even perhaps an organ (such as might also have been suggested in …explosante-fixe…). Swarming violins
reminded us of the Ligeti of the previous decade, whilst also making clear the
development in his style. That (almost) imperceptible polyphony to which Ligeti
himself drew attention did its wondrous work: ‘its harmonic effect represents the intrinsic
musical action: what is on the page is polyphony, but what is heard is
harmony.’ Hell, however, is too good for the person who took a telephone call
as the piece drew to its close, music shading into silence.
Roth’s way –
and the orchestra’s – with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra gave one of the most
intriguing performances I have heard of the work, perhaps the most intriguing,
at least since I last heard Boulez conduct it. The opening of the first
movement stated its affinity with Bluebeard’s
Castle as strongly and yet, quite properly, as ambiguously as I can recall.
Both the bass line and those shivering, trembling lines above made that
connection and also reminded us of Lontano.
Throughout, this was a performance one might file under ‘modernist’, but that
description raises more questions than it asks. It was more mysterious than
Boulez, more internationalist than the stereotypical ‘Hungarian’ performances
one often hears. Above all, it told its own story with its own means. Subtle
inflections, be they of instrumental colour, texture, or rhythm, were to the
fore. One was drawn in rather than the victim of a Solti scream. Even at the
louder end of the dynamic spectrum, employed relatively sparingly, gradations
were subtle, meaningful. Bartók’s startling formal ingenuity spoke for itself;
or such was the illusion, as art concealed art.
The second
movement delighted in its ‘pair play’, woodwind duetting – and other ensemble
work – colourful and ever ambiguous. This was detailed, without a hint of
pedantry: delightful indeed! The grave opening of the ‘Elegia’ was ‘elegiac’
indeed. Woodwind reminded us of the opening of the work and thus again of Bluebeard’s Castle, but the path taken
was to be very different. This was a world of defiant passion. And how those
massed strings dug in! For the anguish was undeniably musical, not something
cheaply applied. One was beguiled – and unsettled. The fourth movement began
very much as a counterpart to the scherzando second movement, yet just as
important, announced and celebrated its own character and concerns. A brief
Mahlerian moment underscored Bartók’s seriousness, providing retrospective bite
to his unanswerable despatch of the banalities of Lehár and Shostakovich alike.
Excitement was certainly a crucial quality to the performance of the finale,
but again this was an eminently musical excitement: one was compelled to listen,
to delight in an invention that is almost Haydnesque, and to admire a not
entirely dissimilar humanism. The players sounded well-nigh phantasmagorical in
their transformation of material and process; Roth ensured there was no
breaking of musical line.
How sad, then,
that this, the orchestra’s first performance at the Proms, a veritable triumph,
will also be its last. Following reprieves in which we had foolishly placed our
trust, the unforgivable forced merger with its Stuttgart sister-orchestra is to
go ahead after all. Roth spoke at just the right time, many in the audience
clearly unaware, but it was a forlorn announcement. Schubert, in Rosamunde guise, sounded all the more
poignant as an encore.
