Prom 45: Capuçon/OSR/Nott - Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky, 16 August 2018

Royal Albert Hall

Debussy: Jeux

Ravel, orch. Yan Maresz: Violin Sonata in G major (UK premiere)

Stravinsky: Petrushka (1911 version)

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

Jonathan Nott (conductor)

It was surprising to learn that, in its centenary year, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was making its Proms debut. Still, better late than never – and at least we have good reason to look forward to this orchestra’s return, unlike the SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg, whose first performance three years ago was already known to be its last. The OSR’s new music director, Jonathan Nott, is no stranger to the Proms; I have fond memories, for instance, of a 2013 Bamberg Symphony Orchestra concert of Lachenmann and Mahler. Here, ahead of the release of their first recording together (Debussy, Strauss, and Ligeti), they brought one of those pieces, Debussy’s Jeux, together with the British premiere of a new orchestration of Ravel and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Surely the most radical of Debussy’s works, Jeux commenced with due paradox: mysterious, atmospheric, yet clear as a bell, questioning and deconstructing whatever meaning might remain in the clichés, metaphors, even mere descriptions we chose to employ. It seemed to cast something of an aural glance towards Petrushka and even, perhaps, to The Firebird, as well as to roughly contemporaneous Schoenberg, and yet, in its flickering multiplicities of melody, timbre, and their interaction, also look forward to many subsequent milestones in twentieth-century musical history. It flowed; it told a story of sorts, which may or may not have been closely identified with the Diaghilev scenario Debussy derided as idiotic. It danced too, in all manner of ways, kaleidoscopically – if that makes any sense (and even, perhaps, if it does not).

Renaud Capuçon joined the orchestra for Yan Maresz’s orchestration of Ravel’s G major Violin Sonata. An opening oboe solo, perhaps inevitably, recalled Le Tombeau de Couperin, not just in itself but also in its interaction with the violin. The first movement as a whole somewhat puzzled me: it was all very sensitively done, yet I could not really discern the point. Capuçon seemed to be playing his part from the Sonata, which of course he was, but the reason for no longer having a piano, for transformation from a chamber music context remained elusive. There were a few exceptions, for instance echoing between soloist and orchestral violins, when something a little more like a concerto was suggested; they nevertheless remained exceptions. The blues second movement fared better, from its opening orchestral pizzicati – really ‘strummed’ – onwards, Maresz’s jazzy use of trumpets included. The orchestra, as it swelled, sounded more like that of Ravel’s own G major Piano Concerto, much to its advantage. The finale likewise mirrored its concerto counterpart, again to good effect. Capuçon’s virtuosity proved as striking as one might have expected; his, moreover, was not the only virtuosity to be heard. His encore, the all-too-familiar ‘Meditation’ from Massenet’s Thaïs, reminded us that sometimes a piece’s original forces are to be preferred.

There seems only one reason to perform the 1947 version of Petrushka: economy, in most cases a false one. It was 1911 we heard here in a performance that constantly surprised, made me listen anew. The Shrovetide Fair came into view colourful, expectant, percussion unusually prominent: this was a performance that looked forward, never back. An automated quality to the barrel organ music suggested not only Lulu – does it not always? – but Ligeti too. Likewise, one could hear with unusual clarity Rite of Spring-like cells, both inviting and forbidding. Marionettes trod the boards of our consciousness: not entirely unlike zombies from Mahler, if with a very different foundation. In many ways, it sounded closer to Stravinsky’s own dryness in this work – partly, I know, a matter of recording – than to the relative luxuriance of Boulez. Sometimes, perhaps, that was down to an orchestral sound that remained on the thin side, but it was surely an interpretative decision too. Nott’s tempi sometimes proved unexpected, yet always compelled; much the same might be said of the truly phantasmagorical return of the Shrovetide Fair. There were ghosts in these machines and, most likely, machines in these ghosts.

Salzburg Mozartwoche (2): Capuçon/Armstrong - Mozart, 30 January 2016

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Violin Sonata no.20 in C major, KV 303/293c

Rondo in A minor, KV 511
Violin Sonata no.21 in E minor, KV 304/300c
Violin Sonata no.36 in F major, KV 547
Violin Sonata no.26 in B-flat major, KV 378/317d

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Kit Armstrong (piano)

This was the second of two recitals from Renaud Capuçon and Kit Armstrong this year; four more, I think, are to follow in 2017. Menahem Pressler had been scheduled to partner Capuçon; no one could reasonably have been disappointed by his replacement. One of Capuçon’s great strengths as a violinist, it seems to me, is his ability to adapt his performance according to his partners; there is no one-size-fits-all approach. That is not to say that he is simply a chameleon, far from it, but he is a chamber musician (even when playing with an orchestra) who listens and responds as well as leads. The partnership with Armstrong – whose Mozart playing seemed to me very much in the line of Alfred Brendel, with whom he has studied – sounded very much as a meeting of equals. The preposterous claim, often trotted out, that Mozart’s violin sonatas do not work on modern instruments, that there is somehow a problem with the balance, was less defeated than forestalled. The idea would never have occurred to anyone who was not in thrall to ideology; sadly, that means we shall hear it time and time again, from people who cannot rely on their performances to make the point.

A cultivated tone was heard from the outset in the C major Sonata, KV 303/293c. The first movement’s Adagio sections were properly leisurely, their Molto allegro counterparts brilliant, yet never losing that aristocratic cultivation. Balance was ideal. The harmonic surprises of the Adagio music spoke without underlining. In the ensuing Tempo di Meneuetto, quicksilver transformations were integrated into the longer line, whilst remaining well characterised. A case in point would be those extraordinary piano left-hand eruptions, which turn out instead to be an exercise in skittishness, over almost as soon as they have begun. In both movements, Mozart’s formal experimentation was striking.

Armstrong then played the great A minor Rondo, again striking a fine balance between the need individually to voice every note and the demands of the phrase as a whole. That is not to say that longer-term structure was lacking, but it seemed to emerge from the material, rather than being imposed upon it. The performance’s Classicism, in Brendel’s line, did not preclude darker Romanticism, but this was not an overtly emotional reading. Indeed, intimacy was its hallmark.

