Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Leonore – Nina Stemme
Florestan – Endrik Wottrich
Rocco – Kurt Rydl
Marzelline – Elizabeth Watts
Jaquino – Steven Ebel
Don Pizarro – John Wegner
Don Fernando – Sir Willard White
First Prisoner – Ji Hyun Kim
Second Prisoner – Dawid Kimberg
Jürgen Flimm (director)
Daniel Dooner (associate director)
Robert Israel (set designs)
Florence von Gerkan (costumes)
Duane Schuler (lighting)
Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)
A major attraction to this Fidelio had been the opportunity to hear Kirill Petrenko in the pit. Unfortunately, back problems rendered him unable to continue rehearsals. Petrenko has been named the next General Music Director in Munich and will also lead the 2013 Bayreuth Ring. Though Covent Garden audiences have had chance to admire him before, in my case in the 2009 Rosenkavalier and, some time previously, in a splendid double-bill of Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung, his absence was a disappointment. Sir Mark Elder, in situ for rehearsals of the forthcoming production of The Tsar’s Bride, was his replacement, though David Syrus will take over the end of the run. Elder, known principally for later music, took some time to find his feet here. The overture married unsteadiness with charmless adherence to the metronome. Strings sometimes struggled to make themselves heard, though from a purely orchestral perspectives, horns and woodwind sounded quite magical. As can often be the case, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House outplayed its conductor. The first number continued along an unsteady path, mixing a somewhat Italianate lightness – doubtless some would claim to find this refreshing, though I found it straightforwardly inappropriate – with arbitrary tempo changes, suggestive less of Furtwängler than of a caricature of Mengelberg by someone who has never heard him. Elements of such arbitrary juxtaposition remained later on, but for the most part it was a surer Fidelio that emerged. There were, however, a few too many discrepancies between pit and stage, none more noticeable than during Don Fernando’s music in the final scene. The orchestra continued to play very well indeed, certainly far better than it had under the dispiriting leadership of Antonio Pappano last time around in 2007. My suspicion would be that Elder’s reading will settle down in subsequent performances, though there are only three left that he will conduct.
A vocal report must also be mixed. Nina Stemme, though she did not quite nail the climax of ‘O, namenlose Freude,’ was in every other respect very impressive indeed, quite justifying her reputation, fine intonation combined with Classical purity of line, no matter what hurdles Beethoven placed in her way. She made a relatively plausible ‘boy’ too, for those who care. Endrik Wottrich, however, was simply not up to the task. I shall doubtless be forever spoiled by the staggering achievement of Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan, but odious comparisons aside, Wottrich proved both feeble of tone and unable to hit a startling proportion of his notes. Kurt Rydl stood out by virtue of credible delivery of his dialogue; the rest of the cast tended to speak as if in a foreign-language school play. Unfortunately, Rydl’s wobble became too distracting even for those of us inclined to charity on account of past glories. Elizabeth Watts, however, made a sparkling Marzelline and Steven Ebel a similarly winning Jaquino. John Wegner’s Pizarro was darker and more convincingly malevolent than many of the cartoon villains we often endure: a significant achievement that. Willard White’s Fernando did little to convince, however, again showing a singer past his prime. Second Prisoner Dawid Kimberg shone in his brief moment of glory – not for the first time. The Royal Opera Chorus was truly excellent, full of sound, which could yet be withdrawn when necessary, and startlingly impressive in diction, putting many German choruses to shame.
As for Jürgen Flimm’s production, this time revived by Daniel Dooner, it remains a depressing affair. Perhaps less full of arbitrary goings on than last time, it seemed still more lacking in coherence. Updated to what appears to be a mid-twentieth century Latin American country, albeit to no particular purpose, there is little or no focus upon Beethoven’s burning flame of freedom; Marzelline’s ironing makes more of a (tiresome) impression. Far from feeling enclosed and oppressive, Florestan’s cell is vast, so much so that one can almost understand why Leonore fails to see him to start with. The final scene simply falls apart, direction of the characters faltering whilst garishly clad prisoners’ spouses and children parade around. It feels as aimless as that…
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Monday, 28 March 2011
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Heinz Holliger in Profile, 'Childhood and Encryptions' - Schumann, Holliger, and Berg, 26 March 2011
Hall One, Kings Place
Schumann – Pieces from Album für die Jugend, op.68, interspersed with:
Holliger – Duöli (2008/2010)
Holliger – Præludium, Arioso, and Passacaglia, for solo harp (1987)
Berg – Chamber Concerto
Ursula Holliger (harp)
Alexander Lonquich (piano)
Muriel Cantoreggi, Florence Cooke, Alexander Harris, and Curtis Wilkinson (violins)
Wind players from the Royal Academy of Music
Heinz Holliger (conductor)
This was the second of two concerts, curated by Christoph Richter, welcoming Heinz Holliger to Kings Place. We did not hear him as oboist, but we heard him both as composer and as conductor – as well as lecturer in a pre-concert analytical talk on Berg’s Chamber Concerto. The first concert had been entitled ‘Fantasies and Journeys’, offering music by Sandor Veress, Schumann, Holliger, and Kurtág. I wondered whether the second, ‘Childhood and Encryptions,’ might have made more sense in the context of having heard the first. As it was, ‘childhood’ inhabited the first half, and ‘encryptions’ the second; it was not always clear what connected the two.
However, there was much to enjoy. Alexander Lonquich offered an excellent selection from Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, both precise and Classically alluring of tone; I should have been happy to have heard more, and suspect that I cannot have been the only audience member taken back to my own childhood assaults on Schumann’s exquisite miniatures. It was interesting to hear interspersed with the Schumann pieces Holliger’s Duöli, the work title as those of the individual pieces given in his native Swiss German. Whether one wish, outside a Holliger series, to hear all of these violin ‘duos’ (confusingly, they occasionally involve three or four players) is another question. I am sure they work very well as teaching pieces, rather like Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, to which they sometimes sound close in language. There is humour, whether in the titles, for instance, ‘It is really not so difficult,’ or ‘Two Little Pieces that do not quite fit together,’ or in the additional noises (cat-song, the canon for two or three snorers) the instrumentalists are sometimes called upon to provide. Moreover, there are moments of considerable beauty, for instance the droplet music, which sounds as one might expect, or the occasional ventures into Nono-like near-inaudibility. There are also instances of a somewhat soft-centred version of Lachenmann-like re-examination of the violin’s possibilities, though without Lachenmann’s intensity. It was encouraging to note that two young violinists from the Junior Guildhall, Alexander Harris and Curtis Wilkinson, stood up perfectly well in comparison with their professional colleagues, Muriel Cantoreggi and Florence Cooke. Nevertheless, a selection might prove a better way to programme the pieces, for a certain monotony, compositional variety notwithstanding, sets in.
