West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
Purcell (ed. Britten) – Chacony in G minor
Adam Walaciński – Little Music of Autumn (British premiere)
John Woolrich – Quiddities
Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht, op.4
Members of the Britten Sinfonia:
Jacqueline Shave, Thomas Gould (violins)
Martin Outram, Claire Finnimore (violas)
Caroline Dearnley, Ben Chappell (violoncelli)
Nicholas Daniel (oboe/English horn)
This fourth and final Britten Sinfonia lunchtime concert of the 2008-9 season perforce followed a slightly different format from its predecessors. The pattern of having an established British composer curate a programme of chamber and ensemble music, including a work of his own and a commissioned work by a young composer, was disturbed by illness on the part of Pawel Mykietyn. Instead of his envisaged new work, we heard the British premiere of Krakow-based Adam Walaciński’s 1986 work, Little Music of Autumn. This seemed especially apt, given that the first concert of each tour has been given in Krakow, the second following, as again in this case, in Cambridge. Walaciński was unknown to me prior to this concert and the programme did not give much away beyond his year of birth, 1928. According to Grove, he started out as a violinist and was serving as chairman of the Krakow section of the Polish Composers’ Union at the time of composition. He has been a lecturer and professor in theory at Krakow University. A little further research suggests an equitable division between concert and film or theatre music in his œuvre. Scored for oboe, violin, viola, and ’cello, the work is described by Walaciński as ‘a small romantic piece written in the aleatoric technique. The oboe is the leading instrument – like a solitary wanderer against the background of a coloured landscape painted by whispering strings.’ This seemed to me an apt description, although without a score it was impossible to discern which elements were aleatory, or in what sense. Nicholas Daniel’s opening oboe solo, haunting in tone, was after a little while joined by shimmering, tremulous strings. Sounds of Bartók-like night music and other ‘effects’ joined the atmospheric mix; one might well have guessed that this was a composer of stage and film music. The oboe remained soulful and lyrical throughout, for which considerable credit should be given to Daniel’s performance.
Woolrich’s Quiddities was also evocative of a nocturnal landscape. Indeed, the composer had written that this work might alternatively have been titled ‘Lake Greifen’, after a short story by Robert Walser, in which the narrator swims in a small hidden lake and wonders what a darkened lake, under a sky full of stars, will be like. Commissioned for Nicholas Daniel and the Britten Sinfonia in 2005, the work received a well-deserved revival here, although it was my first hearing. It is scored for string quintet plus English horn. The arresting opening, with two ominous ’cellos playing arco, set against aggressive pizzicato violins and viola, prepares the way for the English horn’s entry and also presents thematic material for subsequent development. The work is sometimes elegiac yet never remotely sentimental, possessed of a rhythmic drive realised here with admirable precision. Considerable use is made of pizzicato strings, often with real menace. It is difficult to conceive of a superior performance, given the richness of string tone, the keenly modulated lyricism from Daniel, and the sense of a narrative that led us towards the piece’s uncertain ending. Perhaps there is another story yet to be told.
The concert had opened with one of the very finest works by England’s greatest composer, Henry Purcell. The authenticke coven has pretty much ensured that, nowadays, Purcell’s music is off bounds for modern instruments. It was therefore especially welcome not only to hear the G minor Chacony at all, given here in Britten’s excellent edition, but to hear a performance that treated the work as music rather than as an archaeological exhibit. I find it difficult to imagine that any performance will match Britten’s own recording, with the English Chamber Orchestra, but this one, for string quartet rather than the ECO’s string orchestra, was a splendid modern-day contender. Britten’s dynamic shading was relished, though never exaggerated. The work’s structural contours were apparent for all to hear, as, every bit as importantly, was its tragic emotional import. Jacqueline Shave could fairly be said to have led the other players, for this is not in any sense a Classical quartet, yet, as in a small orchestra, all players and their instruments contributed to the cumulative progress of a piece at least as dramatic as its counterparts in King Arthur and Dioclesian.