The E minor Sonata, KV 304/300c opened with almost Schubertian sadness, then taking quite a different path: elegant yet deeply felt. Neither musician showed any need to shout about the emotional content; that did not mean that it was not present. Capuçon’s singing tone sounded well-nigh perfect to me. The second movement, again a Tempo di Menuetto, could hardly be more different from that in the C major Sonata. The players took it more slowly than often on hears, very much to its benefit, permitting pathos in melody and harmony alike to tell. This is a movement to take one’s breath away – and it did, tragic without underlining its tragedy.

The first movement of the ‘Sonata for beginners’ charmed without trying to be something it was not. Beautifully played, it sang and it smiled. Brilliant display and unshowy musicality characterised the second movement. There was likewise a winning simplicity to the finale, although here I felt the piano playing at times a little undercharacterised, even bland, perhaps most surprisingly in the minor-mode variation. I had no such qualms, however, with respect to the violin performance.

The B-flat Sonata was very much in the line of the first-half performances. Phrasing was of such a ‘natural’ quality that it doubtless belied a great deal of thought and effort. Something a little more ‘Romantic’ would not necessarily have gone amiss in the second movement from the piano, the notes occasionally appearing more important than their connections; that should not, however, be exaggerated. The complexity of Mozart’s writing shone through in any case. The Rondeau was more ebullient; given the nature of the movement, how could it not be? But it was more than that; the piano part sounded relished, even loved. Once again, we seemed to hear an ideal partnership. Capuçon’s elegance seemed once again to have been liberated.

Capuçon/LSO/Berg - Webern, Berg, and Strauss, 24 January 2016

Barbican Hall

Webern – Im Sommerwind

Berg – Violin Concerto
Strauss – Ein Heldenleben, op.40

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

London Symphony Orchestra

François-Xavier Roth (conductor) 

 

I enjoyed this concert very much, my only cavils being the Barbican acoustic – especially at climaxes: a new hall cannot come soon enough! – and a doubtless curmudgeonly wish to have heard some more characteristic Webern. I do not think for a minute that this was the case here, Im Sommerwind finding its natural home with Strauss, but I cannot help but wonder whether some performances of it and, to a certain extent, of the Passacaglia, op.1, happen because they enable orchestras or conductors to have played Webern without really having done so. It is fascinating to hear Webern’s ‘Idyll’, but mostly for the fact that it really does not sound anything like his mature œuvre. It seems to wishful thinking to claim to detect seeds of the future, whereas there is more of a case to be made with the Passacaglia. Its originality was revealed being quite contrary to that of later works; intriguingly, the more inept passages tend to be the more original, perhaps experiments from which he learned and which he thus never repeated. The LSO and François-Xavier Roth nevertheless relished it for what it is, producing a gloriously Straussian sound, highlighting indirectly that Webern could surely have never pursued this path, even if he had wished to do so. The sound of that extraordinary chord, though: it was worth coming to the concert for its sake alone.

 

From apprentice work to towering mature masterpiece, and in a reversal of preconceptions, from ‘late Romantic’ work and performance to something far more ‘modernist’: Berg’s Violin Concerto, for which Renaud Capuçon joined the orchestra. Capuçon and Roth seemed very much of a similar mind, offering a highly dramatic performance, in no sense hidebound to performing tradition. Under Roth’s direction, the opening – what splendidly characterful woodwind playing from the LSO! – conveyed a real sense of the post-Wozzeck laboratory. Berg is far more ‘difficult’ than he is often given credit for; as ever, we should do well not to confuse style and idea. Both conductor and orchestra offered great orchestral clarity; that enhances rather than detracts from the labyrinthine quality of Berg’s invention. Indeed, both soloist and conductor conveyed a very strong sense of the Wagnerian melos; our thread through the labyrinth. Capuçon selected from a commendably wide palette; he can paint in silver as well as gold, which heighted the impact of the full, truly glorious ‘Romantic’ tone when we heard it. Capuçon selected from a commendably wide palette; he can paint in silver as well as gold, which heighted the impact of the full, truly glorious ‘Romantic’ tone when we heard it. I loved Roth’s – and the LSO’s – way with the Mahlerian dance rhythms: ironic and yet affectionate. The ending of the Allegretto section and thus of the first part seems tricky to get right; all too often, it sounds over-emphatic, but not here. And the great contrast – how could it be otherwise? – with the Allegro opening of the second part was, above all, dramatically meaningful, the dazzling ferocity of Capuçon’s playing very much part of that. Indeed, I cannot recall hearing this music imbued with quite such urgency. Again, the orchestral dances were wonderfully apparent, although quite rightly, they seemed to have left Mahler behind: Lulu came to mind, even, dare I suggest it, Stravinsky. There was for me here an unabashed modernity that truly convinced and which made the appearance of Bach all the more moving and meaningful. It was not that the work lost what we might call its ‘nostalgia’, but that the performance both questioned and made sense of it.

 

Ein Heldenleben continued the path of the first half, both enjoyable and thought-provoking. I liked the way Roth did not wait for silence; he simply turned to the orchestra and began, almost as if clicking a switch, although there was certainly nothing mechanical about what followed. This is such a difficult piece to bring off, the rest of the work all too readily overshadowed by the opening; not for one moment did that seem to be the case here. Perhaps the seeds for that actually lay in Roth’s way with the opening, the ‘Hero’, who had swagger, to be sure, but plenty of light and shade too, also a flexibility which simply sounded right. The LSO was on splendid form throughout, heightening a growing conviction in my mind that both work and performance were essentially ‘about’ music and musical performance. Adversaries as piquant as one could hope for seemed to necessitate an almost Elgarian string consolation. Throughout, the orchestra could sound vividly pictorial, but never just that; under Roth’s leadership, it maintained an intense, ever-changing, and yet coherent sense of musical drama. Roman Simovic’s violin solos were not only technically and emotionally right. In themselves and in their orchestral context, they seemed to be telling a captivating story, even if it were a story one could not necessarily put into words, or which at the very least could not be exhausted by a programme. Just as Strauss’s operas are so often about opera, here the tone-poem seemed to be about tone-poetry.

