Milton Court
Concert Hall
Mendelssohn – Overture: The Hebrides, op.26
Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony
no.1 in E major, op.9Desmond Clarke – Void-Song (world premiere)
Haydn – Symphony no.88 in G major
Mendelssohn’s evergreen Hebrides Overture typically adventurous
programme from the Melos Sinfonia under its artistic director, Oliver Zeffman.
This was an impressive reading, although occasionally I felt the lack of a
greater number of strings. Generally, however, a gorgeous orchestral sound was
the order of the day. Zeffman directed with a fine sense of inevitability,
everything in its place. Perhaps there were occasions when he might have driven
a little less hard, especially during the recapitulation, but I think that is
more a matter of personal taste than anything else. There was, throughout,
great clarity to the orchestral textures, permitting Mendelssohn’s often
astonishingly original instrumental combinations to shine through.
Schoenberg’s First Chamber
Symphony is an extraordinarily difficult work to bring off, and was less entirely
successful. There was much to admire: some splendid instrumental playing, again
great clarity, and woodwind lines that seemed often to point their way to the
apparently different world of Pierrot
lunaire. During the ‘slow movement’, they sounded transmuted – which, in a
sense, they are – into lines from late Brahms, almost cast adrift from tonal
moorings, yet not quite. There was also a creditably strong sense of Lisztian
transformation. Set against that, balance was often a problem. Likewise tempi –
especially the very fast tempo set early on – were not always maintained. There
were a few cases when the ensemble was not wholly together too.
Desmond Clarke’s Void-Song, a single-movement viola
concerto, received a very convincing world premiere. Repeated or additive
pulses, as the composer explained in his programme note, and stochastically
generated fields of events offer contrasted compositional principles with which
the work proceeds, both in contrast and in combination. A string-dominated
orchestra offers considerable opportunity for interplay between soloist and
ensemble; even at the opening, the way the music rises – quickly – from the
lower strings seems to prefigure the appearance, albeit with very different
material, of the soloist. The closing winding down is another immediately
noticeable feature, whistling (literally) woodwind offering an intriguing
effect in combination. Zeffman and his orchestra seemed very much on top of the
score, as did the excellent soloist, Timothy Ridout. This was perhaps the finest
performance of the evening, insofar as I could tell (!)
Haydn’s Symphony no.88 might
perhaps have smiled a little more, but there was real rigour to the performance
it received. Motivic integrity was very much the hallmark of the first
movement, which it was good to hear in resolutely unsentimental fashion. I
wondered, however, whether the interplay between first and second violins would
have been heard to greater advantages, had they been split to the left and
right of the conductor. The slow movement flowed nicely, ‘details’, if one may
can call them that, well integrated into the longer line. It retained a welcome
air of mystery, of discovery. The minuet and trio were taken one-to-a-bar,
without losing necessary grandeur; the trio’s rusticity was especially
delightful. However, the finale sounded a little too careful. It need not be
taken ruinously fast; indeed, it should not, by definition. However, alongside
a welcome sense of the sheer profusion of Haydn’s ideas, a little more abandon
might not have gone amiss. It must, however, have been a devil of a programme to rehearse.
