Hardenberger/ORF SO/Storgårds: Schuller, Zimmermann, and Dvořák, 6 April 2018

Musikverein

Gunther Schuller: Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee

Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Trumpet Concerto, ‘Nobody knows de trouble I see’
Dvořák: Symphony no.9 in E minor, op.95, ‘From the New World’

Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet)

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

John Storgårds (conductor)

 

Much – not all, but much – of the United States’s Western art music tradition is (Austro-)German in origin. ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’ might come the reply to someone awaiting publication of his Schoenberg biography. And yes, I suppose I should – yet not only on that count. Consider the (new) worlds of performance, composition, musicology, musical institutions: less so, now, of course, and rightly so; their roots, however, will often be found embedded in Teutonic soil. To appreciate that, one only need consider the childish, often downright bizarre anti-German sentiment encountered today amongst certain anti-modernist composers and musicologists alike. ‘I’m so daring to write/analyse a tune; Wagner/Schoenberg/Adorno/Stockhausen would never have let me do that.’ ‘Yes, neoliberalism has no tunes; you truly cannot move for total serialism in the world of the Culture Industry…’

 

Not that the traffic has ever been one-way, of course; more complex interchanges have deep roots too. George Whitefield Chadwick, trained in Leipzig and subsequently director of the New England Conservatory, which he re-organised on European lines, for instance instituting an opera workshop, pre-empted Dvořák’s use in his ‘New World’ Symphony of ‘negro’ pentatonic melodies in the Scherzo to his Second (1883-5) Symphony. Interestingly, however, Boston audiences reacted far less favourably than New York to Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, the critic William Apthorp notoriously decrying its use of ‘barbaric’ plantation songs and native American melodies, resulting in a ‘mere apotheosis of ugliness, distorted forms, and barbarous expressions’, He might have been a typical Viennese critic ten years later, fulminating against Schoenberg; racism, after all, is common to both attacks.

 

Here in Vienna’s hallowed Musikverein, home to more than one such attack in the past, we had a splendid opportunity to hear some of that more complex interchange. Gunther Schuller, born in Queens, to German parents, has always struck me, albeit from a position of relative ignorance, as an especially interesting example of a musician, both performing and compositional, able to straddle ‘jazz’ and ‘classical’ divides; not, of course, that such a ‘divide’ has ever been so clear as many, for varying, even opposed, ideological reasons, might have claimed. In the work heard here, moreover, he turned to Paul Klee (a Swiss painter, of course, whom many of us are fond, sometimes all too fond, of comparing to Webern). Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee was heard for the first time at the Proms three years ago (almost), under Oliver Knussen. It was a joy to reacquaint myself with the music, and not only to find my admiration for it undimmed, in so fine a performance as this, from the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and John Storgårds, but also to observe it so warmly received in the hall which, just over a century earlier, had played host to the notorious Skandalkonzert, at which anti-modernist protests against the Second Viennese School had landed some of the participants in court. (Would that… No, I had better stop there.)

 

The first movement, ‘Antique Harmonies’, certainly had an air of the undefinable antique to it. That can cover a multitude of sins and virtues, ranging from Debussy to Birtwistle; there is little point in attempting definition of such a ‘mood’ or ‘air’. Fineness of orchestral balance surely helped, though. The following ‘Abstract Trio’ seemed almost to take us from Schoenberg to Stravinsky; I even fancied that I heard premonitions of the later work of Boulez in its motivic working. Coincidence, doubtless, if indeed that, but intriguing nevertheless, for this Old World listener. The cool jazz of ‘Little Blue Devil’ seemed almost as distilled as Mahler does in Webern; it was also just as recognisable. Muted trumpet set up a connection with the Bernd Alois Zimmermann work to come. Febrile, seething, yes, ‘The Twittering-machine’ indeed, came next, with perhaps a little touch of post-Webern Klangfarbenmelodie. A flute solo from above (rather than off-stage in the conventional, unseen sense) beguiled in ‘Arab Village’: simple, yet never predictable, with a true sense of narrative, almost as in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. ‘An Eerie Moment’ lived up to its name too, Webern perhaps distilling Stravinsky’s Rite, prior to the unsettling – did it or did it not unify what had gone before? – ‘Pastorale’, which again benefited from expert orchestral balancing by Storgårds and his players.

 

Zimmermann’s hundredth anniversary falls this year. (Click here for my feature on the composer in the New York Times.) There is jazz inspiration to his trumpet concerto too, of course, as well as that of the spiritual, ‘Nobody knows de trouble I see’. Zimmermann was adamant that the work, originally entitled ‘darkey’s darkness’ – thank goodness, from our twenty-first standpoint, that that was ditched – played with elements of progressive rather than ‘commercial’ jazz. I think that may be adjudged a perfectly reasonable claim. (We should always remain on our guard concerning what composers say their music may or may not ‘be’. Why might they be making such a claim?) So, at any rate, it sounded here, Håkan Hardenberger – who else? – joining the orchestra.