The great orchestral-phantasmagorical passages sounded, despite the acoustic, to be judged well-nigh perfectly, Strauss’s materialism – this could never have been Webern’s way! – relished. (How we still far too often misunderstand Strauss, his æsthetics, and his æstheticism!) The battle seemed both to have a great deal at stake musically yet also to be a game, a game, I felt, we were intended to enjoy; there were no metaphysics. Roth’s shaping of the work convinced just as much as Daniel Barenboim’s very different London performance had last year, the appearance of Don Juan sounding as properly climactic as I think I have heard, highlighting the extraordinary originality of the music that follows. Whatever the non-redemptive force might be that is hymned at the end – surely, just as in Strauss's operas, it is music! – it spoke wisely, even if, arguably particularly if, we actually might believe in redemption. It was possessed of just the right sense of irony, quite without sentimentality, and thus had no need to shout its presence, nor to shout about itself.

 

Beethoven violin sonatas (3) - Capuçon/Braley, 9 November 2014

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Violin Sonata no.8 in G major, op.30 no.3

Violin Sonata no.9 in A major, op.47, ‘Kreutzer’

Violin Sonata no.10 in G major, op.96

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Frank Braley (piano)

 

When writing on the first concert in this series, I tempted fate or rather the Almighty, by saying that, barring an act of God I should be hearing all three. Transport for London sprang into action on 7 November, to prevent me from attending the second. However, I almost feel that I could have reviewed it anyway, so similar were my responses to the Thursday evening and Sunday afternoon performances. In the broadest terms, Renaud Capuçon’s playing remained a joy and a perceptive joy at that; Frank Braley’s generally anonymous contribution remained a mystery in Beethoven of all composers.

 

A quicksilver opening promised good things for the G major sonata, op.30 no.3. Braley remained second fiddle, as it were, but he seemed less reticent, if still far too polite. Capuçon offered the sweetest of tone and, more importantly still, a true sense of what Wagner would have called the melos of the work. Motivic tension registered in the first movement’s exposition, especially second time round. The development was over in a flash, but accomplished its mission; the recapitulation was experienced at least as much as a second development, at least insofar as the violin part were concerned. The second movement flowed nicely, benefiting from beautiful – and meaningful – gradation in violin tone. If only either here or in the finale, Braley had matched Capuçon in expressive range and formal dynamism. From cheekiness to truly Beethovenian vehemence, it was all there – in the violin.

 

The Kreutzer opened grandly, full of potentiality. Braley sounded stronger too, though again he soon retreated into the background. Despite his reticence, though, the first movement’s performance remained urgent. And how one marvelled at the technique, tone quality, and dead-centred intonation of the violinist – all in expressive service. Once again, then, Beethoven’s minor-mode daemon made its presence felt, with due obsessiveness and humanity. Braley was somewhat more assertive in the recapitulation – and what a difference that made, apparently even pushing Capuçon to run the extra thrilling mile. Much to my surprise, Braley often sounded heavy-handed in the slow movement. Light and shade were too often missing. I found much of it on the fast side too, missing the rapt quality that is surely necessary here. Whilst it progressed pleasantly, even enjoyably, sublimity was not on offer, at least not until the greater depth Capuçon discovered in the minore variation, perhaps suggestive of Schubert, and its successor. The finale sounded similar in character to that of the earlier G major sonata, though more boisterous – perhaps partly on account of the greater need for releases. There was no doubt that this was the composer of the Waldstein Sonata, the Fifth Piano Concerto, the Fifth Symphony. If only… well, you know the proviso by now.

 

A different, decidedly ‘later’, if not quite ‘late’ voice was, quite rightly, to be heard in op.96. The first movement sounded apparently both simpler and more fragmentary; there was something undeniably elusive to the performance, which reminded me of Adorno’s thesis of Beethoven’s renunciation of symphonic mastery in his music of this period. This first movement revealed strange but not unvariegated placidity, or so it seemed. There was a touching dignity, vulnerability, and again strangeness to its successor. The performance captured well an introversion that could not help but attempt, with ambiguous success, to turn outward. In context, the scherzo burst forth as necessary contrast, though it would have done still more so, had the piano equalled the violin in character. It was difficult to avoid the sense of a ‘late’, bagatelle-like quality, with equally striking eighteenth-century reminiscence. The finale then offered an experience of terse, would-be ‘simplicity’. Perhaps it might at times have benefited from a more rarefied air, but relative straightforwardness had its own rewards.

Beethoven violin sonatas (1): Capuçon/Braley, 6 November 2014

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Violin Sonata no.1 in D major, op.12 no.1

Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.12 no.2

Violin Sonata no.3 in E-flat major, op.12 no.3

Violin Sonata no.4 in A minor, op.23

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Frank Braley (piano)

 

Three concerts over four days: Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley will perform the ten Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin. Barring an act of God, I shall be attending them all. They have opted for a strictly chronological presentation; there are arguments either way, though I admit that I tend to veer towards a more imaginative approach to programming, such as Daniel Barenboim offered when, not so long ago, he performed all the thirty-two piano sonatas next door at the Royal Festival Hall. There are, though, as I said arguments either way; here Beethoven’s development will be more clearly the theme.

The opening D major arpeggios of the first sonata sounded bright, suggesting an adventure to come, not that there is anything especially jejune to this work. A poised second subject promised equally good things. For the only time this evening, Capuçon’s intonation left something to be desired, though by the time the exposition was repeated such (relatively minor) problems had long since been banished. That repeat also benefited from a more dynamic approach to form. A little squareness arguably goes with Beethoven’s territory at this stage, but there are degrees when it comes to performance. There was a nice sense of surprise to the opening of the development, recapturing that initial sense of wonder. A spring in Braley’s step, or rather under his hands, helped its progress. The recapitulation was properly intensified, though here and indeed throughout, I missed a true sense of interaction between the two artists – perhaps surprisingly so, given how often they have collaborated. Braley seemed too much the ‘accompanist’ in that movement, but certainly did in the next. However, now Capuçon’s golden-age tone production came into its own, likewise his telling phrasing. Beethoven’s ornamental, but not merely ornamental, variation form flowered beautifully. Minor-key turbulence registered without the performers trying to make it into something that it is not, or cannot be. Catchiness to the rondo theme was well captured, especially by Capuçon. By his side, Braley sounded a little plodding; surely he might have made more of Beethoven’s modulations. Still, there was considerably joy to be had in hearing the fire in the violinist’s performance, quite devoid of attention-seeking ‘devices’.

