Britten Sinfonia - Webern, Uduman, and Schoenberg, 14 December 2016

Wigmore Hall

Webern – Four Pieces for violin and piano, op.7

Sohrab Uduman – “Dann klingt es auf…” (London premiere)

Schoenberg, arr. Steuermann – Verklärte Nacht, op.4

Thomas Gould (violin)

Caroline Dearnley (cello)

Diana Ketler (piano)

Lunchtime concerts present an attendance problem. Had my teaching (though certainly not my university!) term not come to an end, I should most likely not have been able to hear this Wigmore Hall concert. That would have been a great pity, since it offered just the right sort of reinvigoration I needed for the afternoon. Whatever the reasons, it was sad to see so small an audience, but no matter: the box office has nothing to do with artistic concerns. Schoenberg, of all composers, knew that very well, when founding his Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen. I shall draw a veil over his prohibition on critics; or rather, I shall deflect it, trusting that I qualify as a Schoenberg scholar too…

It was with Eduard Steuermann’s arrangement of what, sadly, remains perhaps the composer’s most popular work, Verklärte Nacht, that the concert closed. Here, the opening was given to piano (Diana Ketler), cello (Caroline Dearnley) responding as if that were how we always heard it, violin (Thomas Gould) likewise. D minor sounded all the more obsessive, somehow, in this re-scoring, as if a Brahmsian pedal-point were being further underlined. (Maybe it is the strength of the piano bass?) Richly Romantic tone was offered from all, especially the strings. The narrative form of Richard Dehmel’s poem seemed especially to the fore, structurally determinative, not just pictorial, in a reading that was highly dramatic, highly rhetorical. Gurrelieder, quite rightly, did not seem so very far away. Too sectional? No, I do not think so; there is more than one way to perform the work, and motivic integrity was never in doubt. Moreover, Schoenberg’s harmonies always seemed, again rightly, on the verge of vertical and horizontal disintegration: Tristan and late Brahms working together as well as in conflict. Occasionally, the arrangement brought, perhaps paradoxically, congestion at climaxes. On the whole, though, I was struck by how little I missed the original. The new instrumentation sometimes brought, to my ears, an almost Gallic (or perhaps Flemish!) air. The piano could suggest shimmering strings surprisingly well; in the bass, it offered something new, but no less welcome. I was especially intrigued by the ability of both Gould and Dearnley to give what were, originally, first violin/first cello and second violin/second cello parts different ‘voices’. The closing section, save for a few bars which probably defy transcription, sounded duly fulfilled, even transfigured.  

  

Another of Schoenberg’s pupils opened the concert. Gould and Ketler gave a spellbinding performance of Webern’s Op.7 Pieces. Violin harmonic, answered by piano chord, somehow incited a melody somewhere between languor and sadness, yet ever-changing. In reality, especially in this first piece, any description of either work or performance would pertain at best for one note or one interval. A passionate, late Romantic response came in the second: Brahms ultra-distilled. Such an array of colour was to be heard. Later playfulness eventually – ‘eventually’ is relative, in Webern! – returned us, sonata-like, to the ardent quality of that earlier material, although it was not, of course, a ‘mere’ return. The violin opening to the third seemed to point us towards Nono, the piano clearly joining up the notes; however much Stockhausen may have learned from Webern, there was a great deal he did not learn, or did not want to. A nineteenth-century inheritance sounded stronger still in the fourth and final piece, suggestive of a sonata finale. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say, that at its close, I felt as though I had heard a work far longer, at least equivalent to a sonata by Brahms.   

In between Webern and Schoenberg-Steuermann came not quite the premiere of Sohrab Uduman’s “Dann klingt es auf…”, for that had taken place in Norwich on 9 December, but its first London performance. The title comes from a Hildegard Jone poem, used in Webern’s exquisite Second Cantata. (Now when shall we hear a performance of that in London, or indeed anywhere else?) ‘Shimmering colours’, suggested by the title, looked both forwards and backwards. In context, at least, the opening had something of a sense of a much ‘busier’ version of the opening of Webern’s set of pieces. There was, throughout, a true sense of three voices, interacting in all manner of ways; indeed, the transformation of such interaction – Uduman refers to ‘fusion and disentangling of the contrasting timbres of the piano and strings’ – seemed to lie at its heart. So too, however, did some sense of narrative, even if it could not be put into words (and why should it be?) Sections within its ten-minute span seemed not unlike those we should hear in the Schoenberg. A sudden slowing, without letting up of tension, suggested something akin to a slow movement, in a Liszt-Schoenberg tradition (movement within a movement); or perhaps that was just my idiosyncratic way of making sense of a new work. Material was still being developed, it seemed, from what had gone before, and would continue to be; transformation, another Lisztian concept, seemed a not entirely inappropriate way of considering what may well have been quite a Romantic journey from darkness to light. The piece was played with all the confidence, none of the staleness, of a repertory stalwart. Three cheers, once again, to the ever-enterprising Britten Sinfonia!

