Royal Festival Hall
Mosolov: The Iron Foundry, op.19
Prokofiev:
Piano Concerto no.3 in C
major, op.26Glière: Concerto for coloratura soprano and orchestra, op.82
Glière: Suite: The Red Poppy
Bezhod Abduraimov (piano)
Nadezhda Gulitskaya (soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor)
The title of the concert series
is perhaps slightly misleading: ‘Voices of Revolution, Russia 1917’. It is
perhaps also slightly belated, although one might argue that we are now living
in the year following the centenary date itself of the October Revolution. No
matter, as Martin Sixsmith, former BBC correspondent in Moscow and series
advisor, explains, the intention is to explore ‘works by composers who had very
different reactions to the Bolshevik Revolution of autumn 1917, with a
selection of music that revolves around themes of idealism, propaganda and repression.’
Moreover, as Sixsmith and Marina Frolova-Walker proceeded, in an enlightening
pre-concert talk, to discuss, the three composers on offer here certainly acted
very differently in that respect: Alexander
Mosolov an archetypal figure of early Soviet modernism, Prokofiev an exile who
eventually returned, and Reinhold Glière a purveyor of dubious ‘socialist
realism’.
Glière simply wanted
instructions from whomever was in charge so that he could get on with his
(hack) work. As Frolova-Walker explained in the programme: “‘just tell us what
to do”, … he said at one official meeting.’ When no ‘formalists’ were available
for consideration, he passed the Zhdanov test and won the 1948 Stalin Prize, as
he would again in 1950. He had also done so in 1946, for his 1943 Concerto for
coloratura soprano, which struck me as rather more than hack work. Indeed, the
conception itself, whilst not entirely original, remained unusual, even if the
neo-Romantic language did not. Nadezhda Gulitskaya, a late substitution for
Ailish Tynan, proved fully up to its demands, contributing more than a little
glamour as well as necessary precision of a pitch to a work whose undeniable charms
might otherwise have palled, however excellent the contribution of the
Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor of all four
Philharmonia concerts). Let us be kind and say that the opening phrase merely
displays a strong resemblance to a theme from Die Walküre (think of Brünnhilde’s ‘War es so schmählich’); there
are only so many notes in the major scale, and there are in any case worse
models for a melody than Wagner. The music proceeds somewhat in television-score-ish
fashion, save for the imaginative vocalise, and certain moments beyond: for
instance the soprano’s duetting with clarinet. The second of the two movements,
a neo-Tchaikovskian waltz, seemed a bit odder, but it was a welcome opportunity
nevertheless to hear a work hardly overburdened with performances.
 |
| The opening, quite un-Wagnerian theme |
The
Red Poppy, even in its
suite version, is likely – I hope – to remain more of a rarity. Almost
socialist realism avant la lettre, or
at least long before its necessity, it was apparently the first Soviet ballet
on a properly contemporary socialist realist theme: an imperialist one at that,
Russian sailors venturing ashore to rescue victims of nationalist China’s
capitalism. Bizarrely, and perhaps still more disturbingly, the United States later
took it up, following the alliance between Roosevelt and Stalin, exchanging
American sailors for Russians, and Japanese victims (of something else, I
presume) for Chinese. It begins colourfully, cartoon-like, clearly being relished
on at least one level by players and conductor alike. Yes, I suppose one would
expect pentatonic writing – but really, it here soon extends here beyond a
harmless joke. ‘I’m not racist, but…’ Glière was nothing if not eclectic –
reactionary eclectic, though – and a bad Johann Strauss waltz entered to
provide ‘balance’. It was all gorgeously played, solos as well as full
orchestra, as I suppose they should be. The Naxos performance below is harder-edged, rather to the music's - and our - benefit, I think. This was fascinating to hear, once;
but I cannot, even without its highly problematic Orientalism, imagine wanting
to repeat the experience in a hurry.
Mosolov’s Iron Foundry is, of course, well known – if relatively little heard
in concert – as a signal-bearer for Soviet musical modernism. The Philharmonia’s
performance under Ashkenazy was every inch the match for the Glière items. For
me, at least, the music, as well as the politics, are – and, in performance
were – far more compelling. Riccardo Chailly once recorded it alongside (more)
acknowledged works of international modernism, Prokofiev’s Third Symphony and
Varèse’s Arcana. Here one could
certainly here why. I thought also of the former’s Pas d’acier, the irony being of course that such high water-marks
of Prokofiev’s own modernism were decidedly non-Soviet works. The size of the
orchestra struck one visually, its volume aurally. Here was a factory of an in
music, a worthy successor – indeed, a superior work, I think – to Honegger’s Pacific 231, replete, to quote
Frolova-Walker, ‘with a kind of heroic “hymn to labour” in the horns’.
Tremendous stuff!
So too is and, once again, in
performance was, Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, in C major – not in F major, as claimed in the
programme leaflet handed out on the day. It is the most Classically
proportioned of Prokofiev’s five essays in the genre, with three movements of
more or less equal length, but in this performance as well as in this context,
its relation to its own time sounded more than typically apparent. Bezhod
Abduraimov’s pounding of the piano – and Ashkenazy’s of the orchestra too –
reminded one just how radical Prokofiev’s percussive treatment of the
instrument can, and most likely should, seem. Bartók is not the only pioneer in
this respect. But Parisian neo-Classicism welcomed the work with open arms too;
the C major ‘whiteness’ of the close also came strongly to the fore, alongside
magical, silvery premonitions of Cinderella.
That said, the finale’s status as complement to the first movement was also
clear in retrospect. That first movement sounded as if taken at a relatively
swift tempo: no bad thing. However, I am not sure that it actually was; the
feeling was at least as much a matter of energy from soloist, orchestra, and
conductor (who, of course, played the piece more than a few times himself). The
central theme and variations proceeded briskly, again not too briskly, and
again emerged all the stronger for it, rhythms nicely sprung: the basis, so it seemed,
for much of the melody and harmony with which they worked. Its darker, almost
cinematic, side was not neglected: again, I thought, an instance of ‘period’
interest in a strong rather than antiquarian sense. Shadows of Scriabin still
registered too, in a truly brilliant performance. I hope to hear more from Abduraimov,
even if his Schubert encore sounded closer, intriguingly so, to Prokofiev than to
the ‘source’.