 

The A major sonata opened in spirited fashion, with exquisite variation – meaningfully so – with respect to articulation. Grace and concision marked out its character, not least in contrast to the first movement of its predecessor. And Capuçon offered vibrato to die for! It was he, moreover, who really seemed to relish the expansion of Beethoven’s tonal plan, especially during the development section, though Braley handled well the lead-in to the recapitulation. What a pity, then, that some members of the audience saw fit to applaud at the movement’s close! Perhaps it was a greater pity, though, that Braley’s playing in the slow movement was so prosaic, generally struggling to maintain a longer line and to provide formal impetus. Capuçon could ‘fill in’ many of the ‘gaps’, as it were, but that is not really the point. Beethoven’s marking notwithstanding, I felt – perhaps wrongly – that the finale would have benefited from a little more bite. Capuçon again proved the more dramatic artist.

 

One realised pretty much immediately the grander scale of Beethoven’s ambition and achievement in the third sonata. Idiosyncrasies – where would Beethoven be without them? – were conveyed without exaggeration. I still wished for more of a ‘voice’ from the pianist, but he certainly seemed more responsive to his partner. Again, we had to suffer applause at the end of the first movement – this time from a single person, who was clearly acting so as to attract attention, seemingly willing the disapproval that inevitably came. The next movement offered playing ardent and intimate by turns from Capuçon; if only Braley had proved so flexible. There was, however, something closer to an equal partnership in the finale, even though Capuçon still seemed willing to take greater risks and better able to communicate the melos of the work. His was splendidly variegated playing, with considerable fire.

Beethoven’s tragic daemon announced itself properly in the A minor sonata. It seemed also to aid a process of ‘opening up’ on Braley’s part; this was to my mind unquestionably his best performance. Concision, motivic and in more broadly formal terms, registered strongly from both players. There was vehemence, which never so much threatened to tip into vulgar melodrama; this, quite rightly, remained refined playing. Counterpoint was stylishly handled in the second movement, which as a whole offered telling contrast between its predecessor and successor. That is not to say it was simply an oasis; experimental particularities told too, albeit well integrated into the greater picture. The same might be said of the finale, which moved highly convincingly towards closure – both of the work and of the recital. There was true virtuosic fire to be heard from Capuçon, as if offering a trailer for the Kreutzer. That, however, will have to wait until Sunday.

 

 

Capuçon/LPO/Saraste - Schumann and Bruckner, 9 April 2014

Royal Festival Hall

Schumann – Violin Concerto in D minor, WoO 23

Bruckner – Symphony no.8 in C major

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Jukka-Pekka Saraste (conductor)

 

The Schumann Violin Concerto remains a problematical work. Too good to discard, not quite coherent enough ever – yet? – entirely to convince, it hovers on the edge of the repertoire. Renaud Capuçon, the LPO, and Jukka-Pekka Saraste made a very good case for it. The opening orchestral tutti sounded properly symphonic – Schumann-symphonic, that is, with various hints of the composer’s symphonies. And when Capuçon entered, we were treated to a performance that was not only sweet-toned, but which clearly knew where the work was going, insofar as that be possible. Indeed, whilst remaining characteristic, this was a solo performance that nudged the work closer to Brahms, no bad thing at all, especially for a violin concerto. There were times when Saraste seemed a little too much the mere ‘accompanist’: partly a consequence of the work, though only partly so. Yet they should not be exaggerated; this was in most respects an excellent performance from both soloist and orchestra. The slow movement seemed just ‘right’ in terms of tempo and general mood. That is not to say that it could not be done differently, but rather that it convinced, again insofar as that be possible. Poised nicely between chamber and orchestral music, the movement as a whole benefited from the example of give and take afforded by solo violin and cello. A relatively small orchestra could, moreover, call upon weightier tone when required. If the transition to the finale did not convince, then I am not sure there is much more the performers could have done. Once settled down, it again worked well, Saraste’s ear for harmony and rhythm especially propitious. Throughout, of course, Capuçon’s well-nigh Old World style worked its wonders.

 

Such a work offers no mean first half, when the second is Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. I find myself rather in two minds about Saraste’s performance, intriguing and somewhat unconvincing in more or less equal measure. (Such is not a comment upon the orchestral performance as such, which, bar a little evident tiredness towards the end of the finale, was less ambiguous in its quality.)  The first movement, marked Allegro moderato, was not necessarily excessively fast, but certainly sounded more Allegro than I can recall having heard previously. That need not have been a problem; indeed, in many ways it proved refreshing. But there were times when greater flexibility would have been in order. Such, after all, is the nature of Bruckner’s sonata forms and ‘deformations’. Urgency, then, was welcome, but not at the expense of variety within unity. A few moments of (relative) stillness seemed to look forward to Mahler, but it was not always clear how we had arrived there. As a consequence of that movement’s swift tempo, the scherzo came as less of a contrast, more of a continuation (perhaps not entirely like Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, at least for those of us who continue to prefer placing the scherzo second in that work). Here, rhythm and harmony were better aligned; it was rather impressive. However, the trio relaxed in the wrong sense; rather than offering a degree of relief, it seemed merely to meander.

 

The slow movement was on the swift side again, though not unreasonably so. There was some beautiful playing from the strings in particular, harps included. Saraste’s conception might have be considered ‘objective’, though I think that is probably a misnomer. There was certainly for the most part a general sense of shape, but that did not always translate into formal dynamism. All the more difficult, I know, in a slow movement, but then, that is what a conductor is for. The brass, here and the finale, sometimes displayed a tendency towards undue loudness. My overriding question remained, however: what does this, or at least might this, mean? Saraste seemed less enigmatic than uninterested. For the most part, the finale proved convincing. Notwithstanding those few slips previously mentioned and a certain brass crudity at times, the LPO offered a powerful and in many ways subtle performance. There was a good deal of light and shade, allied to the general progression of the musical argument. (And yes, Bruckner-sceptics, there is a musical argument, if not of a Brahmsian variety!) Schubert seemed to haunt a number of passages, the movement torn between such backward glances and something more modernistic. Moreover, the ambiguity of major-mode passages registered splendidly; there was still battle to be done. Alas, much of this very good work was undone by Saraste’s bizarre rush to the finish, almost as if embarrassed by the final peroration. It went for nothing, not even superficially exciting: a great pity.

