Barbican Hall
Kleine Dreigroschenmusik
Vom Tod im Wald, op.23
Street Scene: ‘Lonely House’
Four Whitman Songs: ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ and ‘Dirge for Two Veterans’
Die Sieben Todsünden
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)
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| Images: Mark Allan |
The opening of Kurt Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik struck a properly anti-Romantic note, the Overture clearly growing out of 1920s’ Neue Sachlichkeit, the ‘Anstatt-dass Song’ likewise wearing its post-Busoni-and-Hindemith constructivism wisely on its sleeve, a hard edge supplied by banjo and piano. In between, the ‘Ballad of Mackie Messer’ showed something a little more yielding, rapport between saxophone and piano especially noteworthy. At times, it perhaps felt a little too conducted, but there is a difficult balance to strike here. An intimate, inward account of ‘Polly’s Lied’ and a surprisingly fast—if only in context—‘Kanonen-Song’ worked well in tandem. Simon Rattle tied things up nicely in the Finale, whose temporary ghostliness trod a thin yet necessary line between alienation and something that might just have been pathos. In the excellent hands of the LSO brass, its Chorale proved properly inscrutable.
We remained with wind band for the little ballad-like cantata, Vom Told im Wald, for which Rattle, his players, and Florian Boesch gave a compelling, sepulchral performance which, like the rest of the programme, never exaggerated, without quite straying into the world of understatement. Those who like Weill to go to extremes may have been disappointed, but there was much to be said for an approach, especially in the concert hall, that underlined his more ‘purely’ musical qualities, as well as the more traditional side to his acuity of verbal response. Weill’s flirtation with less tonal realms contrasted strongly with ‘Lonely House’ from Street Scene (Andrew Staples), its ‘American’ style well captured, now with the luxury of a full complement of LSO strings, idiomatic without cloying. Two of the Four Walt Whitman Songs, more interesting to me, were shared between Ross Ramgobin and Staples. The vivid quality of Ramgobin’s ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ had us see as well as hear the bugles and drums. ‘Dirge for Four Veterans’ proved nicely ambiguous in its military response.
For the ballet-chanté, The
Seven Deadly Sins, Rattle conducted the LSO without a score. Strikingly
dressed and coiffured in ‘Weimar’ style, Magdalena Kožená navigated the demands
of song and speech alike with typical excellence, her German outstanding in
clarity as well as idiom. Rattle kept the action moving, though it never
sounded remotely hard-driven. This is clearly a score he knows, understands,
and loves; the LSO and his cast responded in kind. That tightrope between
alienation and something more sympathetic was once more intelligently trod.
Well shaped and paced, it almost sounded over before it had begun. A fine
conspectus of Weill, then, though it was perhaps a pity not to hear any of his
early concert music: to my ears, generally showing the composer at his finest.