Verklärte Nacht, in its original sextet version, is of course another work evocative of night and landscape. The last time I had heard it in concert was a few years ago from members of the Staatskapelle Berlin. Whilst there is naturally no gainsaying the richness of tone of players from Daniel Barenboim’s band, this fine performance from the Britten Sinfonia perhaps had the dramatic edge. The opening was taken very slowly, impressing an insistent D minor – that most beloved tonality for the Second Viennese School – upon our consciousnesses and therefore preparing us for the tonal excursions on which the composer would lead us. The music eventually opened out into a full, post-Brahmsian sound, but what was perhaps most impressive about this performance was its almost Wagnerian musico-dramatic thrust and flexibility. Brahms’s influence will always be keenly felt in this work; it was good, however, to be reminded that Wagner’s example contributes more than Tristan-esque harmony. At times, the lines sounded almost vocal; the man and woman of Richard Dehmel’s poem might have been singing to one another. Such was the responsiveness of the players to each other, however, that this clearly remained chamber music. Not that this precluded tone-painting; if anything, it was enhanced. If one shut one’s eyes, one could almost see a moonlit forest. There were moments of truly transfigured stillness, which yet remained clearly integrated into the work’s structure. This was a late-Romantic rather than an expressionistic view of Schoenberg’s sextet: a valid choice, not least in the context of the rest of Woolrich’s programme, and a choice realised with great success.
This concert was recorded for subsequent broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Showing posts with label Nicholas Daniel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicholas Daniel. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Britten Sinfonia/Wigglesworth, 20 January 2009
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
Knussen – Songs without Voices: four pieces for eight instrumentalists, op.26 (1991-2)
Britten – Phantasy Quartet (1932)
Ryan Wigglesworth – Tenebrae (2008, British premiere)
Johann Strauss, arr. Schoenberg – Kaiserwalzer (1889, arr. 1925)
Britten Sinfonia
Jacqueline Shave (violin/director)
Miranda Dale (violin)
Martin Outram (viola)
Caroline Deamley (’cello)
Emer McDonough (flute)
Nicholas Daniel (oboe/English horn)
Joy Farrall (clarinet)
Stephen Bell (horn)
John Lenehan (piano)
Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)
This lunchtime concert was the second in the world premiere tour of Ryan Wigglesworth’s Tenebrae, so did not quite mark the work’s first performance, that honour having been bestowed upon Krakow two days earlier. Scored for two violins, viola, ’cello, flute, English horn, French horn, and piano, it was conducted by Wigglesworth himself. Nicholas Daniel proved an able advocate for the opening English horn solo, a feature of the work which provided a connection with the fourth of the Oliver Knussen pieces and, at a slight remove, the Britten quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and ’cello. There were dark shadows (tenebrae) but also menacing life – or should that simply be obscured life? – emerging from within those shadows. The piano part, performed commandingly by John Lenehan, punctuated such outbursts, as did telling silences. Wigglesworth clearly has a keen ear for harmony – and also for harmonic rhythm, the two not always going together. I liked the dramatic flow, perhaps in some sense related – but here I am merely speculating – to the Tenebrae Service or to the psalms recited therein? At any rate, no specific programme was required; this haunting and impressive piece can stand perfectly well upon its own merits.
