Royal Albert Hall
Tchaikovsky – Fantasy Overture:
Romeo and Juliet
Elgar – Cello Concerto in E
minor, op.85
Prokofiev – Cantata: Alexander Nevsky, op.78
Sol Gabetta (cello)
Olga Borodina (mezzo-soprano)
BBC National Chorus of Wales
(chorus master: Adrian Partington)
BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus
master: Adrian Partington)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)
What to make of the unannounced
decision to open this concert with the Marseillaise? I am sure it was well
intended, and perhaps should leave it at that. Music, especially avowedly
political music, has associations, though, and what many, but not all, English
and French listeners might understand as solidarity following the previous
night’s carnage in Nice, might sound rather different to a listener from, say,
the Maghreb. Nationalism is, after all, a big part of the problem – as London
has rediscovered with a vengeance over the past few weeks. The issue of
‘national anthems’ is fraught too; ours, in the (Dis)United Kingdom is about as
divisive as it could be, eliding membership of a nation with monarchism and thus necessarily defining republicanism as a foe within. French
revolutionaries, insisting on national sovereignty, offered a not entirely
dissimilar binary opposition: that, ultimately, led to the execution of Louis
XVI, who, having a veto, could not be part of the nation, which, in a time of
emergency, led to one particular conclusion. It also led to – well, we know the
rest. Returning to the Royal – yes, Royal – Albert Hall, applause at the end
heightened the oddness. If the opening number were a sign of respect, however
problematical – and that is how I took it, standing like everyone else – then
why would one applaud? Might an aestheticised version of the anthem, for
instance that of Berlioz, not have been another option? I felt conflicted,
then, but I seem to have been in a minority; many were clearly inspired by the hope and solidarity they felt had been afforded.
Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet sounded, in this
context, especially dark in its fatal opening bars. The introduction took its time,
pace gathering with a proper harmonic foundation; Sakari Oramo is far too
musical a conductor to whip up artificial ‘excitement’. The Allegro sounded turbulent indeed,
counterpoint nicely Berliozian (should that not be too much of a paradox). The BBC
Symphony Orchestra played the ‘Love’ theme gorgeously, without a hint of
vulgarity. On more than one occasion, the harp stole our hearts, although so,
to be fair, did the BBC woodwind. Tension between programme and material was
productively explored, so to enthral and indeed to move all the more. There
could certainly be no doubting the strength of the partnership between the BBC
SO and Oramo.
Sol Gabetta joined them next
for the Elgar Cello Concerto, with equally fine results. In the first movement,
the Moderato material proved very
much the child of the preceding Adagio,
transition emotionally as well as technically seamless, whilst remaining a
transition nonetheless. Much the same might be said of the transition between
first and second groups; although the mood lifted in some respects, it remained
dependent (secondary, one might say) upon what had come before. It was not all
doom and gloom, by any means; Elgar’s Mendelssohnian inheritance came
sparklingly to life at times. Underlying sadness, however, remained
inescapable. The background of German, even leipzigerisch,
Romanticism was also present in the scherzo; it sometimes came into the foreground
too, albeit without banishing unease entirely. Elgar’s modernity, even
modernism, was as unquestionable as its roots. (Applause and bronchial
outpourings were most unwelcome at the movement’s close.) There was nothing
morose about the Adagio, although it
certainly sounded deeply felt. It was, rather, passionately songful, with
wonderfully hushed tones too to relish, both from Gabetta and the orchestra.
Dialogue and incitement were the generative order of the day in the final
movement. Light and shade were expertly judged, likewise harmonic motion.
Kinship with Elgar’s symphonies was clear, although, by the same token, this
was decidedly later music too, almost an English cousin to Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. Ultimate weight
was placed on the finale, and rightly so. Gabetta returned to the stage,
following justly warm applause, to perform Pēteris Vasks’s Dolicissimo, her solo vocal as well as instrumental; this was an
auspicious Proms debut indeed.
The second half was given over
to Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky
Cantata, based on the composer’s score for Eisenstein’s film of that name. Its
nationalism can hardly fail to make one uneasy too; Stalin is quoted in the
Proms programme as having declared to the director, ‘Sergey Mikhailovich, you’re
a good Bolshevik after all!’ Not that Stalinism by this stage had so very much
to do with Bolshevism, but anyway… Prokofiev, awkwardly for many of us who
admire him, often, although not always, seemed to flourish in such circumstances.
Those who would have us believe that art is somehow removed from politics could
not be more wrong; more to the point, their protestations could not be more
pernicious. However much one might want to wish away awkward questions, such as
over the Marseillaise, one cannot – and should not.
The opening orchestral number, ‘Russia
under the Mongolian Yoke’, was cold yet colourful, just as it should be. The ‘Song
of Alexander Nevsky’ revealed choral forces (both the BBC Symphony Chorus and
the BBC National Chorus of Wales) both weighty and clear. Prokofiev’s
homophonic writing helps in the latter respect, of course, but only helps. The ‘patriotism’
and militarism of the words – ‘Ah, how we fought, how we hacked them down!’, ‘Those
who invade Russia will meet death,’ etc. – is all the more perturbing when
performed with such musical conviction as here. An impeccably post-Mussorgskian
orchestral opening announced ‘The Crusaders in Pskov’, the dissonances of
course quite Prokofiev’s own, harking back to The Fiery Angel and forward to Romeo
and Juliet. Even here, in ‘socialist realist’ land, there is some of the
bite of the more youthful composer’s acerbity – and so there was in
performance. Echoes of Boris Godunov
sounded all the more strongly as the number progressed. One could
hear what must have attracted Claudio Abbado to this music.
The following chorus, ‘Arise,
Russian People’, provided a not un-Mussorgskian contrast. Motor rhythms in
particular rendered the composer’s identity unmistakeagble. Glockenspiel and
xylophone offered the most enjoyable of rejoicing later on. ‘The Battle on the
Ice’ is the longest number in the cantata; here it proved very much the musical
and emotional heart too. Its introduction was not only atmospheric, but
atmospheric in a filmic way. Oramo brought out the glassy violas at dawn to
strike a proper chill. Still more chilling was the barbarism of war proper,
those motor rhythms and grinding dissonances once again proving the engine of
progress; the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony hovered not so far in the musical
future, whilst Mussorgsky’s shadow was, once again, rarely far from the aural
stage. Eisenstein came to the eyes of our imagination. Olga Borodina walked onto the
stage for ‘The Field of the Dead’, seemingly as an angel of death. And yet she
sounded, in her ineffably Russian fashion, a note of consolation as well as one
of tragedy. This contralto-like rendition held the hall spellbound. The final
chorus, ‘Alexander’s Entry into Pskov’, struck a more difficult note. Now is
not the time, to put it mildly, for patriotic rejoicing in London, and
disconcerting it sounded, even when of a ‘foreign’ variety. It was
magnificently done, though, chorus, orchestra, and conductor alike clearly
relishing their musical task. Perhaps they had succeeded in putting the words
to one side.