Holliger’s wife, Ursula, opened the second half with the Præludium, Arioso, and Passacaglia. The piece is dedicated ‘for Ursula for 8.6 and 7.7’. We are not informed what these numbers signify, but are told that they form a structural role in the music as a whole. (I am afraid I should need to be informed how…) Whatever the meaning of these encryptions, it is a fine addition to the solo harp repertoire, combining neo-Baroque form, or at least an echo thereof, with decidedly twentieth-century style. Ursula Holliger was clearly in command throughout.
Finally – and this was what I had been waiting for – came a splendid performance of Berg’s Chamber Concerto. Holliger has good form in Berg: I highly commend his recording of the Violin Concerto with Thomas Zehetmair. Having heard a detailed description of the various encryptions in the earlier lecture, it was all the easier to receive the work as much as a dramatic exploration of various Romantic ‘characters’ – Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Rudolf Kolisch, and so on – and their interaction. The performances were certainly impressive, woodwind players from the Royal Academy of Music proving full of drive and character. One could truly relish their engagement with the score – and doubtless with the conductor too. Lonquich proved an estimable pianist, finely balancing post-Romantic expressive considerations with complexity and structure. Cantoreggi played the violin part; initially she sounded somewhat disconnected, taking a little while to get into her stride, but when she did, she proved impassioned indeed. Holliger’s overall command of Berg’s form was as clear as his attentiveness to detail. I have never understood why some people claim to love Berg’s music yet to be put off by this work. In its marriage of labyrinthine complexity and hyper-expressivity it could hardly be more typical of the composer. A very good performance such as this, or the outstanding West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performance at the 2009 Proms, ought to convince any remaining doubters. It was interesting, moreover, to note how different the work sounds in a small hall: much more 'concerto', much less 'chamber'.
Schumann – Pieces from Album für die Jugend, op.68, interspersed with:
Holliger – Duöli (2008/2010)
Holliger – Præludium, Arioso, and Passacaglia, for solo harp (1987)
Berg – Chamber Concerto
Ursula Holliger (harp)
Alexander Lonquich (piano)
Muriel Cantoreggi, Florence Cooke, Alexander Harris, and Curtis Wilkinson (violins)
Wind players from the Royal Academy of Music
Heinz Holliger (conductor)
This was the second of two concerts, curated by Christoph Richter, welcoming Heinz Holliger to Kings Place. We did not hear him as oboist, but we heard him both as composer and as conductor – as well as lecturer in a pre-concert analytical talk on Berg’s Chamber Concerto. The first concert had been entitled ‘Fantasies and Journeys’, offering music by Sandor Veress, Schumann, Holliger, and Kurtág. I wondered whether the second, ‘Childhood and Encryptions,’ might have made more sense in the context of having heard the first. As it was, ‘childhood’ inhabited the first half, and ‘encryptions’ the second; it was not always clear what connected the two.
However, there was much to enjoy. Alexander Lonquich offered an excellent selection from Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, both precise and Classically alluring of tone; I should have been happy to have heard more, and suspect that I cannot have been the only audience member taken back to my own childhood assaults on Schumann’s exquisite miniatures. It was interesting to hear interspersed with the Schumann pieces Holliger’s Duöli, the work title as those of the individual pieces given in his native Swiss German. Whether one wish, outside a Holliger series, to hear all of these violin ‘duos’ (confusingly, they occasionally involve three or four players) is another question. I am sure they work very well as teaching pieces, rather like Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, to which they sometimes sound close in language. There is humour, whether in the titles, for instance, ‘It is really not so difficult,’ or ‘Two Little Pieces that do not quite fit together,’ or in the additional noises (cat-song, the canon for two or three snorers) the instrumentalists are sometimes called upon to provide. Moreover, there are moments of considerable beauty, for instance the droplet music, which sounds as one might expect, or the occasional ventures into Nono-like near-inaudibility. There are also instances of a somewhat soft-centred version of Lachenmann-like re-examination of the violin’s possibilities, though without Lachenmann’s intensity. It was encouraging to note that two young violinists from the Junior Guildhall, Alexander Harris and Curtis Wilkinson, stood up perfectly well in comparison with their professional colleagues, Muriel Cantoreggi and Florence Cooke. Nevertheless, a selection might prove a better way to programme the pieces, for a certain monotony, compositional variety notwithstanding, sets in.
Holliger’s wife, Ursula, opened the second half with the Præludium, Arioso, and Passacaglia. The piece is dedicated ‘for Ursula for 8.6 and 7.7’. We are not informed what these numbers signify, but are told that they form a structural role in the music as a whole. (I am afraid I should need to be informed how…) Whatever the meaning of these encryptions, it is a fine addition to the solo harp repertoire, combining neo-Baroque form, or at least an echo thereof, with decidedly twentieth-century style. Ursula Holliger was clearly in command throughout.