Gould/Tiberghien/Aurora/Collon - Paganini, Mozart, Liszt, and Mendelssohn, 17 September 2016

Hall One, Kings Place

Images: Nick Rutter

Paganini – Twenty-four Caprices for solo violin, op.1: Caprice no.5
Mozart – Piano Concerto no.6 in B-flat major, KV 238
Liszt – Années de pèlerinage: Première année: ‘Suisse’, S 160: ‘Le Mal du pays’
Mozart – Piano Concerto no.5 in D major, KV 175
Mendelssohn – Symphony no.4 in A major, op.90, ‘Italian’

Thomas Gould (violin)

Cédric Tiberghien (piano)

Aurora Orchestra

Nicholas Collon (conductor)

Taking as its theme the touring programmes of musical prodigies, this instalment in the Aurora Orchestra’s five-year traversal of Mozart’s piano concerto, opened with the fifth of Paganini’s Twenty-four Caprices. It was well played indeed by Thomas Gould, intonation spot on, and with plenty of rhythmic impetus. Whether it really added to the programme, I am less convinced, but it did not harm in lieu of an overture.

Cédric Tiberghien took centre stage for the rest of the first half, with excellent results. First up was the lovely, shamefully neglected Sixth Piano Concerto. (Just because Mozart wrote greater concertos, there is no reason for us to forget his earlier works, which put most other composers to shame. The same goes for his operas.) A warm, lively orchestral tutti from the orchestra and Nicholas Collon was answered by Tiberghien with charm and precision, the first movement as a whole receiving a variegated performance, in the spirit of forerunners such as JC Bach, yet also looking forward to Mozart’s later works. Passagework as clean, well-oiled, and, just as important, melodically meaningful. The slow movement had the air of a Salzburg serenade, not least on account of its pizzicato strings, but not only on their account. In its way, this is quite a complicated movement, overtly so: it has little of the distilled simplicity of the later Mozart. Tiberghien cared for the cantilena just as much as he would have done in Chopin or Ravel – and rightly so. The finale was played with good nature, and a sense of fun, whilst still being taken seriously. There was something of Haydn (if only to our retrospectively attuned ears) to it, but equally a sense of drama that was entirely Mozart’s own.

 

Liszt’s Le Mal du pays offered a very different standpoint on the travelling virtuoso’s experience. The starkness of its opening seemed already to look forward to the visionary works of the composer’s old age. Tiberghien showed himself finely attuned to Liszt’s rhetoric but also to the sentiments that underlay the rhetoric. Like Liszt himself, he understood the ability of the piano to ‘speak’ and communicated that. Sadness, even bitterness, made for a poignant, pungent interlude. Once again, we were reminded that no one, not even Mozart or Beethoven, did more to make the modern piano and modern pianism what they are.

 

Mozart’s Fifth Piano Concerto opened with the unmistakeable celebratory fizz of the composer in D major. Collon drove the music quite hard, but it could take it. Tiberghien responded in similarly ‘public’ fashion. That is not to say his performance lacked subtlety, quite the contrary; melodic lines were just as finely crafted as in the previous concerto. Mozart’s surprises registered as they should. Attention to detail from all concerned ensured that music which, in lesser hands, might sound ‘conventional’, emerged as anything but. The orchestra, moreover, sounded as if it were enjoying itself: always a good thing. There was an engaging physicality here and elsewhere to its performances. The slow movement’s performance was eloquent. What again can actually prove quite complicated never sounded fussy; it was well directed, imbued with grace, yet with a place too for rhetorical flourishes. In the finale, we experienced a return to, even intensification of, D major extroversion. Display, as previously, was always musically grounded; the ebullience was impossible not to like. Mozart’s extraordinary achievement at the age of seventeen blazed in all its glory.

 

For the second half, we heard a symphony by another celebrated prodigy, Mendelssohn. Collon offered a performance rather in the spirit of his Mozart: colourful, exuberant, full of life. The second group in the first movement had charm too: Mendelssohn should never grimace; nor did he. The development section, moreover, sounded properly cumulative. At the opening of the second movement, Collon and his orchestra seemed keen to highlight Mendelssohn’s interest in Baroque music, Handel as much as Bach. It was not a dogmatic reading, though: there was plenty of ‘Romantic’ colour to come, not least from the Aurora woodwind. Darkness of mood, far from unrelieved, provided a welcome correction to many other accounts. The Minuet charmed, yet never sounded merely placid; there was much to occupy mind and senses beneath the veneer. Its trio proved just as ambiguous, if differently so. A fast and furious finale stood out for the intensity of the orchestral playing. One truly felt the virtues of a chamber orchestra ‘playing out’, of virtuosic instrumentalists coming together to make music.

