Royal Albert Hall
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto no.1
in F major, BWV 1046
Mark-Anthony
Turnage: Maya (2014, UK premiere)
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto no.3
in G major, BWV 1048
Anders
Hillborg: Bach Materia (2017, UK premiere)
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto no.5
in D major, BWV 1050
Uri
Caine: Hamsa (2015,
UK premiere)
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto no.4
in G major, BWV 1049
Olga
Neuwirth: Aello – ballet mécanomorphe (2016-17, UK premiere)
Brett
Dean: Approach – Prelude to a Canon (2017, UK premiere)
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto no.6
in B-flat major, BWV 1051
Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto no.2
in F major, BWV 1047
Steven
Mackey: Triceros (2015, UK premiere)
Fiona Kelly, Claire Chase (flutes)
Per Gross, Katarina Wiedell (recorders)
Lisa Almberg, Daniel Burstedt, Mårten Larsson (oboes)
Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet)
Göran Hülphers, Terése Larsson (horns)
Pekka Kuusisto, Antje Weithaas (violins)
Brett Dean, Tabea Zimmermann (violas)
Maya Beiser (cello)
Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)
Uri Caine (piano)
Swedish Chamber Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard (conductor)
It is always a fascinating
prospect to hear contemporary and indeed earlier composers respond to
repertoire works. Think of Mozart learning from and adding to Bach and Handel. Last
year in Vienna, I heard newly commissioned responses from eight composers
to Le Marteau sans Maître,
interspersed with the movements of Boulez’s work. This summer, Bach’s were the masterpieces,
the Swedish Chamber Orchestra having commissioned six composers to write
companion pieces to each of his Brandenburg Concertos. Rarely if ever will all
contributions be of equal stature or prove equally satisfying to different
tastes. Such was certainly not the case, in my experience, with the responses
to Boulez; nor was it to be so here. Alas, only two of the new works seemed to
me to have been worth the effort; the other four proved at best over-extended
and, in at least two cases, probably more, meretricious. Still, even in somewhat
variable performances of the ‘originals’, Bach, as Boulez would have put it, remained.
First up was the first of Bach’s
set of six. Its first movement was light, airy, not unlike Claudio Abbado’s
late way with these pieces with his Orchestra Mozart, if not quite so secure.
Although there was much to admire in the playing of the Swedish CO under Thomas
Dausgaard, here and elsewhere, rarely if ever did I gain the feeling of being
truly grounded in Bach’s music; it seemed as much an excursion to them as,
perhaps still more so than, the new works. Still, it breathed – just about, and
was well balanced, in itself no mean feat. What a relief, moreover, it was to
hear modern horns in this music. The following Adagio enjoyed some delectable oboe playing; I also loved the dark,
velvety bassoon tone. Its successor danced freely – not, thank goodness, in the
bizarrely dogmatic ‘This is a Baroque dance and this is how a Baroque dance
must sound and be experienced, exterminate, exterminate…’ so prevalent in
certain circles. Mahan Esfahani, playing harpsichord continuo throughout the
first concert, never failed to work with Bach’s harmony, to call it by name and
thus create it anew (if I may slightly misquote Adorno). If certain ‘effects’
in the Polacca irritated, the closing dances nevertheless beguiled. Mark-Anthony
Turnage’s Maya perplexed – that is,
before it merely bored. Beautifully played by all concerned, not least cello
soloist, Maya Beiser, its status as response, companion piece, anything at all
to the Bach work was less unclear than absent. It did not employ the same
musical forces, had no connection, at least so far as I could hear, to its
material; worst of all, though, it came across as a frankly cynical
prolongation of what might have been a couple of minutes or so of television
serial mood music. Vaguely blues-y at times, vaguely threnody-like, it might
initially have filled a gap in a concert programme; soon, however, I developed
a suspicion that the gap would have been better left unfilled.
Bach’s Third Concerto offered
cultivated modern playing, albeit with very small forces. (Is that really a sensible
way to treat this music in the Royal Albert Hall?) It was not hard-driven as so
many authenticke performances tend to be, even if it lacked a good deal in
gravitas. Again, it was the continuo playing that afforded the greatest
pleasure, grounding the harmony and rendering Bach’s form dynamic. About Anders
Hillborg’s ‘new’ second movement, the less said the better. On a slow day, it
might, I suppose, have taken five minutes to jot down. The third movement (Bach’s,
thank God) was very fast yet not unreasonably so; something of Bach’s spirit
and humanity remained. Hillborg’s Bach
Materia opened intriguingly, out of the orchestra’s tuning up. Alas, it was
all downhill thereafter. The music moved into vaguely minimalist churning out
of violin arpeggios from soloist Pekka Kuusisto, offered ‘effects’ aplenty,
from silly chirping noises to shouted interjections as Kuusisto and double bass
player Sebastien Dubé improvised. The collaboration showed Dubé to better advantage
than Kuusisto. Should unpleasant wailing be your thing, however, there was some
of that too. Again, the sense was of filling in time that really had no need to
be filled in. When bits of Bach returned, there was some enjoyment to be had,
soon not so much dashed as dissipated. Attempts to be ‘right on’ rarely prove edifying;
this, frankly, was just a mess.