Finally – and this was what I had been waiting for – came a splendid performance of Berg’s Chamber Concerto. Holliger has good form in Berg: I highly commend his recording of the Violin Concerto with Thomas Zehetmair. Having heard a detailed description of the various encryptions in the earlier lecture, it was all the easier to receive the work as much as a dramatic exploration of various Romantic ‘characters’ – Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Rudolf Kolisch, and so on – and their interaction. The performances were certainly impressive, woodwind players from the Royal Academy of Music proving full of drive and character. One could truly relish their engagement with the score – and doubtless with the conductor too. Lonquich proved an estimable pianist, finely balancing post-Romantic expressive considerations with complexity and structure. Cantoreggi played the violin part; initially she sounded somewhat disconnected, taking a little while to get into her stride, but when she did, she proved impassioned indeed. Holliger’s overall command of Berg’s form was as clear as his attentiveness to detail. I have never understood why some people claim to love Berg’s music yet to be put off by this work. In its marriage of labyrinthine complexity and hyper-expressivity it could hardly be more typical of the composer. A very good performance such as this, or the outstanding West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performance at the 2009 Proms, ought to convince any remaining doubters. It was interesting, moreover, to note how different the work sounds in a small hall: much more 'concerto', much less 'chamber'.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Boulez rehearsing the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Mahler
After the grotesquely disfigured rendition of the Third Symphony's finale we recently endured from Sir Simon Rattle (click here for a brief review and comments from others), what a relief it was to come across the following. Though only a rehearsal, prior to a Carnegie Hall performance, line and meaning, quite absent from that Berlin Philharmonic performance, are gloriously reinstated. Sentiment is never confused with sentimentality; musical values are always paramount. Pierre Boulez was substituting for Claudio Abbado, who had just conducted the orchestra in the same work at the Proms (click here for review). This, make no mistake, is the real thing. Even from a 'mere' rehearsal extract, I was moved to tears. A little taste, then, of what I experienced in the complete 2007 cycle from Boulez and Daniel Barenboim (my first ever blog post):
Mahler and the Philharmonia
As regular readers may recall, I have reservations concerning the present Mahler anniversary goings-on. However, for those less jaded than I, there remains a great deal to enjoy this year. The Philharmonia Orchestra is about to launch its symphony cycle under the baton of Lorin Maazel. Going beyond the concerts themselves, the Philharmonia has also launched a Mahler mini-site (click here), replete with interviews and a splendid collection of programme notes from Julian Johnson. Here are three videos, which may be of interest:
Lorin Maazel on Mahler's Music
Lorin Maazel on Mahler, the Man
Interview with Sarah Connolly
Lorin Maazel on Mahler's Music
Lorin Maazel on Mahler, the Man
Interview with Sarah Connolly
Friday, 25 March 2011
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, English National Opera, 24 March 2011
Young Vic Theatre
(sung in English, as The Return of Ulysses)
L’Humana Fragilità, Pisandro – Iestyn Morris
Il Tempo, Antinoo – Francisco Javier Borda
La Fortuna, Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Amore, Melanto – Katherine Manley
Penelope – Pamela Helen Stephen
Ericlea – Diana Montague
Eurimaco – Thomas Walker
Ulisse – Tom Randle
Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Eumete – Nigel Robson
Iro – Brian Galliford
Telemaco – Thomas Hobbs
Benedict Andrews (director)
Börkur Jónsson (set designs)
Alice Babidge (costumes)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Sean Bacon (video)
Members of the Orchestra of the English National Opera
Jonathan Cohen (conductor)
ENO has hit form again, offering my best operatic experience since Elektra last summer in Salzburg. And with Monteverdi: I should hardly have expected it, not least since my prejudices lie very much against contemporary performance practice and translation of his libretti from Italian. The intimate, verging upon claustrophobic, space of the Young Vic was doubtless crucial: a proper rather than merely fashionable experience of theatre ‘in the round’, which could never have worked in the Coliseum.
Though in a literal sense it would be quite true to say that I had travelled over the course of two evenings from musical drama of the present day (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s new opera, Kommilitonen!) towards the early days of opera, the statement might be found misleading, for this was a thoroughly modern Monteverdi we encountered. Kommilitonen! proved enjoyable but also a little dated. Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, as one of the two surviving late operas by Monteverdi, already stands quite distinct from his first, L’Orfeo, let alone from slightly earlier works by other composers. The dramatic orbit of Ulisse and L’incoronazione di Poppea almost inevitably puts one in mind of Monteverdi’s contemporary, Shakespeare; both dramatists remain strikingly modern, not least when contrasted with many of their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century successors. Purcell notwithstanding, one must look to Gluck and then to Mozart to find a musical dramatist fully worthy of the honour of heir, if unwittingly so, to Monteverdi. Yet, if Poppea still shocks to the core, its devastating psychological realism placed in the service of a truly amoral, (quasi-)historical tale, its Homeric predecessor has struggled somewhat to escape its shadows. ENO’s decision to devote its now-annual excursion to the Young Vic to Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, or The Return of Ulysses (to his Homeland), was therefore welcome indeed – and must surely have convinced any doubters that this is a work fully worthy to be ranked with its more celebrated sibling. As ever, there remained the problem of translation into English, but this translation, Christopher Cowell’s, was much better than most of those recently foisted upon us: it respected Giacomo Bodoaro’s libretto after Homer, for which many thanks.
The Prologue makes it quite clear that this is a contemporary drama. Human Frailty is abused, Abu Ghraib style, by Time, Fortune, and Cupid, the evidence gloatingly captured on camera. I was reminded of Barrie Kosky’s Iphigénie en Tauride for Berlin’s Komische Oper; perhaps the resemblance is not entirely coincidental, for director, Benedict Andrews, also Australian, divides his time between Sydney and Berlin, and works at the Schaubühne Theatre. During this abuse, we see Penelope’s parallel agonies on screen, Sean Bacon’s excellent video footage permitting us still-closer-up attention to detail, often but not always that of Penelope. As the Prologue comes to an end, Ithaca’s palace comes into our view – and will never leave it. A stylish, modern apartment (or hotel room?), encased by glass that is smeared by a series of depredations, it is Penelope’s prison: the ever-visible space for the ‘life’ of a ruler’s wife. Börkur Jónsson’s set designs are first-rate, drawing us in and yet repelling us at the same time. Maids fuss and conspire – whom can she trust? – whilst sharply-suited dressed political suitors roam. The tie pins give them away, though: we know that none would be able to string the bow of Ulysses. These cowards, brutal if ultimately ineffectual, pleasure themselves with no thought of Penelope as a woman. In what seemed to me a rare miscalculation, she appears to respond briefly to them physically as they offered their gifts. Perhaps her acts are intended as a trap, but they jar with her constancy and do not seem to lead anywhere.