 

Varying ‘atmosphere’, almost as varying as that of the Schuller Studies, suffused this outstanding performance – played as the repertory work it almost is, and certainly should be. The long line, both for Hardenberger’s trumpet arabesques and for the orchestra, somewhere between ‘jazz’ and ‘symphonic’, was effortlessly maintained, or so it seemed – until, that is, it was no longer required. Controlled riot might then be the order of the day – or something else. Zimmermann’s later, more overt polystilism was almost there, already; perhaps it actually was instantiated, right there, right then. Rightly, neither score nor performance could be pinned down. And yet, there was ultimately, just as rightly, an almost Nono-like sense of bearing witness – even if one were never quite sure who, or what, the ‘subject’ might be. A hushed close did not comfort, nor should it have done.

 

And so, for the second half, we returned to the ‘New World’ Symphony, bastion of many a more conservative concert programme – despite its rocky initial reception in Boston. There was no routine comfort, however, to Storgårds’s performance. One really had the sense, as the cliché has it, that every note had been rethought – and it probably had. The introduction to the first movement sounded unusually dark, almost as if from Weber’s Freischütz Bohemian Woods. So did much of the rest of the movement, although the symphonic dialectic necessitating contrast, even at times negation, was not only observed but dramatised. Ultimately, a good deal of Brahms was revealed beneath the surface, although much that was not him, even opposed to him, too. Indeed, the contrast between first and second groups proved so great, especially in the exposition, as to sound almost Mahlerian. None of that was achieved at the expense of traditional lilt, which propelled rather than inhibited new worlds to come.

 

The second movement’s celebrated, all-too-celebrated cor anglais solo was taken beautifully, yet never just beautifully, likewise other solos. That Largo had all the time in the world to unfold, yet not a second more than necessary. It never forsook the quality of song, of Europeanised spiritual. Fast, insistent, almost brutally so, the Scherzo proved exhilarating, brought into still greater relief by (relative) woodland relaxation and charm. The finale proved a finale in the emphatic sense, as it must, with fury not only in the first but the second group too. Sometimes it can relax a little too much, but not here. Its dynamic telos was maintained until the end, as terse as the first movement, and yet, crucially, utterly different too. Brahms, again, remained, if never without ambiguity. This was a fine conclusion indeed, to an outstanding ORF concert. More soon, please!

 

Prohaska/Schneider - Song of the Sirens, 4 March 2012

Wigmore Hall

Debussy – La Mer est plus belle
Haydn – The Mermaid’s Song, Hob.XXVIa/25
Lawes – Slide soft, you silver floods
Schubert – Der Fischer, D 225
Am See, D 746

Szymanowski – Songs of a Fairy-Tale Princess, op.31: ‘Song of the Waves’ and ‘Dance’

Mahler – Phantasie aus Don Juan
Wolf – Nixe Binsefuss
Schumann – Die Meerfee, op.125 no.1
Mendelssohn – Schilflied, op.71 no.4
Schubert – Des Fischers Liebesglück, D 933
Fauré – La Fleur qui va sur l’eau, op.85 no.2
Honegger – Trois Chansons de la Petite Sirènes, H 63 : ‘Chanson des Sirènes’ and ‘Berceuses de la sirène’
Dowland – Sorrow, stay, lend true repentant tears
Dvořák – Rusalka: Song to the Moon


Wigmore Hall debuts do not come much more impressive than this: a beautifully programmed ‘Song of the Sirens’ from Anna Prohaska, splendidly partnered by her regular pianist, Eric Schneider, in which the soprano’s heavy cold could happily be written off. (One really would never have known.) Not only were we treated to a stunning variety of works, whether considered in terms of language, style, or chronology, that variety proved to be the flip side of the coin to as impeccably selected and intelligently ordered a survey of the siren in song as could be imagined. Fortunately, one did not have to imagine, for a mere hour in the stalls took us from Debussy to Dvořák via Haydn, Schubert, Szymanowski, Honegger, Dowland, and many others.

It was Schneider who announced himself first in Debussy’s 1891 Verlaine setting, La Mer reste plus belle. His announcement was vigorous rather than pastel, much to the sea’s – and to Debussy’s – benefit. The same could be said of Prohaska’s voice, richer in timbre than one might expect from a high soprano: again much to the benefit of the music, and with excellent French (often, alas, a problem with singers). ‘Un soufflé ami hante la vague, et nous chante: “Vous sans espérance, mourez sans souffrance!"’ The first but far from last of our siren calls proved ravishingly sensuous. ‘Plus belle que tous, meilleure que nous!’ Who could resist? Haydn’s Mermaid Song was playful, yet seductive in its own way. The change of language – this is one of the composer’s English canzonettas for Anne Hunter, still far too little known – posed no more problem than any subsequent shift. Echoes of earlier eighteenth-century English style – Handel and Arne, perhaps – were certainly present, providing a winning link to the earlier, more serious English writing of Henry Lawes, in his lute song, Slide soft, you silver floods. The performance from both artists was not only stylish, but more importantly, highly alert to the composer’s harmonic shifts and their implications. It is perhaps inevitable that with hindsight one would think of Purcell. Two Schubert songs followed. The insouciance of Der Fischer nicely set up the dissolution of any easy opposition between ‘reality’ and ‘unreality’. Who, after all, is a siren? And for whom is she whatever we might think she is? Goethe’s voice, moreover, shone through, the sheer quality of his verse relished in its rendition. Am See conveyed a sense of the metaphysical without any need for portentous exaggeration; it was all the more powerful for that.