Aurora/Butt - JC Bach, Mozart, CPE Bach, and JS Bach, 16 January 2016

Hall One, Kings Place

JC Bach – Symphony no.6 in G minor, op.6 no.6

Mozart – Piano Concerto no.1 in F major, KV 37
CPE Bach – Symphony in D major, Wq 183/1 (H663)
JS Bach – Brandenburg Concerto no.1 in F major, BWV 1046
Mozart – Adagio and Fugue in C minor, KV 546
JS Bach – Brandenburg Concerto no.3 in G major, BWV 1048

Aurora Orchestra

John Butt (harpsichord/director)

 

With this very fine concert, the Aurora Orchestra launched a five-year series, in which all of Mozart’s piano concertos will be performed. I recall Pierre Boulez – a Mozartian to be reckoned with, Don Giovanni being one of the three operas he said he wished he had conducted, yet had not – suggesting the concertos as a linking theme for an orchestra within a season, and he had long previously begun a recorded version of that with his Domaine musical orchestra and Yvonne Loriod, never, alas, proceeding further than the fourth. (Do seek out the recording of the first four!) It is, one would have thought, quite an obvious idea, and yet has rarely been pursued. Increasingly, audiences – or at least the most reactionary elements within them, which, for some reason, more often than not prove triumphant – seem to prefer second- or third-rate scores which simply use large orchestras and sound rather like film music; perhaps they always did. This, then, is an undertaking to be applauded in principle; on the basis of this first instalment, it is certainly to be applauded in practice too. The orchestra thinks this might be the first time a single orchestra has done such a thing in a single venue; I know of no predecessor and should be interested to hear if there has been one.

 

For this concert, John Butt joined the orchestra as harpsichord soloist and director. I hope it will not be the last such occasion, for the results made for a delightful and genuinely thought-provoking concert. The title he came up with was ‘Bach is the father, we are the children!’ It is, of course, a celebrated saying of Mozart’s, only referring to Emanuel rather than Sebastian. And so, the first piano concerto was framed by works from JC Bach, arguably the greatest compositional influence upon the boy – and not only the boy – Mozart, and his elder brother, Emanuel. That tragic, ultra-Bachian utterance, the C minor Adagio and Fugue, formed the centrepiece of the second half, framed by two of the Brandenburg Concertos: not, then, imputing direct influence, although there was certainly plenty of that during the 1780s from other works by JS Bach, but rather setting up a pleasing dialectical twist in which Mozart at some what take to be his most severe – I can hear why, but I am not entirely in agreement – with Bach at his sunniest, contrapuntal learning fundamental to both, yet undeniably more overt in Mozart’s case.

 

Johann Christian Bach, the ‘London Bach’, is buried just a few minutes’ walk away from Kings Place, in the churchyard of St Pancras, in a genuine pauper’s grave. Here he sprang instantly back to life, enriched by an excellent performance. The G minor Symphony, op.6 no.6 (not just op.6, as the programme had it), opened in alert, vigorous fashion, its first movement vividly alert to the composer’s rhetorical flourishes, without those substituting for phrasing, let alone a longer line. (That happens far too often in ‘period’ performances of eighteenth-century music: think of the often preposterous distortions of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, et al.) Sometimes, unreconstructed modernist that I am, I might have preferred more vibrato from the strings, but that was only a matter of degree, and is merely a personal observation. Confounding of preconceived ideas was a welcome aspect, for JC Bach is often thought of as amiable, ‘pre-Classical’, and so on; a work in which all three movements are in the minor mode, and a performance pursued with such vigour did the trick nicely. One heard, moreover, the importance of woodwind even in a string-based work: clearly prophetic for Mozart. The slow movement was also rhetorical in the best sense, poised between recitative and aria. This is highly inventive music, and so it sounded. The finale sounded, again, quite different in character, perhaps a little more ‘Baroque’ at its opening, yet flowering into something arguably more ‘Classical’ thereafter, with many points of contact with Mozart as symphonist in the 1770s. An astonishingly alert performance from the Aurora Orchestra, directed by Butt with great wisdom, lightly worn, concluded with a perfectly-judged throwaway ending.

 