Some scenes are missing, of course: one cannot help wondering what the sea-music for nereids and sirens was like, likewise the ballet of the Moors. To augment the ravages of time, the director introduced large cuts, the remaining score running – according to the programme, though I did not check – for two-and-a-quarter hours, three acts compressed into two parts. Neptune, Jupiter, and Juno disappear completely. As so often, we seem uncomfortable allotting the gods their role. Minerva remains, though, adopting Penelope’s form and availing herself of the suitors, she perhaps seems more the trickster than Ulysses; is she a goddess at all? Apart from the musico-dramatic loss in itself, there are dramatic consequences, for we miss out on Neptune’s crucial emphasis upon ‘ritorno’ (‘return’). Andrews’s emphasis, however, seems quite different: this is less the story of Ulysses’s return, or rather still less than is often the case, and more Penelope’s tale. However, it works: there is no claim that this was a definitive Ulisse, but it was a powerful musico-dramatic experience.
Moreover, at the end, the balance shifts once again. Reminding us of the images of war that have permeated the drama throughout, not least on the apartment television screen (war in the Mediterranean? surely not…), we suffer Ulysses’s pain upon return: the lack of a role, the rejection, and of course, the bloody revenge he inflicts upon those who have defiled his home, captured on film, just like the initial abuse of the Prologue. After that, his extended shower scene attempts to cleanse, but the only hope, and it may prove vain, lies with Penelope; whatever the beauties of the final duet, the future is uncertain. Cuts may have reshaped the drama but ultimately they did not distort it.
Jonathan Cohen led members of the ENO Orchestra with great dramatic flair. I might hanker after Raymond Leppard, or, better still, Hans Werner Henze’s extraordinary Mediterranean realisation, but this was not hair-shirt Monteverdi, puritanism that would be quite at odds with his Renaissance/Early Baroque world - as a celebrated former Ulisse noted in an interview he gave me not so long ago. The musicians may have been relatively few in number, but a large band was not necessary in the Young Vic; again, the Coliseum would have been another matter. The continuo group was varied. Rebecca Miles’s recorder added variety to the one-to-a-part strings during certain ritornelli, whilst the introduction of Daniel Jamison’s bassoon brought just a hint of Henze’s earthy pagan reimagining.
If ever a role were made for Dame Janet Baker, it was that of Penelope, though it is hard to imagine Pamela Helen Stephen’s great predecessor in this particular production. It is to Stephen’s credit that she very much made the role her own; I only mention Baker since she would have been an inevitable reference point for many. What Stephen lacked in refulgence and sheer nobility of tone, she made up in dignity – and misery – of stage presence. We felt her pain in anything but the modern, debased, sentimental way. Tom Randle is such an intelligent musical actor that it would be easy to take him for granted, but one hardly could on this occasion. The complexities, some of them dark indeed, of Ulysses’s character were searingly portrayed, without the slightest hint of melodrama. Thomas Hobbs made an interesting Telemachus, vulnerable – including memories of the accursed Helen – and scarred by his experience, not least that of ‘rescue’ by Ruby Hughes’s ambiguous Minerva, another fine portrayal. Katherine Manley and Thomas Walker played dangerous, erotic – and utterly convincing – games as Penelope’s maid, Melanto, and her lover, Eurymachus; their lust, for power and for pretty much everything else, was an ongoing reminder of the real (godlike?) forces at play. My only regret concerning Diana Montague’s Ericlea was that she did not have more to sing: what a pleasure it was to hear Montague again, and to share in so faithful – in every sense – a performance. It was an equal pleasure to welcome back long-standing Monteverdian Nigel Robson, who provided a moving portrayal of the honest shepherd, Eumaeus. Brain Galliford’s childish, yet nevertheless sinister, parasite, Irus offered splendid contrast, though the strange scene of his demise, in which Monteverdi’s speech-rhythms seem (at least) to presage Mussorgsky and Janáček, offered pathos too. A ghastly trio of suitors completed the cast, Francisco Javier Borda, Iestyn Morris, and Samuel Boden, all throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Andrews’s – and Monteverdi’s – vision. I was especially taken by the finely shaped tenor of Boden and the icy clarity of Morris’s counter-tenor.
This, then, strikes me as essential theatre for anyone who can still acquire a ticket. Three cheers to all concerned!
(sung in English, as The Return of Ulysses)
 |
| Penelope (Pamela Helen Stephen) Images: Johan Persson |
Il Tempo, Antinoo – Francisco Javier Borda
La Fortuna, Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Amore, Melanto – Katherine Manley
Penelope – Pamela Helen Stephen
Ericlea – Diana Montague
Eurimaco – Thomas Walker
Ulisse – Tom Randle
Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Eumete – Nigel Robson
Iro – Brian Galliford
Telemaco – Thomas Hobbs
Benedict Andrews (director)
Börkur Jónsson (set designs)
Alice Babidge (costumes)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Sean Bacon (video)
Members of the Orchestra of the English National Opera
Jonathan Cohen (conductor)
 |
| Minerva (Ruby Hughes) and Ulisse (Tom Randle) |
Though in a literal sense it would be quite true to say that I had travelled over the course of two evenings from musical drama of the present day (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s new opera, Kommilitonen!) towards the early days of opera, the statement might be found misleading, for this was a thoroughly modern Monteverdi we encountered. Kommilitonen! proved enjoyable but also a little dated. Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, as one of the two surviving late operas by Monteverdi, already stands quite distinct from his first, L’Orfeo, let alone from slightly earlier works by other composers. The dramatic orbit of Ulisse and L’incoronazione di Poppea almost inevitably puts one in mind of Monteverdi’s contemporary, Shakespeare; both dramatists remain strikingly modern, not least when contrasted with many of their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century successors. Purcell notwithstanding, one must look to Gluck and then to Mozart to find a musical dramatist fully worthy of the honour of heir, if unwittingly so, to Monteverdi. Yet, if Poppea still shocks to the core, its devastating psychological realism placed in the service of a truly amoral, (quasi-)historical tale, its Homeric predecessor has struggled somewhat to escape its shadows. ENO’s decision to devote its now-annual excursion to the Young Vic to Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, or The Return of Ulysses (to his Homeland), was therefore welcome indeed – and must surely have convinced any doubters that this is a work fully worthy to be ranked with its more celebrated sibling. As ever, there remained the problem of translation into English, but this translation, Christopher Cowell’s, was much better than most of those recently foisted upon us: it respected Giacomo Bodoaro’s libretto after Homer, for which many thanks.