The ‘Song of the Waves’ (‘Pieśń o fali’) and ‘Dance’ (‘Taniec’) from Szymanowski’s Songs of a Fairy-Tale Princess were especially welcome, both for their inclusion – what wonderful songs these are, and how rarely we hear him – and for the manner of their performance, imperceptible union of eroticism and exoticism combining in a properly Szymanowskian magic carpet, harking back to the Debussy of the first song, to be sure, but the composer’s personal voice unmistakeably present. We stood close to the world of King Roger, and rightly so. Prohaska presented a combination of Carmen, Zerbinetta, and Stravinsky’s Nightingale, in ‘Dance’, and above all, seemed both to experience and to enjoy both music and text. Schneider navigated the difficult piano part with ease, teasing out the inviting ambiguities of Szymanowski’s harmonies. Already a noted Zerlina (Salzburg and La Scala, the latter under Daniel Barenboim), Prohaska then turned to a very different Don Juan fantasy, that of Mahler – although, of course, Da Ponte’s predecessor, Tirso de Molina is the writer. It is a tribute to both artists, as well of course as to Mahler himself, that the composer’s own voice, even in a song from the early 1880s, should sing out so clearly. His bitter irony is present even here, emerging from the magical world of Das klagende Lied. Haunting indeed, not least in terms of Schneider’s voicing of Mahler’s harmonic language. Wolf’s Nixe Binsefuss was properly sprite-like, capricious and not without menace, leading into a rare opportunity to hear one of Schumann’s late songs, Die Meerfee, the performance at one with the composer’s deceptive ‘simplicity’. Mendelssohn’s Schilflied, a setting of Nikolaus Lenau, not only benefited from a sense of the metaphysical, reminding us of the earlier Schubert Am See; it also showed that Prohaska, even when indisposed, could sustain a long line, musical as well as verbal virtues to the fore.

The last of the three Schubert songs featured was Des Fischers Liebesglück. Prohaska and Schneider rightly took their time, imparting a dolorous sense of longing that long haunted the imagination. Schneider’s voicing of apparent simplicity enabled detail, both in his and the vocal part, truly to stand in relief. Again, one wondered, what is reality? Should we even care, when we might more profitably, or at least pleasurably, be ensnared? Fauré’s La Fleur qui va sur l’eau showed a more tempestuous side to the composer than one often hears, both artists displaying a fine sense of dramatic narrative and metaphor. It was a delight thereafter to sample two – alas, only two – of Honegger’s 1926 Trois Chansons de la Petite Sirène, ‘Chanson des Sirènes’ perfectly placed in the programme to have one relish its relative harmonic astringency. It brought in its wake a real sense of dissolution in the waves and ultimately of the siren’s unanswerable call. ‘Berceuse de la sirène’ thereafter allowed one to luxuriate in its dangerous lullaby. Dowland’s Sorrow, stay, lend true repentant tears not only reminded one of Prohaska’s roots in early music, but crucially distilled the essence of one of our most extraordinary song-writers: sorrow, despair, and of course, melancholy. The falling ‘down’ and ‘down’ truly tugged at the heart-strings. So, in its different way, did the operatic climax, the ‘Song of the Moon’ from Rusalka, at present receiving its first staging at Covent Garden. (Prohaska sang in that production’s first outing, at the Salzburg Festival in 2008.) Once again, musical and dramatic gifts were united, in a reading poignant to a degree, a fitting finale to a fine recital, rounded off with a delightfully ambiguous encore of Wolf’s Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens.


See also the review on Classical Iconoclast.