The First Piano Concerto – perhaps we should refer to it here as a Keyboard Concerto, but who cares? – was performed on a French harpsichord rather than a German instrument; Butt assured us that the sound was very close in any case. It was for me a splendid opportunity to hear for the first time ‘in the flesh’ a work I have known for many years, since first, as an undergraduate, acquiring Daniel Barenboim’s recording of the complete concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra. (It is still, to my mind, the greatest ‘set’; although in a number of works, certainly not all of them, I might favour Barenboim’s later Berlin readings, he never re-recorded the very earliest works.) The orchestral sound was very different (leaving aside, of course, the solo instrument and its use as a continuo instrument). The Aurora players, unsurprisingly, sounded a little ‘earlier’, although in no way aggressively so, less sustained, perhaps less poignant, but full of rhetorical life. Interestingly, the harpsichord sometimes sounded more prominent as soloist than Barenboim’s piano, the orchestra tending, at least some of the time, to play itself down during solo passages. Again, the woodwind, connecting with the ‘London’ Bach performance, seemed prophetic of the later Mozart. Whilst the outer movements are Mozart’s reworkings of popular sonata movements by other composers – HF Raupach and Leontzi Honauer – it is now thought by some scholars that the slow movement is entirely Mozart’s own. (I might add: presumably with the help of a correction or two by Leopold.) Perhaps what most interested me upon hearing it again, after quite a few years, was that much of it, perhaps excepting the shift to the minor mode, sounded no more ‘characteristic’ – nor, for that matter, no less ‘characteristic’ – than its bedfellows; not that it was not delightful, of course. It was taken quite swiftly, largely to good effect: arguably still more so when one imagined the eleven-year-old himself performing it at the keyboard. The finale’s wonderful catchiness was captured to great effect. Above all, the joy of these fine musicians shone through. Butt’s own cadenza was harmonically quite adventurous, as if to signal the beginning of a tonal journey Mozart would pursue throughout this series of works.

 

CPE Bach’s D major Symphony, Wq 183/1, announced its show-stopping originality at the very outset.  The arresting, even bizarre, nature of the opening to the first movement – not just the tension of those repeated notes, but the undeniably peculiar tessitura – was swiftly contrasted, one might almost say neurotically, with woodwind balm, and so it would continue: not just throughout the movement, but throughout the symphony as a whole. The shifts of mood were brilliantly conceived and, so it seemed, relished. And somehow – something often missing in performances of these works – there seemed a degree of logic to the strange course followed. The increasing importance of the woodwind, superbly played, seemed again to point to Mozart, whilst also marking out Emanuel Bach as having a closer kinship to ‘French’ orchestral writing than many might suspect. Melodic grace in the slow movement was underpinned, paradoxically and uncomfortably, by unease beneath. If that sounds a little weird, the weirdness is intentional. A vivacious account of the finale, albeit with strange, compelling interruptions rounded off a fine performance.

 

The First Brandenburg Concerto received a well-nigh ideal performance, small forces suited to the small hall. (Not that I shall ever forsake Klemperer – nor, for that matter, the Busch Chamber Players.) The tempo of the first movement, and pretty much everything about it, simply sounded ‘right’. Balances and phrasing were such as to allow Bach’s miraculous balance of counterpoint and harmony to do its work, belying the complexity at work in the background. The Aurora players’ cultivation was seemingly matched by their joy in Bach’s invention. What beguiling oboe playing opened the second movement, answered in turn by violin, bassoon, and so on! Again, there was an ineffable ‘rightness’ to what we heard. The following Allegro went with an insouciant swing, although what learning lies behind it! It may be clichéd to say so, but ‘courtly’ was the first word that sprang to mind during the Menuet. And yes, swing persisted, a ‘courtly swing’. The first Trio was equally delightful, pure chamber music. Understated elegance characterised much of the Polacca, whilst the second Trio proved straightforwardly life-affirming. This was a performance that reminded me of why I first fell in love with these works, in the recordings by the ECO and Philip Ledger.

 

It was in Mozart’s C minor Adagio and Fugue – a favourite, far from incidentally, of Boulez – that I felt myself a little out of sympathy with the performing decisions: not that they were unjustifiable, and indeed in terms of that dialectical twist I mentioned earlier, they had their own justification. It was only here really that I felt the lack of a longer, more vocal line, ‘rhetoric’ perhaps coming too much to the foreground. Balanced against that, the constructivism of Mozart’s writing was laudably clear. It was very well played; I simply favour a more Schoenbergian reading of this complex, fascinating work.

 

The Third Brandenburg Concerto completed the programme. Its first movement was taken at a fast tempo, but there was still plenty of space for the music to breathe, to live. Again, sheer joy and musical delight pervaded the performance. In lieu of a small movement, Butt and Thomas Gould (the orchestra’s leader) performed with elegance a movement from the G major Violin Sonata, BWV 1019, ending on the right cadence. There was splendid swagger to the finale, offering what seemed to be certainty in accomplishment – perhaps, and if so, quite rightly, in performance as well as in the work itself.

This concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 7.30 p.m., and available on iPlayer for thirty days thereafter.