 |
| Three suitors (L-R: Iestyn Hughes, Samuel Boden, Francisco Javier Borda), Penelope, and Minerva |
 |
| Suitors, Ulisse, Iro (Brian Galliford), and Melanto (Katherine Manley) |
Moreover, at the end, the balance shifts once again. Reminding us of the images of war that have permeated the drama throughout, not least on the apartment television screen (war in the Mediterranean? surely not…), we suffer Ulysses’s pain upon return: the lack of a role, the rejection, and of course, the bloody revenge he inflicts upon those who have defiled his home, captured on film, just like the initial abuse of the Prologue. After that, his extended shower scene attempts to cleanse, but the only hope, and it may prove vain, lies with Penelope; whatever the beauties of the final duet, the future is uncertain. Cuts may have reshaped the drama but ultimately they did not distort it.
 |
| Eurimaco (Thomas Walker), Iro, Penelope, and Antinoo |
Jonathan Cohen led members of the ENO Orchestra with great dramatic flair. I might hanker after Raymond Leppard, or, better still, Hans Werner Henze’s extraordinary Mediterranean realisation, but this was not hair-shirt Monteverdi, puritanism that would be quite at odds with his Renaissance/Early Baroque world - as a celebrated former Ulisse noted in an interview he gave me not so long ago. The musicians may have been relatively few in number, but a large band was not necessary in the Young Vic; again, the Coliseum would have been another matter. The continuo group was varied. Rebecca Miles’s recorder added variety to the one-to-a-part strings during certain ritornelli, whilst the introduction of Daniel Jamison’s bassoon brought just a hint of Henze’s earthy pagan reimagining.
 |
| Penelope and Ulisse (final scene) |
This, then, strikes me as essential theatre for anyone who can still acquire a ticket. Three cheers to all concerned!
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Fidelio: Kirill Petrenko withdraws
The Royal Opera House has just announced that back problems have prevented Kirill Petrenko from continuing with rehearsals of Fidelio, due to open next Tuesday, 29th. Sir Mark Elder, already scheduled to conduct The Tsar's Bride in April, will lead the first performances, with David Syrus conducting on 11 and 16 April. A pity: I had been looking forward to hearing the next General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera (also due to conduct the 2013 Bayreuth Ring). Let us hope that Nina Stemme will remain as Leonore...
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Kommilitonen! Royal Academy Opera, 23 March 2011
Sir Jack Lyons Theatre
The Oxford Revolution
Voice of Pokayne – Jonathan McGovern
James Meredith – Marcus Farnsworth
Die Weisse Rose
Sophie Scholl – Aoife Miskelly
Willi Graf – Frederick Long
Hans Scholl – Johnny Herford
Christoph Probst/The Evangelist – Stephen Aviss
Alexander Schmorell/The Grand Inquisitor – John-Owen Miley-Read
First Clerk, Prison Guard – Irina Gheorghiu
Second Clerk, Gestapo Officer 1, Janitor – Jonathan McGovern
Gestapo Officer 2 – Maximilian Fuhrig
Soar to Heaven
Li Jingji (Mother) – Irina Gheorghiu
Wu Taianshi (Father) – Jonathan McGovern
Wu (Son) – Katie Bray
Li (Daughter) – Belinda Williams
Two Younger Children – Hannah Bradbury, Annie Rago
Zhou (Red Guard) – Ruth Jenkins
Red Army Officer 1 – Belinda Williams
Doctor, Red Army Officer 2 – Laura Kelly
Red Army Officer 3 – Irina Gheorghiu
Puppeteers – Helen Bailey, Nicholas Crawley, Kerri-Lynne Dietz, Thomas Elwin, Fiona Mackay, Sarah Shorter
David Pountney (director)
Robert Innes Hopkins (designs)
James Farncombe (lighting)
Carolyn Choa (choreography)
Mark Down (director of puppetry)
Nick Barnes (puppetry designer)
Royal Academy Opera
Royal Academy of Music Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)
Never say never again: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies had declared that Mr Emmet Takes a Walk (first performance, 2000) would be his last music-theatre piece. However, upon appointment to a position at the Royal Academy of Music, Davies first declined and then, five minutes later, accepted: ‘OK, I’ll do it – but it must be about students and I want to do it with David Pountney … and we should try and do it somewhere else, as well as the Academy, and make it a joint commission.’ And so, it has come to pass: Pountney has acted as librettist and director; the Juilliard School has acted as co-commissioner; the new piece is indeed about students, as indeed was Royal Academy Opera’s recent production of Così fan tutte.
Kommilitonen! presents three stories of student activism, an idea suggested by Pountney to Davies on account of its alleged unfashionability. (It depends where one looks really.) In the meantime, however, the idea has become more topical than the creators might have expected. The three stories are those of the Mississippi Civil Rights pioneer, James Meredith (The Oxford Revolution) Munich students’ heroic wartime resistance (Die weisse Rose), and Chinese students turning upon their parents during the Cultural Revolution (Song to Heaven). Short scenes alternate between the three stories, not always ‘in turn’ – we do not visit China until the fifth scene – but nevertheless so as to provide a panorama of student political experience. The difficulty seems to be how to bring the stories together, and I was not entirely convinced by the synthesis attempted at the end, partly because the ‘message’ is unconvincingly optimistic – we win because we survive – and partly because the appearance of characters in each others’ worlds simply seems forced. Moreover, the superimposition, during the second of the two acts, of a choral voicing of the Passion narrative (in Latin) upon Die weisse Rose, itself somewhat confusingly sometimes in English and sometimes in German, seemed equally forced, though religious and theological concerns have for some time been of great importance to the composer. The introduction of a Grand Inquisitor was, I assume, a deliberate nod to Dallapiccolla’s magnificent one-act opera of political commitment, Il prigioniero, or perhaps it was to Schiller, but it seemed a little arbitrary in the face of what otherwise remained realistic, reportage even. When compared dramaturgically with a work such as Il prigioniero, let alone the daring marriage of agitprop and experimentalism in the operas of Luigi Nono, this did not always convince, enjoyable – perhaps curiously so – though it certainly was. Incidentally, I have no idea why Kommilitonen has been translated as ‘Young Blood’; it is neither a literal nor a contextual translation. ‘Fellow students’, or, if one wished to be more ‘political’, ‘(student) comrades’, would surely be preferable.