 

 

Capuçon/Buniatishvili: Brahms, Bartók, and Beethoven, 14 January 2014

Wigmore Hall

Brahms – Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.100

Bartók – Violin Sonata no.2
Beethoven – Violin Sonata no.5 in F major, op.24, ‘Spring’

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Khatia Buniatishvili (piano)

 

This proved to be an outstanding recital. The first movement of Brahms’s A major sonata was perhaps a little more tentative than the rest, Renaud Capuçon taking a little while to get into full flow, but that is really the only cavil that I can muster. Capuçon’s partner, Khatia Buniatishvili, made her presence felt straight away, spreading some of the piano chords in a way that took one back to what, despite the cliché, one can hardly but think of as a golden age of pianism. The chastity of the opening to the first movement suggested assemblage of building blocks; it was an intriguing alternative to being plunged immediately into the thick of it. If the basic tempo were a little slower, more reflective, than one often hears, that served to remind us that Brahms’s marking is not merely Allegro but Allegro amabile; I found it very convincing, and there was in any case a great deal of flexibility, not for its own sake, but with sound musical justification. Real passion was to be heard, but the hushed moments were just as telling. Once Capuçon was fully in his stride, his tone and vibrato, perfectly allied to bowing, could not have been better judged. Moreover, both players ensured that we were fully aware of the extraordinary concision of this first movement. In the second movement, Capuçon’s portamenti – never excessive, yet certainly present – and general suavity likewise put me in mind of an earlier generation of violinists: we might almost have been listening to Thibaud and Cortot. Again, the Andante tranquillo probably took a little more time than often, but in context, the tempo seemed just ‘right’. The kinship of Brahms’s piano writing with his late piano pieces sounded closer than ever, whilst the Vivace sections emerged as true trios, teeming with life yet never rushed. Brahms’s score breathed, beguiled, and most importantly, intrigued. One sensed in each phrase a wealth of possibilities which, after the event, but only after the event, could only ever have been resolved in one way: Hegel’s owl of Minerva only spreading its wings at dusk. The ghostliness of the Vivace reprise hinted at the spirit of Beethoven (the Fifth Symphony?); so did the final bloom. And there was real danger in the performance: at no point did it sound over-rehearsed, the players clearly reacting to each other. The final movement opened as if a continuation of what had gone before rather than a new beginning, yet a heightened sense of Romantic fantasy brought novelty enough. Again, the player’s admirable metrical flexibility, allied to clear motivic understanding, proved a well-nigh ideal combination. I should love to hear them in Schoenberg and Webern.

 

A myriad of colours announced themselves in the opening bars of Bartók’s second sonata, those bars offering a wealth of possibilities to be taken up in what followed: harmonically, rhythmically, melodically as well, indeed in terms of every parameter. A guiding spirit quite properly seemed to be the dialectic between freedom and determinism, heightened by a febrile tension in performance such as one only rarely hears. In context, one heard Bartók’s music as more post-Brahmsian than one might otherwise do. Line and voicing evoked Bartok’s concerto writing for both instruments; there was quiet as well as virtuosic integrity here. Much the same might be said of the second movement. An especially admirable quality was the way in which rhythm emerged not, as too often seems to be the case in such music, as something ‘in itself’, but musically inextricable from the other characteristics of the musical material and its expression. The shifting between moods, those crucial moments of transition, showed apparently irreconcilable material to be anything but. Last but not least, the sheer musical charisma of Capuçon and Buniatishvili had me mesmerised from beginning to end.

 

Beethoven’s Spring Sonata sounded from the outset – and again, the cliché will have to be forgiven, or at least endured – newly-minted. Capuçon and Buniatishvili lived and expressed the formal dynamism that too often is lacking in modern Beethoven performances, and without detriment to expressive detail. This was an urgency founded in harmony and motivic development, not in the false friend of the metronome. The moment of the exposition’s repeat thus announced itself as veritably heart-breaking: a genuine yet forlorn attempt to return to a Mozartian paradise that was now unattainable. By contrast, the initiation of the development section somehow registered as a true surprise, even though one knew it was coming, Haydn’s influence continuing to run deep. Capuçon’s vigorous annunciation of this section served to propel the rest of the movement; it was really quite something to hear Beethoven apparently reborn like this. And then, the recapitulation, which simply took one’s breath away: it might almost have been Schubert. That was not all, however, for the intensity of Beethoven’s thematic working had us feel that this was almost a second development, no mere ‘return’. Such, moreover, was the palpable, at times frankly erotic, tension that this oft-misunderstood sonata might have been an offshoot of Don Giovanni. The slow movement gloried in a sense of communion with Nature that undoubtedly looked forward to the Pastoral Symphony. That communion was attained not least through the players’ unerring sense of melos, which took in both post-Mozartian profusion and Haydn’s rigorous economy of means, whilst remaining true to Beethoven’s soul itself. The scherzo, immediately attacked, sounded with all that febrile intensity experienced in the Bartók sonata; it proved as concise and as expressive as anything in Webern. Beethoven’s finale was given a properly loving performance that yet never indulged. Accents were played with, to just the right extent. It teemed with life, driven by harmony rather than the externally-applied shock-tactics of the ‘authentic’ brigade. And crucially, it possessed the weight of a finale. It was difficult not to think that a great Beethovenian such as Daniel Barenboim, even Furtwängler, would have approved.

Capuçons/COE/Haitink - Brahms, 27 November 2013

Grote Zaal, Concertgebouw

Concerto for violin and cello in A minor, op.102

Symphony no.1 in C minor, op.68

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Gautier Capuçon (cello)

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Bernard Haitink (conductor)

 

Nothing anyone says will prepare a newcomer for the acoustic of the Concertgebouw. This was my first visit, and I hope it will be the first of many. (There will certainly be at least one more, a second Brahms concert.) I shall not try to describe the sound, suffice to say that it must be the warmest, most rounded I have heard, with the possible exception of the very different Musikverein. Such things come to naught without musical excellence, of course, but once again a visit abroad, or even out of London, makes one realise how unfortunate we are in terms of orchestral-size concert halls.