Mozart Unwrapped (7): Immler/Melda/Aurora Orchestra/Collon, 15 September 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Don Giovanni, KV 537: Overture
Die Zauberflöte, KV 620: ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’
Concert Aria: ‘Per questo bella mano,’ KV 612
Concert Aria: ‘Ich möchte wohl der Kaiser sein’, KV 539
Divertimento for two horns and strings, KV 522, ‘Ein musikalischer Spaß’
Piano Concerto no.20 in D minor, KV 466
Symphony no.35 in D major, KV 385, ‘Haffner’

Lara Melda (piano)
Christian Immler (baritone)
Ben Griffiths (double bass)
Samuel West (narrator)
Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon (conductor)

The best came both interspersed and last. First the interspersed: Samuel West’s delightful readings from Mozart’s correspondence. It may seem an obvious thing to say but what an enormous difference it makes to hear Mozart’s letters read by so fine an actor! The characterisation brought without exaggeration to Mozart’s words proved something of a master-class. Letters to Constanze, Leopold, and Mozart’s cousin, ‘Bäsle’ (Maria Anna Thekla, ‘his ‘first love’), gave a taste of the white heat of compositional inspiration and its accompanying mood swings. Not that one would ever think Mozart anything other than lovable: exasperating, perhaps, but as impossible to take against as his music. Puppy-like enthusiasm and melancholy were conveyed in equally moving manner by West.

The concluding Haffner Symphony proved the highlight of the musical performances. Its first movement sounded – it is difficult to imagine it otherwise – brilliant, extrovert, taken and maintained by Nicholas Collon at a well-judged tempo. Aside from a few passages in the development section, the strings, violins especially, were permitted enough vibrato, which had not always been the case earlier on. The Andante was not rushed but kept moving, pulsating with life, whilst the minuet, taken at a quickish three-in-a-bar sounded winningly earthy without crudity, its trio an elegant interlude. Finally, the closing Presto sparkled with Haydnesque brilliance, the players of the Aurora Orchestra revelling in the virtuosity required. Their reading under Collon was impeccably precise, bar one minor, brief lapse of ensemble, and more importantly still, exuded a real sense of the music's direction and purpose, with only the most occasional fussiness imposed upon it.

There had been much to enjoy during the first half too. The opening of the Don Giovanni Overture was taken, as is now the fashion, at an unmistakeably alla breve tempo, yet benefited from a full orchestral sound. (Though the orchestra is on the small side, so is the hall, so it worked.) The Allegro section was urgent, in Collon’s hands perhaps more aggressive than high-spirited, but there is arguably warrant for such an approach. Christian Immler joined the orchestra for two concert arias and ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’. Throughout, Immler’s diction was excellent: one could discern not only every word, but a great deal of meaning behind every word. There was a certain dryness, however, to his vocal delivery, especially in the Magic Flute aria, though the glockenspiel (Simon Lane) enchanted. ‘Per questo bella mano’ benefited greatly from the obbligato double bass playing of Ben Griffiths: a rare chance to hear such virtuosity and musicality from the instrument. It almost sounded seductive! There was humour in the performance but, quite rightly, no silliness: if the combination of bass and double bass is a joke on Mozart’s part, it is better played straight. A rare opportunity to hear the Entführung-style music of ‘Ich möchte wohl der Kaiser sein’ was well taken in a spirited rendition: Immler sometimes acquired greater bloom to his voice, though there remained dry passages. To have such fine diction was a boon in an aria whose interest often lies as much in projection of the words, given its strophic form. To close the first half, we heard A Musical Joke, Mozart’s wicked parody of third-rate composition (and copying). It was played straight, as it must be, so that the humour was Mozart’s alone. Oh, the cultivated banality, the brilliance of the non sequiturs and mistranspositions! Thomas Gould played a superlative role as leader, especially in his slow movement solo passagework. I do not wish to hear this piece often, but when it is performed, may it be in a performance of this quality.

It was a pity, then, that the D minor Piano Concerto – perhaps a piece too many for the programme? – received a lesser performance, more on account of the soloist, Lara Melda, than the orchestra, though there one could not overlook, especially in the first movement, thinness to the string tone (there were only five first violins, boosted to six for the Haffner). At best, the piano part was efficiently despatched, nothing more: there was not the slightest evidence of Melda engaging either with the orchestra or indeed with the meaning of Mozart’s music. Looking ‘soulful’ and moving one’s head around during tutti passages is no substitute for the chamber-music interplay Mozart demands. Even the cadenza (Beethoven’s) was plodding. If there had earlier been a certain orchestral harshness to the opening movement, greater tenderness was permitted in the Romanze: woodwind sounded gorgeous, but the strings sounded warmer too. The piano part remained disconnected, almost as if the pianist were playing along to a Music Minus One recording, the central section heavy rather than stormy. In the finale, the Aurora players truly captured the spirit of Mozart’s D minor dæmon (reminding one of the Don Giovanni Overture, in a programme which, taken as a whole, took a tonal path that echoed its opening piece). I shall draw a veil over the bizarre cadenza. Melda, it seems, won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 2010. On the evidence of the present performance, she would benefit from further study before throwing herself further into the limelight.

