Royal Festival Hall
Piano Concerto no.1 in D minor,
op.15
Piano Concerto no.2 in B-flat
major, op.83
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela
Gustavo Dudamel (conductor)
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Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel & Simón Bolívar
Symphony Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall
© Southbank Centre / Belinda Lawley
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Daniel Barenboim is no stranger
to ambitious undertakings, little more of a stranger to realising them
triumphantly. However, on this occasion – and what an occasion it should have been, marking the sixtieth anniversary of
his London debut, here at the Royal Festival Hall – the results were distinctly
mixed. A very fine performance indeed of Brahms’s D minor Piano Concerto – if you
could take a host of wrong notes, which I could – was followed by an
indifferent, meandering performance of its still more difficult successor. That
I say so far as the soloist is concerned; despite odd, highly impressive,
splashes of brilliance from the orchestra, it was not a performance to remember
for the Simon Bólívar Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. Perhaps,
though, it was a foolish undertaking. The First Concerto often ends up
concluding concert programmes, so difficult would it be to find anything
convincingly to follow it. In a way, the Second makes more sense than many
would-be solutions, although one might argue that they would be better placed
the other way around. I wonder, however, whether any pianist could reasonably
be expected to perform both works convincingly in the same concert.
The first movement of the D
minor Concerto opened very promisingly in terms of both orchestral sound and
Romantic flexibility. The Venezuelan strings sounded gorgeous; woodwind solos
were well taken. Slowing for subsequent material – was this Barenboim’s own
conception? – put me in mind of the soloist’s symphonic Brahms and Beethoven,
very much in the line of Furtwängler, and convincingly so. Dudamel’s return to
the initial tempo was arresting, vehement, again highly convincing. That was
all before Barenboim had played a single note. His entry sounded a note of
wonder: exploratory, extensive, very much a continuation of what had gone
before. Now his ‘new’ piano sounded much more at home than it had during last
year’s Schubert. (Perhaps it has ‘bedded in’; perhaps certain of what sounded
like infelicities have been ironed out; perhaps we have become more accustomed
to it; perhaps it simply sounds better when less of a fuss is being made,
organ-bore-like, about the instrument itself.) It cut through, sang above the
orchestra impressively indeed, although there were times when I thought the
orchestra was being unduly repressed, or at least too much assigned to an ‘accompanying’
role. Better that, I suppose, than presenting bizarre ideas, but it was
difficult to conclude that Dudamel was an especially convincing Brahmsian. That
perhaps is a little unfair, however – in this, I am genuinely conflicted –
given that the dialectical contrast of tempo at the start did seem to set up a
framework for the movement as a whole. Whether that were Barenboim’s or Dudamel’s
doing, who knows? In a sense, who cares? The other crucial frameworks, undeniably
present, were harmonic and motivic. If ever there were a composer both
Schenkerian and Schoenbergian, it must be Brahms; and if ever there were a
musician capable of illuminating both sides, it must be Barenboim. Perhaps,
however, what most impressed me was a reinstatement of this work as a concerto.
That might sound odd; given the titanic conflict, how could anyone doubt it?
Well, yes, but it can often sound more akin to a symphony; its symphonic
stature remained, of course, but the old relationship between solo and
ritornello sounded reinvigorated. There was much to enjoy at a more local
level, too; at his best, Barenboim contrasted scampering play with
heaven-storming Prometheanism. The moment of return – and here, I think,
Dudamel must also receive some of the credit – sounded so climactic because it
was so well-prepared. But it was half-lit piano passages thereafter which held the
real key to the future: material splitting harmonically and vertically,
dodecaphony already upon the horizon. The final peroration made its point with
a degree of showmanship, but why not? This was, after all, a performance of a concerto.
The slow movement opened in
sincere, songful fashion; I am tempted to call it Elgarian. At least before the
solo entry, however, it lacked rhythmic tautness; Barenboim sounded
considerably more in focus than the orchestra, some of whose solos were oddly
non-committal, even feeble. Against that, there was some gloriously hushed
playing to be heard from all quarters; more than once I thought of late
Beethoven, and a real ‘Benedictus’ movement, arguably still more of the ‘Sanctus’
from the same Missa solemnis. Barenboim’s
pianistic ecstasy above the long pedal-point later on was worth the price of
admission alone. The movement was taken wonderfully slowly – and worked
superbly well. After that, the rollicking ‘Hungarian’ contrast of the finale
proved just the tonic: rhythmically sharp – save, sadly, for a few orchestral
passages – and harmonically meaningful. It was Brahms’s compositional richness,
many features of which we had heard before and now heard transformed, which
truly guaranteed the finale as bringer of unity, not just of conclusion; but
that also had to be communicated, which Barenboim at least did. There were a
good few slips, which Beckmessers might have excoriated, but the sense of the
movement was present, and that was more than good enough for me. Mere errors
seemed as supremely irrelevant as they do in Cortot.
They seemed more relevant,
alas, after the interval: not because they were necessarily any more prevalent,
but because the absolute security of harmonic rhythm which characterised
Barenboim’s reading earlier seemed no longer to be present, above all in the
first movement of the Second Concerto. Following a strangely vibrato-laden
opening horn call, the soloist’s entry had promised much: duly incisive and
seemingly imbued with what was to come, pregnant with motivic and harmonic
possibility. That promise was to be fulfilled only intermittently. The
orchestra in particular often sounded effortful, but there was feebleness in
the piano part too at times. Individual passages, especially in the high treble
and dark bass, sounded wonderful, but there was a significant lack of
coherence. The scherzo was similar, opening with a renewed sense of purpose,
soon undermined by a listless, soft-centred orchestra. A few apparently
rhetorical caesuras in the piano part baffled me, as did excessive – which is
really to say, curiously unmotivated – rubato. The trio section – I do not see
why one should not call it that – was stronger, evincing unforced grandeur and
genuine intimacy, although the fallibility of Barenboim’s pianism bothered me
more, perhaps because of the lack of earlier coherence, than it had done during
the First Concerto. The return to the opening scherzo material sounded
reinvigorated, but soon the music felt unduly pulled around again, especially
in the orchestra. The slow movement likewise rarely settled, despite some
lovely moments. Those intimate whisperings of pianistic secrets later on were
to be treasured; they would have been treasured still more, had it been clearer
how we had reached them. More of the same, I am afraid, in the finale. It was
characterful, but rubato often seemed excessive, even forced. Maybe this was
less Barenboim’s piece than the first; maybe, however, as I suggested at the
start, no one pianist, not even Daniel Barenboim, could be expected
to perform both works convincingly in a single concert.