 

It was a chamber orchestra we heard on this occasion, not a small chamber orchestra, but one of what I should think of as Mozartian proportions, with a string section extending down from twelve first violins to four double basses. (Not, I hasten to add, that Mozart cannot sound wonderful with a larger orchestra!) Before hearing this concert, I should have been something of a sceptic concerning chamber-orchestral Brahms. Doubtless the warmth of the acoustic played its part, but so did the crack players of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. There was not a single occasion during the Double Concerto when I wished for a larger orchestra, much as I should have loved to hear the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on home territory. (Next time, maybe!) I have heard wonderful things about the COE’s recent, quite intensive collaboration with Bernard Haitink, but again, one has to hear these things for oneself. Joined by the Capuçon brothers, there was here a sense of that celebrated line from Die Meistersinger, perhaps as close as Brahms and Wagner ever came: ‘Es klang so alt und war doch so neu!’ Haitink imparted the wisdom of an old Meister, of course, and yet there was nothing remotely stuffy, pedantic, or set in its ways, to his interpretation. The COE sounded just as invigorated as he did, lifting itself to something different from an orthodox symphony orchestra, but equally different, or perhaps more so, from the small-scale nature of what has come to be thought of as chamber-orchestral playing, the twin intimacy and intensity that seem to be taken as read from an Abbado-founded orchestra being equally present even many years on. And the violinist and cellist brought both youthful vitality and a true sense of old-world style. Truly, then, this appeared to offer the best of all possible worlds.

 

Gautier Capuçon’s opening phrase resounded with a depth that set the scene for the rest of the performance. This was actually the only occasion on which I heard a little intonational slip, but it mattered not a jot, Beckmessers will be alarmed to note. Naturally it was Gautier who made the greater impression at first, simply on account of Brahms’s writing, but the sweetness of Renaud’s violin tone was soon an equal wonder to savour; likewise his perfectly judged portamenti. Rubato and tempo variations, both in the first movement and later on, were never confused; Haitink knew what he was doing, never exaggerated, but let the music speak for itself, an illusion (Wahn) perhaps, but when a latter-day Sachs is conducting, all the better for it. The grand scale of that first movement made its point in a personal yet not idiosyncratic manner. It was not granitic; if anything, it seemed to have the mark of a master Wagnerian upon it. Haitink’s perhaps surprisingly Romantic view of Brahms was not that of, say, his great Amsterdam predecessor, Willem Mengelberg. It was marked rather by a freshness – many thanks here to the superlative COE woodwind – that took inspiration from Mendelssohn and Schumann, without reducing Brahms to the status, as it were, of a late early Romantic.

 

The slow movement was heard as if a song sung in a single breath. Again Schumann and Mendelssohn sprang to mind. All sorts of duets, trios, quartets, etc. were to be heard, as the soloists conversed with their orchestral counterparts. I could not help but think of Così fan tutte. Indeed, it was possible to imagine Fiordiligi and Dorabella playing games as they chose – what an impossible task! – between the blond player and his dark brother. The finale seemed ‘right’ in every respect. It had the character of a finale: perhaps an obvious point, yet it is hardly to be taken for granted. Not for the first time, we heard the shadow, productive rather than forbidding, of Beethoven – and not least in the combinations of harmony, rhythm, and colour, again especially with respect to the woodwind. This was musical, not artificial, excitement, every participant seeming to draw out the best from everyone else. A truly outstanding performance, the best I have ever heard of this work.  

 

Had it not been for that performance, I doubt that I should have had any qualms whatsoever about that of the First Symphony. Any reasonable person would not, and this was by any standards again a masterly reading. Of the four Brahms symphonies, this one took the longest for me to ‘get’: not in the sense of arrogantly assuming to understand it, but for me not simply to be bemused by it. Some people – more than you might expect – would claim that the fault lay with the composer; cue turning round Brahms’s notorious reference to ‘boa constrictors’ and the form of Bruckner’s symphonies. They would be wrong. It was doubtless partly a matter of my own immaturity, but also, I think, a matter of waiting for the right performance to come along, since this symphony suffers especially with respect to conductors who do not comprehend its tightly-knit organisation. (It stands at least as close as the Fourth to Schoenberg, indeed, if anything, closer.) Hearing within close succession Daniel Barenboim conduct the work with the Staatskapelle Berlin and then Furtwängler on record marked my eureka moment a good few years ago.

 

Haitink’s account with the COE was only the second I have heard that made sense of the work, the first having been Barenboim’s. That in itself ought to be commendation enough. And indeed it possessed many of the virtues of the concerto performance. Throughout there was a strong sense of line – strong enough, indeed, that I wondered what the problem could ever have been held to be with the work. The first movement’s introduction led as naturally as could be into the exposition proper; tension never sagged. Brahms’s two inner movements evoked both kinship and difference – and, most importantly of all, progression, as did the four movements as a whole. The woodwind section proved as verdant as previously. And if there were a few occasions when I felt a pang of regret that there were not more strings, this Mozartian complement worked wonders and never sounded in the slightest bit stretched, their tone in general as glowing as the acoustic – insofar as one could make such a distinction. The conductor’s refusal, or better disinclination, to linger in the Andante sostenuto was no sign of brusqueness, nor of unwillingness to yield; but it brought the music closer to a Schumannesque intermezzo than one often hears, a reading perhaps especially valid for a chamber orchestra. Schubert was heard to be just as much Brahms’s progenitor – that Harmoniemusik! – as Bruckner’s in the third movement. Haitink’s unwavering yet subtly flexible sense of line guided the twists and turns of the finale. ‘That’ theme was lovingly, faithfully, yet individually connected to Beethoven, and there was triumph in the final arrival.