Britten Sinfonia/Hewitt - Bach, Stravinsky, and Mozart, 4 April 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Bach – Piano Concerto no.5 in F minor, BWV 1056
Stravinsky – Concerto in D
Mozart – Piano Concerto no.9 in E-flat major, KV 271
Bach-Sitkovetsky – Goldberg Variations

Angela Hewitt (piano)
Britten Sinfonia
Thomas Gould (leader/director)


The Britten Sinfonia is on a high at the moment, almost the only musical winner from the latest savage Arts Council funding settlement. (I still shudder with horror at my naïveté in having taken at face value Nick Clegg’s relatively encouraging words concerning the arts: ‘useful idiot’ was Lenin’s phrase, I believe.) Nevertheless, it is encouraging to note one good cause rewarded against a desolate backdrop indeed. It is richly deserved, even though the misfortunes suffered by others are not. For this programme, the orchestra was joined by Angela Hewitt for two concertos, whilst left in the capable hands of Thomas Gould for Stravinsky’s Concerto in D and Dmitri Sitkovetsky’s string orchestra transcription of the Goldberg Variations.

Bach’s F minor piano concerto opened the programme, more a showcase for Hewitt than the orchestra, though it provided dependable accompaniment. Hewitt imparted strong rhythmical and harmonic understanding to the external movements and pearly tone that might almost have been taken for Murray Perahia’s. The slow movement was graceful, if somewhat cool; I did not care for her staccato bass notes, though orchestral pizzicati hit the spot.

Stravinsky’s concerto for string orchestra was firmly announced at the very outset as being ‘in D’, echoing his piano Serenade in A. Pitch is crucial here rather than tonality, which remains a ghostly presence: D, rather than D major, is the thing. Motor rhythms, recalling sewing-machine neo-classical Bach, were imprinted upon the consciousness in an absolutely secure performance from the Britten Sinfonia. Articulation was first-rate, likewise interplay between the string sections. The slow movement sounded, as it should, as if it wanted to sing like Tchaikovsky, yet could not, or could not quite bring itself to do so. There was some beautiful string playing here, tonally alluring and alert to every harmonic shift. It sounded closer to Prokofiev than I can recall hearing before: more than fine with me, though I suspect that Stravinsky might at least have claimed to think otherwise. The finale was quirky yet never grotesquely so. Strong leadership from the front desk of first violins (Gould and Beatrix Lovejoy) recalled The Soldier’s Tale.

Hewitt returned for what Alfred Brendel rightly called ‘one of the greatest wonders of the world,’ Mozart’s first truly great piano concerto, no.9 in E-flat major, KV 271. The first movement received a perky reading, with nicely shaded piano contributions, unerringly tasteful. In this work, and this work alone, however, I missed a greater body of strings, and more generous string vibrato. The orchestra sounded properly dark in the slow movement, yet low-calorie vibrato led to some whining moments: a pity. Oboe solos, however, were especially fine. Hewitt contributed a true sense of drama, her playing far from merely pretty; that said, I did not care at all for the abrupt conclusion. This is an aria from start to finish. The finale was full of life, and again nicely shaded, both orchestrally and pianistically. I almost forgot my desire for greater tonal refulgence: the English Chamber Orchestra at least, though the Vienna Philharmonic would be preferable. Yet the extraordinary slow minuet interruption sounded skated over, wanting profundity; it failed to tug the heart strings as it should. The final bars, however, were enchanting.

Sitkovetsky’s Goldberg transcription is a wonderful discovery (for me, that is: it has been around for a while). I cannot imagine a string transcription more inventive without being unduly fussy. Here solo, tutti, and somewhere-in-between passages alternate with such natural ease that one might almost imagine one were listening to a Baroque concerto grosso. The shift from the opening Aria to the fully scored first variation sounded just that way, and what a relief it was that the players employed considerably more vibrato than they had in the Mozart. Gould’s solo in the Aria sounded almost Romantic, at least in contemporary terms, and was all the better for it. Tempi were always well chosen, with a keen sense of variety but also of overall progression. Counterpoint was not only clear but harmonically meaningful. Where necessary, there was a creditable, almost Handelian sturdiness, so pitifully absent from most Bach performances nowadays, yet by the same token, the players showed fleetness of foot when required. Minor-mode variations, and not just the ‘Black Pearl,’ revelled in Bach’s chromaticism, leading us towards Berg whilst also suggesting the dignity of the ancient viol consort. The celebrated ‘Black Pearl’ itself had an entirely apt French – dare I suggest Purcellian? – lilt to its stately progression, its beauty gravely frozen. Rich tone indeed was applied to the delightful Quodlibet, a just reward for a fine performance, before solo instruments returned for the closing Aria. Everything was the same, yet everything was entirely different. Bach-lovers must take comfort where they can in a reductive age, actively hostile to the challenges the composer sets: here was not only comfort but inspiration.