What of the music, though? Davies did a thoroughly professional job, as one would expect. The composer has long been associated with music for younger musicians, children included, and with other community projects. This, I can imagine, was a joy for the young musicians of Royal Academy Opera to work upon, nothing too ‘difficult’, grateful for the voices, an important choral part, and much to enjoy from the (chamber) orchestral standpoint too. Davies clearly did not want to present student performers with something unduly daunting, but at the same time, I could not help but wonder whether something a little less conservative in terms of musical language might have worked. Very little, if any, of the music would have been inconceivable to a composer working in the 1920s. Berg (a honky-tonk piano inevitably puts one in mind of Wozzeck, though there are of course precedents in Davies’s work too) and still more so Weill often come to mind in what was in general a frankly tonal score. Britten seemed a guiding presence too. Despite the division into twenty-eight scenes, the two acts are through-composed. There are, though, several memorable moments, not least the choral marching to glorify the Cultural Revolution, and a splendid trumpet solo (very well taken) during the confrontation of the Inquisitor with the Munich students. There is a good bit of parody, long, of course, a preoccupation of the composer; one could not help but smile at the incongruent jazz-band puppetry for the Maoist party scene (no.23). Nevertheless, I equally could not help but wish for the old bite of a work such as Eight Songs for a Mad King; it might have been an angry young man’s music, a line difficult to sustain forever, but its radicalism still takes one’s breath away.
Davies had collaborated with Pountney before; indeed, he was the librettist for Mr Emmet Takes a Walk. ‘I knew,’ Davies remarks, ‘that the stage direction would not be a travesty of text and music’. And the direction did seem to serve the work well – hardly surprising, I suppose, if director and librettist are one and the same person. The stories are generally told clearly and with wit; puppetry, in danger of becoming merely fashionable on the opera stage, does not fall into that trap here. Set designs and changes are skilfully conceived and executed. The intimacy of the Jack Lyons Theatre helps, but great credit is nevertheless due to all concerned.
Musically, this was very much a company performance rather than any sort of star vehicle, for which enabling credit is certainly due to composer and librettist. It seems in that context invidious to single out particular vocal performers, since all convinced, though I wish the unwelcome trend of having American characters sing in pseudo-American accent might be curtailed. No equivalent was attempted with the German and Chinese stories, so why do so when it comes to the United States? More importantly, however, one truly gained a sense of singers’ musical and dramatic interaction, having developed a work from scratch. There were no weak links whatsoever. Jane Glover directed the excellent Royal Academy Sinfonia with verve and formal clarity.
The Oxford Revolution
Voice of Pokayne – Jonathan McGovern
James Meredith – Marcus Farnsworth
Die Weisse Rose
Sophie Scholl – Aoife Miskelly
Willi Graf – Frederick Long
Hans Scholl – Johnny Herford
Christoph Probst/The Evangelist – Stephen Aviss
Alexander Schmorell/The Grand Inquisitor – John-Owen Miley-Read
First Clerk, Prison Guard – Irina Gheorghiu
Second Clerk, Gestapo Officer 1, Janitor – Jonathan McGovern
Gestapo Officer 2 – Maximilian Fuhrig
Soar to Heaven
Li Jingji (Mother) – Irina Gheorghiu
Wu Taianshi (Father) – Jonathan McGovern
Wu (Son) – Katie Bray
Li (Daughter) – Belinda Williams
Two Younger Children – Hannah Bradbury, Annie Rago
Zhou (Red Guard) – Ruth Jenkins
Red Army Officer 1 – Belinda Williams
Doctor, Red Army Officer 2 – Laura Kelly
Red Army Officer 3 – Irina Gheorghiu
Puppeteers – Helen Bailey, Nicholas Crawley, Kerri-Lynne Dietz, Thomas Elwin, Fiona Mackay, Sarah Shorter
David Pountney (director)
Robert Innes Hopkins (designs)
James Farncombe (lighting)
Carolyn Choa (choreography)
Mark Down (director of puppetry)
Nick Barnes (puppetry designer)
Royal Academy Opera
Royal Academy of Music Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)
Never say never again: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies had declared that Mr Emmet Takes a Walk (first performance, 2000) would be his last music-theatre piece. However, upon appointment to a position at the Royal Academy of Music, Davies first declined and then, five minutes later, accepted: ‘OK, I’ll do it – but it must be about students and I want to do it with David Pountney … and we should try and do it somewhere else, as well as the Academy, and make it a joint commission.’ And so, it has come to pass: Pountney has acted as librettist and director; the Juilliard School has acted as co-commissioner; the new piece is indeed about students, as indeed was Royal Academy Opera’s recent production of Così fan tutte.