Oliver Knussen’s Songs without voices had opened the programme, itself put together by Knussen. Scored for violin, viola, ’cello, flute, clarinet, English horn, French horn, and piano, these four miniatures once again received a fine performance under Wigglesworth’s baton. The first, Fantastico (Winter’s Foil) was almost literally buzzing with life and beautifully melodious too. In a sense, Schoenberg met Ravel, or the febrile combined with the sensuous; but this is not to imply anything other than Knussen’s own voice. With the second piece, Maestoso (Prairie Sunset), the music both became more angular and appeared to strain towards a broader (prairie?) canvas. Copland did not seem so very far away, especially in the stillness leading to something more ecstatic. The very short third piece, Leggiero (First Dandelion), was similar in some respects to the first, albeit with a very strong rhythmic profile and even more pronounced ‘French’ sonorities. These three songs, we learned from Knussen’s programme note, were each ‘a complete poem ... “set” syllable for instruments in the course of a movement’. The final song, however, is owed ‘to a more private lyrical impulse’, an English horn melody he wrote upon hearing of the death of Andrzej Panufnik. Nicholas Daniel’s opening invocation signalled a considerably darker piece, a lament even. His instrument was joined by the piano and subsequently the rest of the ensemble, but remained the principal voice throughout. That said, fantastic flute writing, a ruminative clarinet part, and more Romantic tones from strings and the horn also made their presence felt, bringing this distinguished work to a moving conclusion.
Britten’s Phantasy Quartet was obviously not conducted; nor would the final work be. Here, the relationship of Daniel’s oboe to the three string players helped mark out the work’s form with admirable clarity. To begin with, the oboe sounded very much as a solo instrument set against a bloc of three strings. As time went on, that initial distinction broke down somewhat – both in score and performance – and the stringed instruments acquired more clearly defined solo voices of their own. There was a pleasing depth to Martin Outram’s viola and a recognisably ‘English pastoral’ ecstasy to the high ’cello part, well projected by Caroline Dearnley. The section sat out by the oboe enabled these voices and that of Jacqueline Shave’s violin to develop further, before Daniel once again could spin his phantastical line, setting the scene for the final ’cello pizzicato subsiding into nothingness.
The only disappointment lay in the performance of Schoenberg’s transcription of Johann Strauss’s Kaiserwalzer. It is a delight, of course, and I have to admit preferring it to the original; less whipped cream allows one better to taste what lies beneath. Written for the Pierrot ensemble, plus second violin and viola, it should breathe the air of Viennese café society. On this occasion, the rhythmically insistent opening, lacking in rubato and Schwung, set an all-too-serious and often plodding precedent for what was to come. Strauss – and Schoenberg too – should waltz, not trudge. There were also occasional minor lapses in ensemble, something I had not noticed at all in the other works performed. Jacqueline Shave on first violin and Joy Farrall on clarinet seemed to be enjoying themselves but the other players would have benefited from smiling more, even if only internally. It was all rather effortful.
The concert has been recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Knussen – Songs without Voices: four pieces for eight instrumentalists, op.26 (1991-2)
Britten – Phantasy Quartet (1932)
Ryan Wigglesworth – Tenebrae (2008, British premiere)
Johann Strauss, arr. Schoenberg – Kaiserwalzer (1889, arr. 1925)
Britten Sinfonia
Jacqueline Shave (violin/director)
Miranda Dale (violin)
Martin Outram (viola)
Caroline Deamley (’cello)
Emer McDonough (flute)
Nicholas Daniel (oboe/English horn)
Joy Farrall (clarinet)
Stephen Bell (horn)
John Lenehan (piano)
Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)
This lunchtime concert was the second in the world premiere tour of Ryan Wigglesworth’s Tenebrae, so did not quite mark the work’s first performance, that honour having been bestowed upon Krakow two days earlier. Scored for two violins, viola, ’cello, flute, English horn, French horn, and piano, it was conducted by Wigglesworth himself. Nicholas Daniel proved an able advocate for the opening English horn solo, a feature of the work which provided a connection with the fourth of the Oliver Knussen pieces and, at a slight remove, the Britten quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and ’cello. There were dark shadows (tenebrae) but also menacing life – or should that simply be obscured life? – emerging from within those shadows. The piano part, performed commandingly by John Lenehan, punctuated such outbursts, as did telling silences. Wigglesworth clearly has a keen ear for harmony – and also for harmonic rhythm, the two not always going together. I liked the dramatic flow, perhaps in some sense related – but here I am merely speculating – to the Tenebrae Service or to the psalms recited therein? At any rate, no specific programme was required; this haunting and impressive piece can stand perfectly well upon its own merits.