Rusalka, Royal Opera, 27 February 2012

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Nymphs and Rusalka (Camilla Nylund)
Images: Royal Opera/Clive Barda

Rusalka – Camilla Nylund
Foreign Princess – Petra Lang
Prince – Bryan Hymel
Ježibaba – Agnes Zwierko
Vodník – Alan Held
Huntsman – Daniel Grice
Gamekeeper – Gyula Orendt
Kitchen Boy – Ilse Eerens
Wood Nymphs – Anna Devin, Justina Gringyte, Madeleine Pierard
Mourek – Claire Talbot

Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito (directors)
Samantha Seymour (revival director)
Barbara Ehnes (set designs)
Anja Rabes (costumes)
Olaf Freese (lighting)
Chris Kondek (video designs)
Altea Garrido (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Yannick Nézet-Seguin (conductor)


It is a truth universally acknowledged that an interesting opera production will be met with incomprehension and lazy, philistine hostility by vast swathes of the audience in many, perhaps most, of the world’s ‘major’ houses, a truth that renders one all the more grateful for the Royal Opera showing the courage to stage this new – to London – production of Rusalka. That is not to say that any production meeting with hostility qualifies as interesting; some, of course, are simply not very good, or worse. Yet, it seems that only the most vapid, unchallenging – and yes, I realise that the word ‘challenging’ is a red rag to self-appointed ‘traditionalist’ bulls – of productions will garner approval from the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie. The boorish behaviour of those who booed this Rusalka equates more or less precisely to the sort of antics they would condemn if they occurred on the street – the work of ‘hoodlums’, the ‘lower classes’, the ‘uneducated’, ‘rioters’, ‘immigrants’, et al. – yet somehow unwillingness or inability to think, the fascistic refusal to consider an alternative point of view, the threat of mob violence, becomes perfectly acceptable when one has paid the asking price for what they consider to be their rightful ‘entertainment’. They would no more bother to understand, to explore, to question, Rusalka were it depicted in the most ’traditional’ of fashions, of course, but they explode at the mere suggestion that a work and a performance might ask something of them. For, as John Stuart Mill famously noted, ‘Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.’ Wagner’s ‘emotionalisation of the intellect’ – ‘emotionalisation’, not abdication! – remains as foreign a country to them as it did to the Jockey Club thugs who prevented Tannhäuser from being performed in Paris; at least one might claim that the latter were having to deal with challenging ‘new music’, Zukunftsmuik, even. Here they were faced with an opera by Dvořák, first performed in 1901, in a staging that would barely raise an eyebrow in most German house or festivals. (The production, by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, hails initially from the Salzburg Festival.) It would be interesting to know how many of those booing had selfishly, uncomprehendingly disrupted a recent Marriage of Figaro in the same house by erupting into laughter at the very moment Count Almaviva sought forgiveness from the Countess. (There was also, bizarrely, to be heard at the opening of the third act a shouted call from a member of the audience for a ‘free’ Quebec.)

Rusalka, Prince (Bryan Hymel), and Foreign Princess (Petra Lang)

What, then, was it that incurred the wrath of the Tunbridge Wells beau monde? I can only assume that it was for the most part Barbara Ehnes’s sets, since the stage direction (presumably a good part of it from revival director, Samantha Seymour) was more often that not quite in harmony with the urgings and suggestions of Dvořák’s score. (The hostile rarely if ever listen to the music; at best, they follow the surtitles and bridle at deviations from what they imagine the stage directions might have been.) Even modern dress is mixed with a sense of the magical, the environment of Ježibaba the witch a case in point. There is even a cat, played both in giant form by Claire Talbot, and in real form, by – a cat, ‘Girlie’. What is real, and what is not? Collision between spirit and human worlds is compellingly brought to life, the devils and demons of a heathen past, including Slavonic river spirits (rusalki) come to tempt, to question, to lay bare the delusions of moralistic, bigoted modernity. Just as modern ‘love’ and marriage’ quickly boil down to money and power, so Vodník the water goblin finds his tawdry place of temptation whilst issuing his moralistic warnings. (Did the audience see itself reflected in the mirror? Perhaps, though I doubt that it even bothered to think that far.) Our ideas of Nature having been hopelessly compromised by what we have become, we ‘naturally’ see the world of rusalki from within the comforts of our hypocritical bordello. Who is exploiting whom, and who is ‘impure’? The souls of women who have committed suicide and of stillborn children – there are various accounts of who the rusalki actually are – or those who shun them in life and in death? Wieler and Morabito do not offer agitprop; rather they allow us to ask these questions of the work, and of ourselves. But equally importantly, they permit a sense of wonder to suffuse what remains very much a fairy tale, realism coexisting with, being corrected by, something older, more mysterious, more dangerous, and perhaps ultimately liberating. Chris Kondek’s video designs, not unlike the hydroelectric dam of Patrice Chéreau’s ‘Centenary’ Ring, both suggest Nature and through their necessary technological apparatus remind us of our distance from any supposed ‘Golden Age’, just as the opening scene will inevitably suggest to us Alberich, the Rhinemaidens, and the power of the erotic. (Wagner used the term liebesgelüste.)