The Fifth Brandenburg Concerto
was for me the unquestioned highlight of the first concert and indeed of the
Bach performances as a whole. Here, it seemed, the soloists, especially
Esfahani, took the lead rather than Dausgaard and turned what they were doing
into a performance in the living, emphatic sense. The first movement was lively
and breathed, its contours and formal
dynamism not only apparent but felt, experienced. Esfahani’s way with the
cadenza not only impressed, but reminded us what astounding music this is. It would be foolish to imitate Furtwängler, even on
the piano, but his incredible recorded 1950 performance from Salzburg remains
the model here. Esfahani proved a worthy successor. The second movement was
true Kammermusik: flexible,
beautifully balanced, with all the give and take one might have hoped for
between harpsichord, flute (Fiona Kelly), and especially violin (Antje
Weithaas). Bach’s closing Allegro
danced with far greater ease than any of those aforementioned self-conscious ‘Baroque
Dance Lessons’ and, naturally, went far deeper. These were not soloists who,
again to borrow from Adorno, said Bach yet meant Telemann. Its contrapuntal
complexity was embraced; that complexity embraced both performers and audience
in return. It was perhaps a little puzzling not to have a ‘response’ that
involved the harpsichord, but Uri Caine’s Hamsa
was doubtless written with himself in mind as piano soloist. There is no
doubting the quality of his pianism; his tone was often to die for. Hamsa, named after the Arabic word for ‘five’,
seemed to me sincere and ambitious. It certainly confronted Bach in quotation,
allusion, and, in its way, vaguely neo-Classical procedure. Again, it seemed
far too long for its material, whose treatment began to sound merely arbitrary.
Perhaps I simply did not ‘get’ Caine’s aesthetic. There was certainly no
gainsaying the quality of the performances here.
Bach remained, of course, and
endured into the second concert. The Fourth Brandenburg Concerto reverted
somewhat to the more tentative or at least constricted ‘early-ish’ style of the
First and Third, at least so far as the orchestra and Kuusisto were concerned.
Per Gross and Katarina Widell on recorders, however, offered infectious
enthusiasm. Dausgaard seemed overly keen to mould the central Andante; its fussiness continued into
the finale, which alas, had something of that ‘This is a Baroque Dance’ quality
to it. A somewhat disappointing performance, then, prefaced Olga Neuwirth’s
brilliant Aello – ballet mécanomorphe,
to my ears by far the strongest of the new works. In three movements, like its
companion, it immediately spoke with the tones – in every sense – of a serious
composer at work. Figures remembered from Bach, whether melodic, rhythmic, or
both, sounded as if trapped in a machine. Or were they actually perfectly happy
to be there? Claire Chase on flute, shadowed by two muted trumpets, offered
breathtaking virtuosity, set against an ever-changing ensemble that included
synthesised harpsichord and glass harmonica as well as portable typewriter.
Machines can be fun as well as serious – indeed sometimes especially when they
are serious. So too can Bach. An almost Berio-like malaise, material dragged
down into something mysteriously different yet related, led, toward the end of
the first movement, into a reinvention of Bach and Neuwirth in almost jazzy
style (all the more convincing for making no claims to be jazz ‘itself’). The glass
harmonica soundworld of the second movement, however ‘artificial’ – what art,
by definition, is not? – seemed to incite more ‘traditional’, arabesque-like
flute writing which yet did not lose its ‘mechanical’ edge. Jesting with form –
or perhaps simply my lack of understanding! – had me think for a while we were
embarked upon a transition to a finale in which Bach would reassert himself,
only to realise that ‘transition’ had been the finale along. I very much look
forward to hearing it again.
Brett Dean’s Approach – Prelude to a Canon was
written to preface the Sixth Concerto. Its opening busy counterpoint seemed to
evoke, in melody and harmony, a Bach who may or may not have been ‘real’.
Different moods, never predictable, whether ludic or songful, prevailed at
different times, sometimes suggesting a more ‘modern’ conception of double
concerto for the composer and fellow violist, Tabea Zimmermann, sometimes very
much a reinvention of Bach’s own terms. Emotional and intellectual tension was
often coincident; when not, the disparity proved equally suggestive. If I
responded more strongly to Neuwirth’s piece, there was no doubting the
accomplishment of Dean’s either. Bach emerged from its final bars. Again, my
ears had been tricked; I had expected another section of Dean. This is a very
difficult work to bring off. However, if I found the first movement unreasonably
fast, Bach’s dark colours nevertheless shone through (or whatever the more appropriate
verb for darkness here would be). The outer movements benefited from being Dean
and Zimmermann taking the lead as soloists; the central Adagio ma non tanto seemed less certain in direction.
Bach bade farewell with his
Second Brandenburg Concerto. It was hard-driven and light-textured in the now
fashionable way. Nevertheless, balance came across very well: no mean feat in
this of all works. Perhaps the highlight was the central Andante: not, I hasten to add, because the excellent Håkan
Hardeberger was not playing, but because it flowed more freely, again taken as
chamber music. I am afraid I could not get on with the machine-like approach to
the finale. Even Stravinsky, I imagined, might have asked Dausgaard and company
to calm down a little. That said, it helped pave the way for Steven Mackey’s Triceros, which followed without a break,
a held trumpet note for transition. Its initial (post-)minimalism passed
amiably enough. It certainly came across in polished, even accomplished fashion
when contrasted with the offerings by Turnage and Hillsborg. Again, the
aesthetic is one to which I find it difficult to respond, so I shall not say
too much, other than again to say that it could have done with being half, even
a third of the length. Note-spinning may have been the way of many a sub-Telemann
composer; it was never Bach’s. Bach, however, remained – and always will.