Oliver Knussen’s Songs without voices had opened the programme, itself put together by Knussen. Scored for violin, viola, ’cello, flute, clarinet, English horn, French horn, and piano, these four miniatures once again received a fine performance under Wigglesworth’s baton. The first, Fantastico (Winter’s Foil) was almost literally buzzing with life and beautifully melodious too. In a sense, Schoenberg met Ravel, or the febrile combined with the sensuous; but this is not to imply anything other than Knussen’s own voice. With the second piece, Maestoso (Prairie Sunset), the music both became more angular and appeared to strain towards a broader (prairie?) canvas. Copland did not seem so very far away, especially in the stillness leading to something more ecstatic. The very short third piece, Leggiero (First Dandelion), was similar in some respects to the first, albeit with a very strong rhythmic profile and even more pronounced ‘French’ sonorities. These three songs, we learned from Knussen’s programme note, were each ‘a complete poem ... “set” syllable for instruments in the course of a movement’. The final song, however, is owed ‘to a more private lyrical impulse’, an English horn melody he wrote upon hearing of the death of Andrzej Panufnik. Nicholas Daniel’s opening invocation signalled a considerably darker piece, a lament even. His instrument was joined by the piano and subsequently the rest of the ensemble, but remained the principal voice throughout. That said, fantastic flute writing, a ruminative clarinet part, and more Romantic tones from strings and the horn also made their presence felt, bringing this distinguished work to a moving conclusion.
Britten’s Phantasy Quartet was obviously not conducted; nor would the final work be. Here, the relationship of Daniel’s oboe to the three string players helped mark out the work’s form with admirable clarity. To begin with, the oboe sounded very much as a solo instrument set against a bloc of three strings. As time went on, that initial distinction broke down somewhat – both in score and performance – and the stringed instruments acquired more clearly defined solo voices of their own. There was a pleasing depth to Martin Outram’s viola and a recognisably ‘English pastoral’ ecstasy to the high ’cello part, well projected by Caroline Dearnley. The section sat out by the oboe enabled these voices and that of Jacqueline Shave’s violin to develop further, before Daniel once again could spin his phantastical line, setting the scene for the final ’cello pizzicato subsiding into nothingness.
The only disappointment lay in the performance of Schoenberg’s transcription of Johann Strauss’s Kaiserwalzer. It is a delight, of course, and I have to admit preferring it to the original; less whipped cream allows one better to taste what lies beneath. Written for the Pierrot ensemble, plus second violin and viola, it should breathe the air of Viennese café society. On this occasion, the rhythmically insistent opening, lacking in rubato and Schwung, set an all-too-serious and often plodding precedent for what was to come. Strauss – and Schoenberg too – should waltz, not trudge. There were also occasional minor lapses in ensemble, something I had not noticed at all in the other works performed. Jacqueline Shave on first violin and Joy Farrall on clarinet seemed to be enjoying themselves but the other players would have benefited from smiling more, even if only internally. It was all rather effortful.
The concert has been recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Monday, 28 July 2008
Prom 15: Daniel/BBC SO/Robertson - Beethoven and Carter, 28 July 2008
Royal Albert Hall
Beethoven – Grosse Fuge, Op.133
Carter – Oboe Concerto
Beethoven – Symphony no.5 in C minor, Op.67
Nicholas Daniel (oboe)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson (conductor)
There are doubtless all sorts of connections to be made between Beethoven and Elliott Carter, to my mind the greatest American composer to date. However, I am not so sure that they were really made in this programme, notwithstanding the presence of that most ultra-modernist of Beethoven’s works, the Grosse Fuge. Instead, we had a well balanced if relatively short programme: nothing wrong with that, but it felt like a bit of a missed opportunity when one thinks what one might have chosen to follow the first two items. Perhaps the Fifth Symphony was there to boost the audience; if so, the ploy seemed to have worked, for there were few empty seats.
