Royal Albert Hall
Debussy:
Jeux
Ravel,
orch. Yan Maresz: Violin
Sonata in G major (UK premiere)
Stravinsky:
Petrushka
(1911 version)
Renaud Capuçon (violin)
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Jonathan Nott (conductor)
It was surprising to learn
that, in its centenary year, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was making its
Proms debut. Still, better late than never – and at least we have good reason
to look forward to this orchestra’s return, unlike the SWR SO Baden-Baden and
Freiburg, whose first performance three years ago was already known to be its last. The OSR’s new
music director, Jonathan Nott, is no stranger to the Proms; I have fond
memories, for instance, of a 2013
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra concert of Lachenmann and Mahler. Here, ahead of
the release of their first recording together (Debussy,
Strauss, and Ligeti), they brought one of those pieces, Debussy’s Jeux, together with the British premiere
of a new orchestration of Ravel and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.
Surely the most radical of Debussy’s
works, Jeux commenced with due
paradox: mysterious, atmospheric, yet clear as a bell, questioning and
deconstructing whatever meaning might remain in the clichés, metaphors, even
mere descriptions we chose to employ. It seemed to cast something of an aural
glance towards Petrushka and even,
perhaps, to The Firebird, as well as
to roughly contemporaneous Schoenberg, and yet, in its flickering
multiplicities of melody, timbre, and their interaction, also look forward to many
subsequent milestones in twentieth-century musical history. It flowed; it told
a story of sorts, which may or may not have been closely identified with the
Diaghilev scenario Debussy derided as idiotic. It danced too, in all manner of
ways, kaleidoscopically – if that makes any sense (and even, perhaps, if it
does not).
Renaud Capuçon joined the
orchestra for Yan Maresz’s orchestration of Ravel’s G major Violin Sonata. An
opening oboe solo, perhaps inevitably, recalled Le Tombeau de Couperin, not just in itself but also in its
interaction with the violin. The first movement as a whole somewhat puzzled me:
it was all very sensitively done, yet I could not really discern the point. Capuçon
seemed to be playing his part from the Sonata, which of course he was, but the reason
for no longer having a piano, for transformation from a chamber music context
remained elusive. There were a few exceptions, for instance echoing between
soloist and orchestral violins, when something a little more like a concerto
was suggested; they nevertheless remained exceptions. The blues second movement
fared better, from its opening orchestral pizzicati – really ‘strummed’ – onwards,
Maresz’s jazzy use of trumpets included. The orchestra, as it swelled, sounded
more like that of Ravel’s own G major Piano Concerto, much to its advantage. The
finale likewise mirrored its concerto counterpart, again to good effect. Capuçon’s
virtuosity proved as striking as one might have expected; his, moreover, was
not the only virtuosity to be heard. His encore, the all-too-familiar ‘Meditation’
from Massenet’s Thaïs, reminded us that
sometimes a piece’s original forces are to be preferred.
There seems only one reason to
perform the 1947 version of Petrushka:
economy, in most cases a false one. It was 1911 we heard here in a performance
that constantly surprised, made me listen anew. The Shrovetide Fair came into
view colourful, expectant, percussion unusually prominent: this was a
performance that looked forward, never back. An automated quality to the barrel
organ music suggested not only Lulu –
does it not always? – but Ligeti too. Likewise, one could hear with unusual
clarity Rite of Spring-like cells,
both inviting and forbidding. Marionettes trod the boards of our consciousness:
not entirely unlike zombies from Mahler, if with a very different foundation.
In many ways, it sounded closer to Stravinsky’s own dryness in this work –
partly, I know, a matter of recording – than to the relative luxuriance of
Boulez. Sometimes, perhaps, that was down to an orchestral sound that remained
on the thin side, but it was surely an interpretative decision too. Nott’s
tempi sometimes proved unexpected, yet always compelled; much the same might be
said of the truly phantasmagorical return of the Shrovetide Fair. There were
ghosts in these machines and, most likely, machines in these ghosts.