Musical performances were equally strong, in many respects signalling a triumph for Covent Garden. First and foremost should be mentioned Yannick Nézet-Séguin, making his Royal Opera debut. The orchestra played for him as if for an old friend, offering a luscious, long-breathed Romanticism that made it sound a match – as, on its best days, it is – for any orchestra in the world. Magic was certainly to be heard: the sound of Dvořák’s harps again took me back to Das Rheingold – and to Bernard Haitink’s tenure at the house. Ominous fate was brought into being with similar conviction and communicative skill. Above all, Nézet-Séguin conveyed both a necessary sense of direction and a love for the score’s particular glories. If there are times when Dvořák might benefit from a little more, at least, of Janáček’s extraordinary dramatic concision, it would take a harder heart than mine to eschew the luxuriance on offer both in score and performance. Crucially, staging and performance interacted so that the contrast between worlds on stage intensified that in the pit, and vice versa.

Ježibaba (Agnes Zwierko)
and her cat, Mourek (Claire Talbot)

Camilla Nylund shone in the title role. At times, especially during the first act, one might have wondered whether her voice would prove to have the necessary heft, but it did, and Nylund proved herself an accomplished actress into the bargain. Bryan Hymel may not be the most exciting of singers; the voice is not especially variegated. However, he proved dependable, and often a great deal more, the final duet as moving as one could reasonably expect. Alan Held was everything a Vodník should be: baleful, threatening, sincere, and yet perhaps not quite. The Spirit of the Lake may well have his own agenda – and certainly did here. Agnes Zwierko played the witch Ježibaba with wit, menace, and a fine sense of hypocrisy that brought the closed environments of Janáček’s dramas to mind. The four Jette Parker Young Artists participating, nymphs Anna Devin, Madeleine Perard, and Justina Gringyte, and Huntsman Daniel Grice all acquitted themselves with glowing colours. Indeed, Grice’s solo, enveloped by miraculous Freischütz-like horns from the orchestra, movingly evoked a world of lost or never-existent woodland innocence. Last but not least, Petra Lang’s Foreign Princess emerged, like Wagner’s Ortrud, as in some respects the most truthful, as well as the most devious, character of all. Splendidly sung and acted, Lang’s was a performance truly to savour. But then, this was a performance as a whole that was far more than the sum of its parts, a triumphant return to form for Covent Garden with its first ever staging of the work.

Mutter/LSO/Davis - Dvořák and Janáček, 10 October 2010

Barbican Hall

Dvořák – Violin Concerto in A minor, op.53
Janáček – Glagolitic Mass

Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin)
Krassimira Stoyanova (soprano)
Anna Stephany (mezzo-soprano)
Simon O’Neill (tenor)
Martin Snell (bass)
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra (chorus master: Joseph Cullen)
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)


First things first: not even a performance of this distinction could salvage Dvořák’s Violin Concerto. I suppose it is worth hearing occasionally, perhaps as part of a large scale Dvořák retrospective, but even the combined forces of Anne-Sophie Mutter, the LSO, and Sir Colin Davis could not conceal its ramshackle structure, or lack of it. ‘Rhapsodic’ might be a polite way of describing the work, but it would barely do such aimlessness justice. There are small sections that are relatively attractive in themselves, though it is difficult to discern the melodic or other attractions of the composer’s better works. But where do they come from and where do they go? Davis and Mutter launched the first movement in grandly symphonic, Brahmsian style. Unfortunately, this valiant attempt to shoehorn the composer’s meanderings into an intelligible structure was doomed to failure. Everything one could have wished for was there in performance terms. The LSO’s woodwind contributed delectable solo work. Mutter’s tone was simply ravishing, generous vibrato and precise intonation– none of the pain inflicted a week ago by Viktoria Mullova – happy bedfellows. As ever, her commitment seemed complete. Leaving aside a couple of ever so slight disjunctures between soloist and orchestra during the finale, I cannot imagine the concerto being better performed, but it still could not come off. No wonder Joachim rejected it. If only these musicians had been playing Brahms, Beethoven, or Berg.

Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass was another matter entirely. The performance matched at the very least that preceding the interval, but here we are concerned with a masterpiece of staggering originality. Sir Colin is not a conductor I especially associate with Janáček; I do not know whether he has conducted any of the operas, but on the basis of this performance, I hope that he might yet be persuaded. This was not a reading that went out of its way to stress the work’s Moravian roots, but it is arguably high time that Janáček was freed from nationalist constraints. There were elements of Romanticism, not least in the gorgeous cello lines of the Introduction, but the work was never unduly romanticised; it stood stark, craggy, and wondrous. Indeed, there was a stentorian quality to the structural whole: not unlike an imaginary Klemperer Glagolitic Mass. Above all, Davis and his forces imparted the requisite awe and joy. Just as Janáček, especially later Janáček, should not be reduced to regional status, his affirmation cannot be restricted to any creed, whether Christian or pantheist. That was what we heard here.

The LSO was on simply outstanding form, the only fault I can recall a very minor brass slip in the concluding Intrada. Unanimity of attack, orchestral weight and colouring, and burning commitment to the score: the orchestra’s players had it all. Catherine Edwards’s rendition of the extraordinary organ solo was similarly distinguished, despite the feeble Barbican electronic instrument: a pity. Nevertheless, I was left wishing that the composer had written a mature solo work or two for the King of Instruments. Following that postlude, I found myself wondering briefly whether the orchestra's tuning was quite that of the organ's, but my ears soon adjusted and it may have been my imagination. Davis also seemed to drive the opening of the Intrada a little hard, though there was no denying the grandeur of its conclusion.