Mozart Unwrapped (3): Joshua/Aurora Orchestra/Collon, 9 March 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Le nozze di Figaro, KV 492: Overture
‘Non più. Tutto ascoltai… Non temer, amato bene,’ KV 490
Symphony no.27 in G major, KV 199
Adagio and Fugue in C minor, KV 546
‘Bella mia fiamma, addio… Resta, o cara,’ KV 528
Symphony no.31 in D major, KV 297/300a, ‘Paris’

Rosemary Joshua (soprano)
Thomas Gould (violin)
Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon (conductor)


Let me get my one real disappointment out of the way: Nicholas Collon opened this latest instalment in Kings Place’s ‘Mozart Unwrapped’ season with a breathless, hard-driven Figaro overture. It was very well played indeed by the Aurora Orchestra, even if the kettledrums boomed a little loudly in the Hall One acoustic. Yet in this, the overture to that most human of all comedies, it sounded as though the sole purpose was to despatch Mozart’s notes (too many?) as quickly as possible, the composer’s smiling replaced with an extended grimace.

Thereafter, however, Collon relaxed, and his uniformly excellent band of young musicians truly came into their own. Rosemary Joshua joined them for two items. The first was an insertion aria for Idomeneo, ‘Non più. Tutto ascoltai… Non temer, amato bene’. From the opening of Mozart’s rich recitativo accompagnato, the orchestra pulsated with Gluckian drama. Wonderfully ripe woodwind distinguished themselves. There was, moreover, fine flexibility on display from orchestra and soloist. Leader Thomas Gould, who had distinguished himself in an earlier concert as concerto soloist, provided silvery violin obbligato. Joshua stood quite beyond reproach in terms of clarity of line, diction, and delivery of coloratura. It was a little odd, during the recitative, to hear her assume the roles of both Ilia and Idamante, but that was not her fault. ‘Bella mia fiamma, addio! … Resta, o cara,’ is a bona fide concert aria. If anything, it proved even finer. Flexibility was once again commendable, as was the genuine pathos Joshua brought to the vocal part. Mozart’s chromaticisms here are as erotic and as threatening of tonal disintegration as anything in Tristan und Isolde; however, they held no fear for our soloist. The final climax was impressively and expressively despatched.

Surrounding that aria in the concert’s second half were the great C minor Adagio and Fugue for strings, and the Paris Symphony. The former’s Adagio was given a rhetorical account, in which rests were truly made to tell. It is not the only way to perform the music, and I could not help hankering a little after the majesty of Karajan (especially in Vienna); nevertheless, the strings dug deep in a performance that sounded closer to chamber than orchestral music. The fugue had more than a hint of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, not least in the threat of disjuncture: nothing comfortable here. The Paris Symphony was, of course, written for a much bigger orchestra than the Aurora, something about which the ‘authenticists’ tend to remain silent, but there is no need to be fundamentalist: in a small hall, a small orchestra can work well. The first movement benefited from not being rushed; again, it was somewhat rhetorical in tone, but never irritatingly so. There were several instances of illuminating musical detail, not least the development’s clarinet imitation of the celebrated opening coup d’archet. The slow movement – Mozart’s original, as is usually performed – was pleasant, if not always probing. And one could forgive the driven nature of the finale, for it was despatched in style. This is, after all, Mozart showing off to the Parisians, and revelling in the skill of the great orchestra of the Concert Spirituel. As ever, the players of the Aurora Orchestra delivered with verve.

For me, however, the earlier performance of the G major symphony, no.27, was finer. During the opening movement, great care was taken with varieties of articulation, without descending into fussiness. Mozart, one sensed, as in the later Paris Symphony, was relishing the delights of the orchestra, albeit a smaller band. Minor mode vehemence was present in the development without the grotesque exaggeration that disfigures so many ‘period’ accounts. Above all, there was that truly Mozartian joy that had been remarkable by its absence in the Figaro overture. The second repeat was taken: unnecessary perhaps, but one could understand why the players might have wanted to give us the music again. Andantino grazioso was not an inappropriate marking for what we heard in the slow movement: it was certainly graceful, and if the walk was a little on the brisk side, it never turned into a canter. Rhythms were nicely sprung, and the quiet passages truly made one listen. The fugal opening of the finale is a rare case of Mozartian awkwardness: it seems unmotivated, though the later fugal treatment works much better, even seeming prophetic of mature masterpieces. It was brilliantly performed, the violins in particular truly scintillating. Quite properly, the opera house never sounded distant.

Mozart Unwrapped (1): Aurora Orchestra/Collon, 6 January 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Overture: La clemenza di Tito
‘Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!’ KV 418
Violin Concerto no.5 in A major, KV 219
‘Nehmt meinen Dank, ihr holden Gönner!’ KV 383
Symphony no.36 in C major, KV 425, ‘Linz’

Fflur Wyn (soprano)
Thomas Gould (violin)
Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon (conductor)


Whether Shakespearean or pertaining to the Epiphany itself, Mozart on Twelfth Night seems equally apt. Some grumbled about over-exposure in 2006. There can, however, be no such thing as over-exposure for Mozart, unless – and this is a big ‘unless’ – the performances should fall short of the mark, as most, sadly, do. No conductor, then, could have been more suited to the task than that great Mozartian, Sir Colin Davis, scheduled to conduct this early instalment in Kings Place’s year-long ‘Mozart Unwrapped’ season. Unfortunately, Sir Colin fell ill, being replaced at short notice by the Aurora Orchestra’s founder and Principal Conductor, Nicholas Collon. His conducting of Gluck’s Alceste for the Chelsea Opera Group augured well, but Mozart presents a stiffer challenge even than his much-misunderstood operatic predecessor and contemporary.