‘Though intended for string quartet,’ Barry Cooper wrote in his note for the Grosse Fuge, ‘the work can have an even more overwhelming effect when played, as tonight, by orchestral strings.’ I hesitate to disagree with so distinguished a Beethoven scholar, but disagree I do and strongly too. For me, some – though by no means all – of Beethoven’s radicalism is lost when the piece is transferred from a quartet, audibly and visibly straining at the bounds of what is possible, to the plusher sound of an orchestral string section. It is similar to the problem I have with the transcription of Verklärte Nacht; whilst I am happy to hear alternative versions, the real bite remains with the original. A Klemperer perhaps can make me change my mind momentarily when it comes to the Beethoven. However, despite this performance’s virtues, David Robertson is no Klemperer when it comes to Beethoven. The signs were promising: no half-hearted compromise with a chamber-size section, but full Romantic strings; if one is going to do this, one might as well do it properly. Violins were split, which paid off in conveying the echoes, imitations, and contrasts between the two violin parts. There was some beautifully hushed playing in the second of the three principal sections of the work: mysterious yet, unfortunately, also a little mushy. The double basses made a treasurable impact when they were included. And there was, in the final, compound duple section, an encouraging sense of fragmentation, of Beethoven bringing us to the very modern problematic of the unity of the work of art itself. The syncopations were well handled here, which added to the instability. And yet, the performance could have done with more of this throughout. It was good, yet it suffered a little from understatement. Whatever the Grosse Fuge may or should be, understated does not spring to mind.
Carter’s Oboe Concerto was written in 1986-7, shortly before he was eighty, so doubtless qualifies as relatively ‘early’, given the composer’s extraordinary late fecundity. It is written for solo oboe, a concertino group of four violas and percussionist, and orchestra, actually more of a chamber ensemble, comprising flute, clarinet, horn, trombone, two percussionists, and viola-less strings. Written in one continuous stretch, its twenty minutes or so nevertheless comprise something akin to the classical fast-slow-fast three-movement-structure of a concerto. The performers, all of them, did Carter proud. Indeed, it sounded as if this were a repertory piece, in which the players were as much at home as the composer with its modernity: just what a performance of new(-ish) music should be. Nicholas Daniel drew upon considerable twin reserves of musicality and virtuosity and blended them. He did not mask the sometimes extreme demands – the concerto was written for and inspired by Heinz Holliger, no less – but nor did he allow them to become his principal concern. Throughout, as with all of the players, there was sense to be made of the ever-changing and yet ever-present compositional line. Carter’s polyrhythms came across, as they should, although this is no mean feat, as the equivalent of melody in rhythm. Time played its tricks and kept its command, for which Robertson must be apportioned a great deal of credit. Carter’s skills as a colourist were not denied, the percussionist from the concertino group deserving especial mention in this respect. The sense of temporal progress and sonorous transformation as he switched from vibraphone to glockenspiel was an object lesson in rescuing his orchestral section from the charge of being mere purveyors of ‘effects’. But it was with the oboe alone that the concerto so memorably faded into nothingness.
What is one to do with Beethoven’s Fifth, given that most of us will have performances from Furtwängler, Klemperer, the Kleibers, Karajan, Böhm, etc., etc., burned into our memories? Robertson was quoted in the programme as saying, quite correctly, that we have ‘lost all sense of how radical Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony really is’. I wish that he had made it sound more so, for what I heard was a perfectly decent account, better than many of the merely perverse treatments it would receive today, yet never shocking and never truly inspiring. Once again, we had a good-sized orchestra, with sixteen first violins and other strings in proportion. Perhaps this should be partly attributed to the hall’s acoustic, but it rarely sounded as if we had so many. There was once again, I felt, a certain understatement to the performance, which is certainly not a quality for which I seek in this work. The first movement hurried along reasonably eventfully, but the splendidly implacable coda did not really seem to arise from what had gone before. Its true vehemence ought to have been unrelentingly present from the outset. And by vehemence I do not mean the unpleasant blaring we sometimes had to endure, here and during the scherzo, from the horns. The Andante was unquestionably con moto, perhaps a little much so, but there is plenty of room for different interpretations here. When it occasionally sounded too driven, I thought that Robertson overstepped the boundaries, but I suspect that many would have felt differently. He was successful in eliciting a sense of mystery from the orchestra and eventually a fine sense of momentum was built up. The scherzo followed immediately and at quite a breakneck tempo. This just about worked but the same tempo was simply too fast for the trio, in which the ’cellos and double basses sounded breathless. (A certain pay off, arguably, was the sense of connection with the Grosse Fuge.) Second – and rightly, final – time round, the scherzo purveyed an excellent sense of the ghostly, forcing one to listen closely to Beethoven’s still-wondrous scoring.