 

And yet… I retained a lingering doubt, alongside wholehearted admiration for Haitink’s sureness of touch. Had it perhaps sounded a little too easy, too comprehensible? Barenboim, I seemed to remember, had exulted in the very difficulty of Brahms; his reading had stood closer to Schoenberg’s ‘Brahms the Progressive’. Certainly there had been more metaphysical striving, and a darker, more ‘German’ tone to his great orchestra. Rank ingratitude, of course; this was a noble, dignified, in many ways revelatory account. Yet one cannot have it all; Brahms’s symphonies are greater than any one interpretation will ever permit.  So maybe the ‘problem’, not really a problem at all but an opportunity, a provocation even, lay partly with Brahms after all.

 

 

Salzburg Festival (4) - Capuçons and friends: Fauré, Shostakovich, Birtwistle, and Brahms, 22 August 2013

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Fauré – Piano Quartet no.2 in G minor, op.45

Shostakovich – Piano Trio no.2 in E minor, op.67
Birtwistle – Bourdon, for violin and viola
Brahms – Piano Quartet no.1 in G minor, op.25

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Gérard Caussé (viola)

Gautier Capuçon (cello)

Nicholas Angelich (piano)

 

 

Your reviewer’s spirits were not lifted by checking the Festival website just before leaving for this concert. Birtwistle’s Trio, the principal attraction of the programme, still present in the morning, had been replaced by Shostakovich’s second piano trio. A programme insert informed us that the change had been necessitated by one of the musicians – it did not say which – having fallen ill during the rehearsal period. Such things happen, but given that the programming of works by Birtwistle throughout the festival had been intended to complement Gawain, it was still a great disappointment, heightened by the identity of the interloper. What had already looked an odd collection of pieces looked still odder.

 

With respect to Fauré, I continue to try – from time to time. His second piano quartet is pleasant enough, but I still cannot hear what some others apparently do in this music. The players opened the first movement with turbulence and instrumental richness not so very far removed from Brahms, as if attempting – creditably – already to forge a link with the final piece on the programme. There was some spellbinding pianissimo playing The scherzo proved mercurial, yet did not lack backbone. Gérard Caussé’s noble viola solo launched the slow movement, the obliqueness of whose harmonies proved not without interest, though it remained somewhat placid in character. (Doubtless devotees will point to troubled waters beneath the surface; I wish I could hear them.) The finale benefited from ardent and cultivated playing, with at least a slight sense of a legacy to composers such as Debussy and Ravel, though not without a sense either of high Romanticism. If the conclusion appeared to come out of nowhere, then that is a matter of the piece rather than the performance.

 

Fauré’s quartet, if hardly a masterpiece, is, however, a far superior work to Shostakovich’s typically obvious second piano trio, which nevertheless received an excellent performance. Gautier Capuçon navigated the first movement’s opening harmonics with precision and evident identification. The all too predictable imitative passages that followed were equally finely despatched, likewise the transition to Moderato and the balance between players. Doubtless this was just the right note of hysteria; but once one has heard two or three pieces by Shostakovich, one knows his tricks all too well. The second movement was fast and furious, the excess of fury more than the threadbare material really deserves, yet making an insistent dramatic point out of its repetitions. Again, there could be no faulting the intensity of response in the slow movement, nor the shaping of it progress. There was excellent advocacy for the typical, all-too-typical dance of ghostly dolls in the opening to the finale, though it was difficult not to find the score itself several vulgarisations of Mahler too far. The all-purpose hysteria pervading so much of the rest of the movement has one wishing it over before it had begun, but the players clearly gave it their all. Is there, though, with the possible exception of Verdi, any more grotesquely overrated composer?

 

Having lost Birtwistle’s piano trio, the Bourdon for violin and viola seemed a little lost at the beginning of the second half. It was good, nevertheless, to hear it, a miniature exploration of the instruments’ characters, paying especial attention to their open strings, albeit with scordatura tuning: both violin and viola tune their lowest string down a semitone and the second lowest up a semitone. The music begins, almost as if tuning up, the prevalence of open strings perhaps inevitably putting one in mind of Berg’s Violin Concerto. There is already, though, a typical sense of temporal refraction, with (relative) violence soon interposed. More than once I heard an affinity not only with the composer’s recent Violin Concerto, but also with the new Classicism characteristic to a certain extent of that work. Soon, one felt quite hypnotised by the almost lullaby-like rocking; all too soon, it was over.

 

It was interesting to note immediately in the first movement of Brahms’s G minor quartet how, in an age of homogeneity, how recognisably ‘Gallic’, in a quite traditional sense, the string tone sounded. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to say what one means by that; yet, one knows it when one hears it. Brahms’s expansiveness was relished, even if the structure were not always quite so clearly determining as it might have been. Metrical complexities, however, were vividly communicated. The second movement offered quiet insistence, the complexities of its central section sung rather than grimacing. But were the outer sections just a little well-mannered? Sometimes the music sounded more like Fauré than Fauré had. Prior tonal richness came to the rescue in the third movement, which received a splendidly songful yet passionate account, which had to be restarted when Renaud Capuçon broke a string. The finale was taken at quite a lick, without sounding harried. ‘Hungarian’ excitement, however, tended to be conveyed at the price of stopping and starting a little too much. Brahms is deeper than this, though such a performance is preferable to straining for a profundity that would only sound appliqué. Nicholas Angelich occasionally glossed – indeed, pedalled – over some piano detail.

Salzburg Festival (5) - Capuçon/Mozarteum/Bolton, 18 August 2012

Mozarteum

Mozart – Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night Music’

Mozart – Violin Concerto no.4 in D major, KV 218
Mozart – Rondo for violin and orchestra in B-flat major, KV 269
Haydn – Symphony no.103 in E-flat major, ‘Drum Roll’

Renaud Capuçon (violin)

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)
 

An attractive enough programme, this, even if it looked a little as if it had been thrown together rather than considered conceptually. The Mozarteum Orchestra for the most part played very well, less hampered than one might have expected by the use of natural brass (though there were exceptions). Likewise Renaud Capuçon was on splendid form. One could have had worse than Ivor Bolton – for instance, most of his ‘authenticke’ confreres – but it was difficult to find anything that would not have been better done by a good number of other conductors, or indeed by none.