Kommilitonen! presents three stories of student activism, an idea suggested by Pountney to Davies on account of its alleged unfashionability. (It depends where one looks really.) In the meantime, however, the idea has become more topical than the creators might have expected. The three stories are those of the Mississippi Civil Rights pioneer, James Meredith (The Oxford Revolution) Munich students’ heroic wartime resistance (Die weisse Rose), and Chinese students turning upon their parents during the Cultural Revolution (Song to Heaven). Short scenes alternate between the three stories, not always ‘in turn’ – we do not visit China until the fifth scene – but nevertheless so as to provide a panorama of student political experience. The difficulty seems to be how to bring the stories together, and I was not entirely convinced by the synthesis attempted at the end, partly because the ‘message’ is unconvincingly optimistic – we win because we survive – and partly because the appearance of characters in each others’ worlds simply seems forced. Moreover, the superimposition, during the second of the two acts, of a choral voicing of the Passion narrative (in Latin) upon Die weisse Rose, itself somewhat confusingly sometimes in English and sometimes in German, seemed equally forced, though religious and theological concerns have for some time been of great importance to the composer. The introduction of a Grand Inquisitor was, I assume, a deliberate nod to Dallapiccolla’s magnificent one-act opera of political commitment, Il prigioniero, or perhaps it was to Schiller, but it seemed a little arbitrary in the face of what otherwise remained realistic, reportage even. When compared dramaturgically with a work such as Il prigioniero, let alone the daring marriage of agitprop and experimentalism in the operas of Luigi Nono, this did not always convince, enjoyable – perhaps curiously so – though it certainly was. Incidentally, I have no idea why Kommilitonen has been translated as ‘Young Blood’; it is neither a literal nor a contextual translation. ‘Fellow students’, or, if one wished to be more ‘political’, ‘(student) comrades’, would surely be preferable.
What of the music, though? Davies did a thoroughly professional job, as one would expect. The composer has long been associated with music for younger musicians, children included, and with other community projects. This, I can imagine, was a joy for the young musicians of Royal Academy Opera to work upon, nothing too ‘difficult’, grateful for the voices, an important choral part, and much to enjoy from the (chamber) orchestral standpoint too. Davies clearly did not want to present student performers with something unduly daunting, but at the same time, I could not help but wonder whether something a little less conservative in terms of musical language might have worked. Very little, if any, of the music would have been inconceivable to a composer working in the 1920s. Berg (a honky-tonk piano inevitably puts one in mind of Wozzeck, though there are of course precedents in Davies’s work too) and still more so Weill often come to mind in what was in general a frankly tonal score. Britten seemed a guiding presence too. Despite the division into twenty-eight scenes, the two acts are through-composed. There are, though, several memorable moments, not least the choral marching to glorify the Cultural Revolution, and a splendid trumpet solo (very well taken) during the confrontation of the Inquisitor with the Munich students. There is a good bit of parody, long, of course, a preoccupation of the composer; one could not help but smile at the incongruent jazz-band puppetry for the Maoist party scene (no.23). Nevertheless, I equally could not help but wish for the old bite of a work such as Eight Songs for a Mad King; it might have been an angry young man’s music, a line difficult to sustain forever, but its radicalism still takes one’s breath away.
Davies had collaborated with Pountney before; indeed, he was the librettist for Mr Emmet Takes a Walk. ‘I knew,’ Davies remarks, ‘that the stage direction would not be a travesty of text and music’. And the direction did seem to serve the work well – hardly surprising, I suppose, if director and librettist are one and the same person. The stories are generally told clearly and with wit; puppetry, in danger of becoming merely fashionable on the opera stage, does not fall into that trap here. Set designs and changes are skilfully conceived and executed. The intimacy of the Jack Lyons Theatre helps, but great credit is nevertheless due to all concerned.
Musically, this was very much a company performance rather than any sort of star vehicle, for which enabling credit is certainly due to composer and librettist. It seems in that context invidious to single out particular vocal performers, since all convinced, though I wish the unwelcome trend of having American characters sing in pseudo-American accent might be curtailed. No equivalent was attempted with the German and Chinese stories, so why do so when it comes to the United States? More importantly, however, one truly gained a sense of singers’ musical and dramatic interaction, having developed a work from scratch. There were no weak links whatsoever. Jane Glover directed the excellent Royal Academy Sinfonia with verve and formal clarity.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
LSO/Davis - Stravinsky, Strauss, and Beethoven, 20 March 2011
Barbican Hall
Stravinsky – Symphony in Three Movements
Strauss – Four Last Songs
Beethoven – Symphony no.6 in F major, op.68
Sally Matthews (soprano)
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)
Only a tone-deaf fool could doubt Stravinsky’s compositional genius, even if some of us who flatter ourselves that we are neither entirely foolish nor entirely tone-deaf may harbour doubts about some of those works where the composer fell most deeply into the quicksands of neo-classicism (Orpheus and Apollo, for example). Yet his æsthetic influence, or at least the influence of the æsthetic propounded under Stravinsky’s name – the Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons is far from exclusiveely his work – has been more questionable, not least the typically polemical nonsense about music being unable to express anything other than itself. Even his compositional legacy remains ambivalent: if Stravinsky, by virtue of his very genius, could convincingly play with hollowed-out tonality beyond its sell-by date, that does not absolve his camp followers from the twin charges of tedium and populism: an odd pair, but unquestionably combined in a great deal of minimalism.