The performance from the London Symphony Chorus was outstanding too. I do not think I have ever heard a bad performance from this chorus; that state of affairs was not about to change here. Shouts of exultation are mightily impressive, and they were on this occasion, but equally so was the singers’ way with the language and its connection to the notes. The vocal soloists impressed too. Krassimira Stoyanova and Simon O’Neill had most to do, all of which they did very well indeed, complementing and extending the orchestral and choral rapture. The sensuous quality of Stoyanova’s delivery drew one in, seduced one even, whilst O’Neill’s Heldentenor portrayed and commanded awestruck respect. Anna Stephany had little to do, though the tone quality of her mezzo-soprano pleased briefly; Martin Snell’s bass was warm and rounded, yet nevertheless precise.

Microphones were present, so I assume the performance was being recorded for LSO Live. The programme will be repeated, prefaced by Sasha Siem’s Trickster, on 12 October.

Prom 17: SCO/Boyd - Mozart and Dvořák, 29 July 2010

Royal Albert Hall

Dvořák – Serenade in D minor, for wind instruments, violoncello, and double bass, op.44, B.77

Mozart – Serenade no.10 in B-flat major, for thirteen instruments, KV 361/370a

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Douglas Boyd (conductor)

This late-night Prom was to have been conducted by the late Sir Charles Mackerras, featuring two particular loves of his: Dvořák and Mozart. One might add a third: the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, of which he had long been Conductor Laureate. For a programme of music for wind ensemble, it was not unfitting that Mackerras’s replacement should be another former oboist, Douglas Boyd.

The first of two works on the programme was Dvořák’s D minor Serenade. Its first movement is marked Moderato, quasi marcia. One certainly heard a strong impression of the march, even if Boyd was somewhat on the fast side for Moderato; nevertheless, the tempo worked well enough. There was nothing small-scale about the interpretation, which had a welcome sense of the symphonic to it. Particularly striking were the SCO’s grainy bassoons (Peter Whelan and Alison Green). The second movement flowed nicely; if its trio was a touch fussy, it was despatched with panache. I cannot claim to find the main body of the slow movement especially compelling: it comes and goes, and would doubtless make for superior background music. However, the agitated middle section intriguingly presented intimations of Mahler. There was an infectious sense of countryside music-making to the finale. At times, it perhaps sounded a little too ‘conducted’, though this aspect came into its own with the march reminiscence from the first movement.

The masterpiece on the programme was, of course, Mozart’s Gran Partita. My reservations here were usually concerned with tempi – and also, I am afraid, with the use of natural horns, which simply cannot play in tune to the expectations of modern ears and which must also uncomfortably resort to rasping. Valves were invented for a very good reason. The Largo introduction to the first movement was full of promise, perhaps a touch moulded by Boyd, but I should not exaggerate. The Molto allegro was properly lively, with clear counterpoint, if again a little too obviously ‘conducted’. Minuets – the second and fourth movements – were brisk, but not unreasonably so; again clarity was commendable. The second trio of the first minuet brought an extremely noticeable fluff from one of the natural horns, but those of the second minuet could certainly swing. In between those movements comes the sublime Adagio. Boyd’s was not my idea of an Adagio, nor was it Furtwängler’s in his incomparable Vienna Philharmonic recording, but if one could take the Andante approach, there was some beautiful playing to hear from the SCO: less blended than, say, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, but graininess has its own rewards. The ‘flowing’ – a current ‘period’ euphemism for fast – tempo certainly fitted with Boyd’s conception, outlined in a brief pre-performance discussion, of the movement as an aria in an overtly operatic work. It was beautiful, however, rather than profound: no metaphysics here. I was taken aback to hear the Adagio section of the fifth movement taken slower than I could recall hearing previously. Unfortunately, it sounded laboured, since Boyd gave the impression of hearing it on a bar-to-bar, sometimes even a beat-to-beat, basis; the longer line was lacking. There was great contrast with a fast, driven Allegretto, which would have benefited from time to breathe. The bubbly theme and variations that followed was, however, quite delightful. Here a longer line was discernible, save for a somewhat choppy minor key variation. Then came the finale. Molto allegro is generally an extremely difficult tempo to bring off in Mozart. The modern tendency is to drive too hard: not in itself so much a matter of tempo. Boyd did not entirely avoid this trap, but I have heard worse. All in all, a mixed performance, then, but there remained much to enjoy.