Playing the First Lodron Night Music one-to-a-part is a perfectly justifiable decision, though arguably a little perverse when one has an orchestra to hand. Whether, played in this matter, it benefits from having a conductor is another matter. Often the players seemed to be managing perfectly well without Bolton, whose sub-Bernstein flailing around appeared out of all proportion to discernible results. After a slightly worrying start, the solo strings showed themselves sensible with respect to vibrato; it would only really be when Capuçon  joined them that one realised what one had been missing. (I am not at all sure, however, why the programme claimed that the divertimento would be prefaced by the March, KV 248;  I find it difficult to believe that I somehow missed it in performance.)  Speeds were generally unexceptionable: one should give Bolton credit for that in an age when the general practice is anything but. The exception to the unexceptionable was the second minuet, taken at absurdly breackneck speed, almost overshooting the scherzo level. The two slow movements were nicely differentiated between Andante grazioso and Adagio, even if both might in other hands profitably have been taken a little more slowly. Harmonic motion, however, was conveyed far more successfully by the players when listening to each other than when observing Bolton’s direction. His conception seemed to be entirely sectional; indeed, it proceeded for the most part phrase to phrase.

Capuçon’s tone was as bright as his phrasing was sensitive. (And I certainly do not mean that as a backhanded compliment.) To all intents and purposes these seemed to be his readings, and were all the better for it, Bolton actually proving quite a supportive accompanist. Occasionally, I might have longed for a little more in the way of darkness, though especially during the slow movement of the fourth violin concerto, that was not absent. Cleanness of tone was never clinical; it was simply an indication that the soloist was able to play the notes – rarer than one might expect. That direction lacking in parts of the divertimento was certainly present here. Moreover, Capuçon’s singing tone imparted more of a sense of the serenade than had generally been afforded earlier. What a joy it was to hear the Rondeau played at a sensible tempo – it is marked Andante grazioso – thereby permitting passagework to sound brilliant without being garbled. Following the interval, the B-flat Rondo, KV 269, offered a lively, equally lovable pendant.  Capuçon has mastered that necessary quality of making Mozart performance sound like the easiest thing in the world when, as anyone who has ever attempted it knows, it is actually the most difficult. Rhythmic and harmonic understanding were as one, even – arguably, especially – during the cadenzas.

Haydn’s ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony would doubtless have been mauled far more by more exhibitionistic ‘period’ practitioners. (Though if the best one can say is ‘not very good’, as opposed to charlatan, the situation is far from rosy.) It is, by the same token, not difficult to imagine more absurd, attention-seeking interpretations of the drum roll itself, but again that is not in itself a commendation. Once again, the score, the first movement in particular, proceeded in sectional fashion. How I longed for the harmonic understanding Daniel Barenboim recently showed in his Proms Beethoven cycle. The slow movement, though taken fast, was acceptable enough, save for the perverse rasping noise inflicted by ‘period’ brass at high volume. There was still little sense, however, of how the movement might be considered as a whole, nor indeed of the sophistication of Haydn’s variation form. Somehow the minuet contrived both to be taken one-to-a-bar and yet also to sound sluggish; again, harmony is, or should be the key, here. The finale simply galloped along. Haydn is so very much more interesting than this strange quasi-reversion to ‘Papa Haydn’-type suggested. At least we can return to Jochum, Davis, et al. ...

Prom 6: Capuçons/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Chung - Weber, Brahms, and Stravinsky, 19 July 2011

Royal Albert Hall

Weber – Oberon: Overture
Brahms – Concerto in A minor for violin and violoncello, op.102
Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring

Renaud Capuçon (violin)
Gautier Capuçon (violoncello)
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Myung-Whun Chung (conductor)

It seems that the core German repertoire is not really Myung-Whun Chung’s thing. Neither Weber’s Oberon overture nor Brahms’s Double Concerto received bad performances, but neither especially impressed – or if the latter did, it was on account of the soloists. Weber’s overture opened beautifully, the opening horn call (unconducted) as weich – the German seeming so much more apposite than ‘tender’ – as any I can recall. The rest of the introduction was very slow, yet retained its line. However, the ensuing Allegro proved too much of a contrast at breakneck speed, with an enormous slowing for the second subject that definitively turned the overture into a mere operatic pot pourri. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France played well throughout, though, clean string playing a decided boon in Weber’s brief fugato passage.

Chung’s Brahms again opened promisingly, the orchestra sounding more at home than it had during the previous night’s Beethoven Triple Concerto. There was a good sense of world-weariness, of swimming against the tide in an expansive account, which permitted one to hear and to consider a wealth of instrumental detail – this truly is the land of developing variation, whence Schoenberg hails – if ultimately there would prove to be a little too much ‘mere’ accompaniment from the podium. The richness of Gautier Capuçon’s cello tone was an immediate joy upon his entry, his brother Renaud’s violin equally delectable, once again displaying a golden-age ability so elegantly to turn a phrase. It was the soloists who performed most of the dramatic shaping, but they accomplished that most convincingly. And how they sang, whether alternately, or in duet, never more so than in the almost Elgar-like lines of the slow movement. The finale benefited from a perfectly chosen tempo, the cello’s voicing of the second theme and the violin’s response a particular joy. Greater fire from Chung would have helped, though; he sounded too relaxed. Once again, it was left to the Capuçons to provide direction, which they maintained, even intensified, in a mesmerising encore performance of the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia. It made one long for more Baroque music from this quarter.

Chung emerged as a conductor transformed for The Rite of Spring – which, notably, he conducted without a score. The OPRF sounded in its element too, from the opening, unmistakeably ‘French’-toned bassoon, to the last. I was intrigued by the way the rest of the woodwind blended with and cast into relief the bassoon to turn the Introduction into a strange variety of Harmoniemusik – at least until the intervention of a mobile telephone. Rhythms were tight throughout, but also generative, Stravinsky’s cellular method properly to the fore. (It is perhaps worth noting that Chung appeared to use Boulez’s redrawing of the bar lines.) Energy never sapped, permitting that extraordinary melodic profusion that is the Rite’s greatest boast truly to be heard, never more so than in the sage’s music. If I say that the orchestra’s playing was cultivated, then I mean it in the best sense: it was not precious, but treated the music as music rather than as an extravaganza, dynamic gradations of an almost infinite nature proving especially telling. The percussion section deserves particular note, unfailingly secure in rhythm and in the precise presentation of colour. This excellent Rite was followed by a brief, showy encore from Carmen.