Collon, creditably, proved his own man. There was relatively little to his interpretations suggestive of Sir Colin’s way with Mozart. The opening overture to La clemenza di Tito was brisker than Davis would be likely to have taken it, but not inflexible; indeed, there were occasional tempo variations that perhaps had more in common with a performance by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, though thankfully not so many. Moreover, the woodwind of the Aurora Orchestra, here and elsewhere, proved notably sparkling. (If, however, we must have Radio 3 presenters 'presenting' in the concert hall, also a characteristic of last year's Late-Night Proms, might someone at the BBC check facts and foreign-language pronunciation? Most glaring on this occasion were the claim that Leopold II was crowned 'Emperor', not King, of Bohemia, and the inaudible 'e' to 'Aloysia Lange'.)

Collon also proved an attentive and lively ‘accompanist’ in the two arias. The orchestra shone again in both, Thomas Barber’s obbligato oboe proving the crowning though far from the only glory of ‘Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!’ Pizzicato strings also delighted. ‘Nehmt meinen Dank, ihr holden Gönner!’ emerged on the fast side, but convincingly so, since Collon always permitted the music to breathe. The Aurora Orchestra’s woodwind again clearly enjoyed their spell in the Mozartian sun. Less impressive, I am afraid, was the soprano soloist, Fflur Wyn. Her diction was good, especially in the German aria, but the persistently tremulant quality to her tone production was hard to take, even in relatively short doses, especially when married to an all-too-bright chirpiness.

The evening’s other soloist, violinist Thomas Gould (also leader of the Aurora Orchestra) was far more impressive. Silvery, yet sweet-toned, his delivery of the solo line beguiled from the first entry, a very few intonational slips in the first movement notwithstanding. Crucially, he ensured, in a notably unhurried account, that ‘lively’ was not taken, fallaciously, to be interchangeable with ‘hard-driven’. Orchestral articulation in the opening bars of the slow movement was a little studied; Davis would doubtless have imparted a greater sense of overall line. Nevertheless, once soloist and orchestra sang together, a cantabile line was very much to be heard. Moreover, the minor-mode passages hinted at, yet never exaggerated, a truly Mozartian note of ineffable sadness. The finale opened graciously, eschewing the all-too-common easy route of ‘effects’, whilst imparting a nice lilt to the Scotch snaps in solo and orchestra. The Turkish music was characterful but never grotesque; indeed, it was here that Collon really seemed to come into his own, conveying a winningly operatic tendency. A concerto such as this is better than it can ever be played, far more difficult than any crowd-pleasing empty virtuosity; these players emerged most creditably in what was overall the best performance of the evening.

The final work on the programme was the Linz Symphony. One would be very likely to hear more mannered performances today, but Collon’s account was not entirely free of such tendencies, perhaps especially during the first movement. ‘Rhetoric’ is often pointed to by members of the ‘authenticke’ brigade as attempted justification for an inability to phrase; such was not the case here. Nevertheless, a greater sense of overall line would often have been welcome, likewise greater avoidance of a sense of the four-square, bar-lines sometimes proving a little too audible. (Consider the deceptive, that is to say hard-won, lyrical ease displayed by conductors such as Davis, Böhm, Bernstein, or indeed Klemperer.) There was often, though by no means always, a harshness to be heard that has little, or rather no, place in Mozart. Trumpets and drums in C major can sing more readily than this. There was also an unwelcome edge at times to the violin sound. Predictably perhaps, the slow movement did not linger, but the drawbacks of its predecessor were largely banished in favour of a beguiling sense of the outdoor serenade. There was also a straightforwardness to the path pursued, to which one could readily imagine Sir Colin – or Klemperer – responding, that path being audibly founded upon a sure sense of Mozart’s harmonic progression. Repeats made this a lengthy traversal, but here at least, there are far worse things to endure than ‘heavenly lengths’; indeed Schubert, perhaps even Bruckner, came to mind on occasion. A vigorous minuet was followed – a pity, this – by a somewhat fussy trio, but simplicity is an extraordinarily difficult thing to achieve. Vigour returned in the finale, in a largely convincing account that proved alive yet also possessed of necessary breadth. It sounded more like a true finale than often hears in more throwaway performances. Taking the second repeat seemed a mistake, however, since it very much came across as yet another repeat. Nevertheless, if wanting to hear Mozart’s music one more time be a failing, it is perfectly understandable.