Prom 16: Lewis/CBSO/Nelsons - Wagner, Beethoven, and Dvořák, 29 July 2010

Royal Albert Hall

Wagner – Overture: Rienzi
Beethoven – Piano Concerto no.2 in B-flat major, op.19
Dvořák – Symphony no.9 in E minor, ‘From the New World’, Op.95, B.178

Paul Lewis (piano)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons (conductor)

To my shame, it is many years since the last time I heard the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; indeed, I think it was probably under Simon Rattle. On the basis of this concert, I shall hasten to do so again, since the orchestra sounds finer still if anything, certainly more continental, under its (relatively) new Music Director, Andris Nelsons. I shall also hasten to hear Nelsons wherever he may be conducting. If only I had been able to go to Bayreuth this year to hear his Lohengrin, with Jonas Kaufmann no less. Still, there was a taste of Wagner in the Overture to Rienzi. Nelsons dared – and won – a magnificently slow opening, the orchestra sounding gorgeous, the nobility of the Prayer theme fully and quite naturally brought out. There was at this stage an almost Klemperer-like deliberateness that truly paid off – which can only be the case if accompanied, as here, by profound musical understanding of rhythmic and harmonic progression. Then came the contrast of excitement: the external world opposed to Rienzi’s internal conflict. The CBSO’s brass choir proved it an equal to pretty much any other. Finally, enhanced Meyerbeer – just as it should be.

Though Beethoven was already Wagner’s greatest musical hero at this stage in his career, one would not necessarily have guessed it from Rienzi. The contrast with Beethoven’s ‘second’ piano concerto was therefore starker than it might have been with later Wagner. Paul Lewis, who has recently recorded all five concertos, joined Nelsons and the CBSO for a fine performance of an oft-slighted work, the success of which was at least as much to be attributed to conductor as pianist. For the opening bars alerted one to an uncommon Beethovenian talent too – and this is perhaps an even rarer thing. There was a true sense of life communicated: the music articulated, but never fussy, and Mozartian colours, especially darker hues, beautifully painted. (I thought above all of the E-flat concerto, KV 482.) These virtues were echoed, responded to, when the pianist entered, suggesting something of his great mentor, Alfred Brendel. There were occasions when I wished that Lewis would let himself go a little more, but there could be no gainsaying his command of the score. A rare (minor) cavil was a certain brusqueness to some sections of the development, which did not quite convince. Lewis employed an unusual degree of ornamentation in the recapitulation, but it worked. My only other real criticism was a plodding start to the cadenza. (Whatever Daniel Barenboim’s occasional shortcomings at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this year, he could not be accused of that.) By the time of its climax, this was no longer the case, however. Thereafter I do not think I have a single reservation. From the outset of the Adagio, Nelsons showed command of that long line Beethovenian line, which defeats so many; the maturity of Lewis’s contribution was equally striking. Nelsons continued to emphasise the darker side of Beethoven’s Mozartian inheritance. I should be eager to hear him in Mozart himself – and I cannot remember the last time I thought that of anyone. There was a ravishing oboe solo (Rainer Gibbons), whilst the final bars exuded ineffable magic, verging at least upon greatness (coughing notwithstanding). The rondo sounded just as a rondo should: fun, lively, gently insistent, never driven too hard. Nelsons’s command of Beethoven’s rhythms was notable, once again matched by Lewis. A distinguished performance: I cannot help but wish that Lewis had recorded the Beethoven concertos with Nelsons instead.

Coughing again marred the opening bars of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, though the intrusion of at least four mobile telephone calls – three to the same person! – was greater still. The beauty of the CBSO’s woodwind section could not be entirely obliterated, however. Nelsons proceeded to attack the Allegro molto with great urgency, yet still more spellbinding was the stillness as the flute announced the movement’s second group. True defiance, terror even, characterised its closing pages. And – a sign of charisma this! – keeping his hands in the air miraculously forestalled gloomily expected minority applause, setting a precedent thereafter adhered to. That solo, or rather those solos, were beautifully taken in the slow movement, Alan Garner drawing on seemingly endless reserves of breath. Nelsons’s tempo seemed so right that one only really noticed it in retrospect. The combination of woodwind soloists and double bass pizzicato in the movement’s middle section was simply ravishing, as were the violins when they took over the theme. Once again, I thought this might have been a great continental orchestra. Perhaps the most delicate pianissimo playing I have heard in the Royal Albert Hall was blighted by yet another telephone call. (Can nothing be done about these miscreants?) The scherzo married Beethovenian muscularity to delightful local colour and lilt: Dvořák has nothing to fear from comparisons with Smetana, even in this respect, and certainly not with Nelsons and the CBSO on his case. Always the long line again – marking out Nelsons as so much more the real thing than many of his touted contemporaries. The opening bars of the finale sent shivers down the spine, thanks to the CBSO brass. Even during more tender moments – an exquisite oboe solo, for instance – Nelsons maintained and increased the underlying tension to the movement. If I am to be ultra-critical, there were perhaps occasions on which he drove a little hard, but truly I am straining to find anything ambivalent, let alone negative, to say. More importantly, I heard orchestral detail that I cannot recall previously having heard – and without any of the point-scoring perversity one associates with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The orchestral unisons just before the close gave Bruckner a run for his money. This was a wonderful performance indeed.