Unfortunately, mystery was quite absent from the humdrum transition to the finale, when this should sounds as one of the most extraordinary passages in all music. Day broke forth effectively enough, if a little on the fast side once again. However, the orchestra soon sounded somewhat tired. This was less so when repeated. There were some exultant moments in the finale and the piccolo shone as it should, yet there were equally some moments that were faltering or merely nondescript. I speak deliberately of ‘moments’, since the whole never quite added up, nor did it speak of the metaphysical. Karajan once advised Simon Rattle to ‘throw away’ his first hundred Beethoven Fifths, testament to what a difficult work this is to bring off. I have heard worse, much worse, but I have also heard much better, if mostly from great recordings of the past. Sometimes I wonder whether we really know Beethoven at all, although there is always Daniel Barenboim to put me right on that score.
Beethoven – Grosse Fuge, Op.133
Carter – Oboe Concerto
Beethoven – Symphony no.5 in C minor, Op.67
Nicholas Daniel (oboe)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson (conductor)
There are doubtless all sorts of connections to be made between Beethoven and Elliott Carter, to my mind the greatest American composer to date. However, I am not so sure that they were really made in this programme, notwithstanding the presence of that most ultra-modernist of Beethoven’s works, the Grosse Fuge. Instead, we had a well balanced if relatively short programme: nothing wrong with that, but it felt like a bit of a missed opportunity when one thinks what one might have chosen to follow the first two items. Perhaps the Fifth Symphony was there to boost the audience; if so, the ploy seemed to have worked, for there were few empty seats.
‘Though intended for string quartet,’ Barry Cooper wrote in his note for the Grosse Fuge, ‘the work can have an even more overwhelming effect when played, as tonight, by orchestral strings.’ I hesitate to disagree with so distinguished a Beethoven scholar, but disagree I do and strongly too. For me, some – though by no means all – of Beethoven’s radicalism is lost when the piece is transferred from a quartet, audibly and visibly straining at the bounds of what is possible, to the plusher sound of an orchestral string section. It is similar to the problem I have with the transcription of Verklärte Nacht; whilst I am happy to hear alternative versions, the real bite remains with the original. A Klemperer perhaps can make me change my mind momentarily when it comes to the Beethoven. However, despite this performance’s virtues, David Robertson is no Klemperer when it comes to Beethoven. The signs were promising: no half-hearted compromise with a chamber-size section, but full Romantic strings; if one is going to do this, one might as well do it properly. Violins were split, which paid off in conveying the echoes, imitations, and contrasts between the two violin parts. There was some beautifully hushed playing in the second of the three principal sections of the work: mysterious yet, unfortunately, also a little mushy. The double basses made a treasurable impact when they were included. And there was, in the final, compound duple section, an encouraging sense of fragmentation, of Beethoven bringing us to the very modern problematic of the unity of the work of art itself. The syncopations were well handled here, which added to the instability. And yet, the performance could have done with more of this throughout. It was good, yet it suffered a little from understatement. Whatever the Grosse Fuge may or should be, understated does not spring to mind.