Kožená/Schiff - Janáček, Dvořák, Mussorgsky, and Bartók, 6 February 2010

Wigmore Hall

Janáček – Selection from Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs
Janáček – In the Mists
Dvořák – Biblical Songs, op.99
Mussorgsky – The Nursery
Bartók – Village Scenes

Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)
András Schiff (piano)

The diacriticals are out in force, making this not the easiest of reviews to type on an English keyboard – but what a minor inconvenience from so welcome a change. The Wigmore Hall’s programme is jam-packed with Schubert and Schumann songs, as are other halls’ schedules, yet how often are we treated to performances of songs by Janáček, Dvořák, Mussorgsky, and Bartók? The problem is in good part linguistic. Nevertheless, matters are rather different in the world of opera, so why not in the recital hall? The milieux and repertories do not call upon identical strengths. An estimable opera singer may or may not be equally gifted as a recitalist – I nearly said Lieder artist – and vice versa.

It would be good, then, to hear a wider range of singers tackle such repertoire, yet, on this occasion, there could be no gainsaying the authority of Magdalena Kožená’s contribution. In Janáček’s Moravian folksong settings, one heard the sadness and joy in life, two sides of the same coin: true humanity, both profound and commonplace. Through Love, Promise, Uneasy, Carnation, Tears of Comfort, and Musicians – there seems little point in employing the original language titles on this occasion – she never aestheticised the music, nor did she attempt to sound like a ‘real’ folk-singer. András Schiff’s playing was perhaps surprisingly muscular, though the insistence of his part permitted one to hear the composer’s suggestions of other instruments in his writing.

Schiff’s contribution became more problematical in the solo set of four pieces, In the Mists. It was a strange mix: sometimes a parodically rigid, heavy-handed near-Teutonism, sometimes playing of impressionistic delicacy. Janáček’s twists and turns were loving traced in the opening Andante, but the intriguing echoes of Chopin in the second movement were marred by soon being hammered out. I had expected to hear Schiff more in sympathy with Janáček's style than proved to be the case.

The rest of the first part was devoted to Dvořák’s ten Biblical Songs. I fear I found this too much of a not-so-good thing. This had nothing to do with the performances, but in these settings, Dvořák’s voice does not seem to me at its strongest, a suspicion confirmed by the contrast with the performers’ first encore, a deeply-felt Songs my Mother Taught Me. Here, much, though not all, tends towards the anodyne or insipid; Brahms’s Four Serious Songs these are not. Nevertheless, Kožená sounded committed, from the splendidly declamatory opening of Clouds and Darkness are Around About Him onwards. Schiff in general made the most of piano parts, which sometimes too openly aspire towards the orchestral, though a little more Lisztian Romanticism would have benefited Hear my Prayer, O Lord my God! (Schiff has spoken more than once of his contempt for Liszt, unusual for a Hungarian, though no more creditable for that.) Delicacy was better served than abandon. Kožená, however, proved winningly operatic in her projection. I liked the pastoral quality both artists imparted to God is my Shepherd. And the conviction Kožená brought to the final line of Turn Thee to me and Have Mercy – ‘Nebot’ v Tebe doufám’ (‘… for my hope is in Thee’) was unmistakeable.

With Mussorgsky’s cycle, The Nursery (or Detskaya), we were in very different territory, the voice of the composer immediately apparent. Kožená was very much in her element here, vividly characterising, both vocally and visually. (More puritanical Lieder-devotees might well have disapproved, but these are not Lieder.) She seems to have a particular connection to the world of children’s imagination, having shone in a similar way during a Berlin performance of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. In the Corner showed how readily she could switch ‘character’, very much the old crone and equally much the insolent child, whilst The Beetle left one in no doubt how much apparently little things can matter to a child. With the Doll proved a compelling lullaby, Schiff etching the rhythm unerringly, permitting Kožená to weave her magic above. Nanny’s love for the little monster of the nursery came through in Hobby-horse Rider, as did Schiff’s delineation of the accompaniment’s ‘character’. This was a fine account.

Finally, we returned to folksong, for Bartók’s setting of Slovak songs, Village Scenes. Once again, and even though the melodies are not his, the composer’s voice was unmistakeable from the opening. Schiff truly revelled in Bartók’s extraordinary piano writing, not least the harmonies. The way he shaded into nothingness at the end of At the Bride’s was an object lesson. Kožená’s wild peasant cry in Wedding was quite something, subtly taken up in the piano part thereafter. Lullaby was, rightly, mysterious and troubling: what might sleep bring? Yet with such a compelling narrator, sleep must nevertheless win out. Once again, Schiff imparted just the right character to the final Lads’ Dance, a strong rhythmic profile ensuring that both artists’ contribution would culminate in the requisite frenetic abandon.