Carter’s Oboe Concerto was written in 1986-7, shortly before he was eighty, so doubtless qualifies as relatively ‘early’, given the composer’s extraordinary late fecundity. It is written for solo oboe, a concertino group of four violas and percussionist, and orchestra, actually more of a chamber ensemble, comprising flute, clarinet, horn, trombone, two percussionists, and viola-less strings. Written in one continuous stretch, its twenty minutes or so nevertheless comprise something akin to the classical fast-slow-fast three-movement-structure of a concerto. The performers, all of them, did Carter proud. Indeed, it sounded as if this were a repertory piece, in which the players were as much at home as the composer with its modernity: just what a performance of new(-ish) music should be. Nicholas Daniel drew upon considerable twin reserves of musicality and virtuosity and blended them. He did not mask the sometimes extreme demands – the concerto was written for and inspired by Heinz Holliger, no less – but nor did he allow them to become his principal concern. Throughout, as with all of the players, there was sense to be made of the ever-changing and yet ever-present compositional line. Carter’s polyrhythms came across, as they should, although this is no mean feat, as the equivalent of melody in rhythm. Time played its tricks and kept its command, for which Robertson must be apportioned a great deal of credit. Carter’s skills as a colourist were not denied, the percussionist from the concertino group deserving especial mention in this respect. The sense of temporal progress and sonorous transformation as he switched from vibraphone to glockenspiel was an object lesson in rescuing his orchestral section from the charge of being mere purveyors of ‘effects’. But it was with the oboe alone that the concerto so memorably faded into nothingness.
What is one to do with Beethoven’s Fifth, given that most of us will have performances from Furtwängler, Klemperer, the Kleibers, Karajan, Böhm, etc., etc., burned into our memories? Robertson was quoted in the programme as saying, quite correctly, that we have ‘lost all sense of how radical Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony really is’. I wish that he had made it sound more so, for what I heard was a perfectly decent account, better than many of the merely perverse treatments it would receive today, yet never shocking and never truly inspiring. Once again, we had a good-sized orchestra, with sixteen first violins and other strings in proportion. Perhaps this should be partly attributed to the hall’s acoustic, but it rarely sounded as if we had so many. There was once again, I felt, a certain understatement to the performance, which is certainly not a quality for which I seek in this work. The first movement hurried along reasonably eventfully, but the splendidly implacable coda did not really seem to arise from what had gone before. Its true vehemence ought to have been unrelentingly present from the outset. And by vehemence I do not mean the unpleasant blaring we sometimes had to endure, here and during the scherzo, from the horns. The Andante was unquestionably con moto, perhaps a little much so, but there is plenty of room for different interpretations here. When it occasionally sounded too driven, I thought that Robertson overstepped the boundaries, but I suspect that many would have felt differently. He was successful in eliciting a sense of mystery from the orchestra and eventually a fine sense of momentum was built up. The scherzo followed immediately and at quite a breakneck tempo. This just about worked but the same tempo was simply too fast for the trio, in which the ’cellos and double basses sounded breathless. (A certain pay off, arguably, was the sense of connection with the Grosse Fuge.) Second – and rightly, final – time round, the scherzo purveyed an excellent sense of the ghostly, forcing one to listen closely to Beethoven’s still-wondrous scoring.
Unfortunately, mystery was quite absent from the humdrum transition to the finale, when this should sounds as one of the most extraordinary passages in all music. Day broke forth effectively enough, if a little on the fast side once again. However, the orchestra soon sounded somewhat tired. This was less so when repeated. There were some exultant moments in the finale and the piccolo shone as it should, yet there were equally some moments that were faltering or merely nondescript. I speak deliberately of ‘moments’, since the whole never quite added up, nor did it speak of the metaphysical. Karajan once advised Simon Rattle to ‘throw away’ his first hundred Beethoven Fifths, testament to what a difficult work this is to bring off. I have heard worse, much worse, but I have also heard much better, if mostly from great recordings of the past. Sometimes I wonder whether we really know Beethoven at all, although there is always Daniel Barenboim to put me right on that score.
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