So how would Sir Colin Davis fare in a work such as Symphony in Three Movements, a work tipping its hat towards the symphonic form in which Davis so often excels, yet which is better understood as anti-symphonic? Very well, as it happens, reminding us that the conductor once led a good number of performances of Stravinsky’s music. For one so unfailingly alert to the humanity of Mozart’s music – an increasingly rare gift in an age of unforgivably brutalised Mozart – Sir Colin rendered the first movement of Stravinsky’s work mechanistic to a tee, those ‘inspiring’ wartime news-reels coming to life before our mind’s eyes. The LSO’s precision came as no surprise, given its accustomed excellence, but should still be noted, not least the barbarism – in a positive sense! – of its brass section. Occasionally, I felt that the tempo might have benefited from being a little swifter, but clarity and general relentness by and large compensated. The fantastical development of the harp-led second movement proved evocative of the ballet: Stravinsky’s Scènes de ballet and Jeu de cartes came to mind. The LSO’s woodwind section seized its opportunity to shine, with delightful interventions from the strings. The darker, more sinister moments were equally well painted. (And this, whatever Stravinsky’s anti-Romantic declarations, is surely ‘programme’ music as well as its supposedly ‘absolute’ antithesis.) The final movement was mercilessly triumphant in its dehumanised and dehumanising glory, if anything more so at a slightly more measured tempo than we generally hear. Heft and attack were impeccable, as were the more soloistic moments: there was some superb bassoon playing in particular. In Davis’s hands, rhythms both harked back to the Rite – of which, once again, he used to be a noted exponent – whilst the fugue also looked forward to works such as Agon and even Movements, for all their difference in musical language. Is it yet too late to hope that we might hope for some late Stravinsky from Sir Colin? (Or indeed from anyone else, for it is music that is scandalously neglected, whether by conductors or concert promoters…)
For all the continued excellence of the LSO’s performance, some gorgeous orchestral detail revealed, the Four Last Songs that followed were best forgotten, the worst account I have heard. Sally Matthews was a late substitution for Elza van den Heever. Matthews’s small voice is simply not up to the task, nor is her strange, merging into indistinct, German diction: when one could hear the words, they sounded closer to Dutch. To begin with, I wondered whether some fault lay as much with the conductor: Strauss has not formed a major part of Sir Colin’s repertoire, though he has brought magic to Ariadne auf Naxos, both at Covent Garden and on DVD from Dresden. The beat was laboured in Frühling, and September was very slow indeed, distended even, its bar lines again far too evident. Yet, in the latter, it sounded very much as though the slowness was that of the soloist (and I love slow tempi when they work: think of Janowitz and Karajan
…). Matthews, however, was merely making a meal out of it, audibly taking breaths within phrases. And yet, there was stillness at the end, in preparation for that horn solo, heart-rendingly delivered by David Pyatt: a true sense of an old man’s farewell. Beim Schlafengehen again brought orchestral revelations, not least from inner parts, violas in particular. Yet it sounded less like ‘going to sleep’ than long since turned comatose. Upon Matthews’s entry, the music slowed, the introduction having been relatively swift; throughout, the vocal line was effortful. Roman Simovic’s violin solo was, as expected, exquisite, with a beautiful touch of portamento. Strings were rich for that final orchestral hurrah, the introduction to Im Abendrot. The rest, you will be able to write for yourselves by now…
The day was saved by an excellent account of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. After the laboured Strauss, a perky first movement – never, be it noted, driven – came as quite the antidote. The LSO sounded wonderfully cultivated: everything well articulated, without exaggeration. Perhaps there was something slightly neutral to the first movement performance, but the occasional doubt disappeared in a beautifully shaped, which is to say ‘natural’-sounding, Scene by the Brook, which flowed more quickly than one might have expected. Articulation was again exemplary, especially woodwind phrasing. Davis imparted a splendid sense of building momentum, from which one could happily enjoy the rest of the aural view, grainy bassoons and magically pure flute and clarinet solos included. In a less than excellent performance of this movement, I have been known to tire: no such chance here. The third movement emerged as a true scherzo, alternately light-footed and vigorous, woodwind again superlative. Its trio was rustic without the slightest hint of crudity; this was very much a dance, joyful rather than driven. Transition to the fourth movement was seamless, full of uneasiness, foreboding, whilst the storm clearly presaged Berlioz, the LSO as magnificent as in Sir Colin’s performances of Les troyens, rhythmic attack and colour equally crucial. The finale brought that serene nobility which might be considered Beethoven’s – and Davis’s – stock-in-trade, but which one should never take for granted. Earlier virtues of articulation and colour (woodwind and horns) were very much present, as was true, unforced exultancy.
Stravinsky – Symphony in Three Movements
Strauss – Four Last Songs
Beethoven – Symphony no.6 in F major, op.68
Sally Matthews (soprano)
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)
Only a tone-deaf fool could doubt Stravinsky’s compositional genius, even if some of us who flatter ourselves that we are neither entirely foolish nor entirely tone-deaf may harbour doubts about some of those works where the composer fell most deeply into the quicksands of neo-classicism (Orpheus and Apollo, for example). Yet his æsthetic influence, or at least the influence of the æsthetic propounded under Stravinsky’s name – the Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons is far from exclusiveely his work – has been more questionable, not least the typically polemical nonsense about music being unable to express anything other than itself. Even his compositional legacy remains ambivalent: if Stravinsky, by virtue of his very genius, could convincingly play with hollowed-out tonality beyond its sell-by date, that does not absolve his camp followers from the twin charges of tedium and populism: an odd pair, but unquestionably combined in a great deal of minimalism.
So how would Sir Colin Davis fare in a work such as Symphony in Three Movements, a work tipping its hat towards the symphonic form in which Davis so often excels, yet which is better understood as anti-symphonic? Very well, as it happens, reminding us that the conductor once led a good number of performances of Stravinsky’s music. For one so unfailingly alert to the humanity of Mozart’s music – an increasingly rare gift in an age of unforgivably brutalised Mozart – Sir Colin rendered the first movement of Stravinsky’s work mechanistic to a tee, those ‘inspiring’ wartime news-reels coming to life before our mind’s eyes. The LSO’s precision came as no surprise, given its accustomed excellence, but should still be noted, not least the barbarism – in a positive sense! – of its brass section. Occasionally, I felt that the tempo might have benefited from being a little swifter, but clarity and general relentness by and large compensated. The fantastical development of the harp-led second movement proved evocative of the ballet: Stravinsky’s Scènes de ballet and Jeu de cartes came to mind. The LSO’s woodwind section seized its opportunity to shine, with delightful interventions from the strings. The darker, more sinister moments were equally well painted. (And this, whatever Stravinsky’s anti-Romantic declarations, is surely ‘programme’ music as well as its supposedly ‘absolute’ antithesis.) The final movement was mercilessly triumphant in its dehumanised and dehumanising glory, if anything more so at a slightly more measured tempo than we generally hear. Heft and attack were impeccable, as were the more soloistic moments: there was some superb bassoon playing in particular. In Davis’s hands, rhythms both harked back to the Rite – of which, once again, he used to be a noted exponent – whilst the fugue also looked forward to works such as Agon and even Movements, for all their difference in musical language. Is it yet too late to hope that we might hope for some late Stravinsky from Sir Colin? (Or indeed from anyone else, for it is music that is scandalously neglected, whether by conductors or concert promoters…)
For all the continued excellence of the LSO’s performance, some gorgeous orchestral detail revealed, the Four Last Songs that followed were best forgotten, the worst account I have heard. Sally Matthews was a late substitution for Elza van den Heever. Matthews’s small voice is simply not up to the task, nor is her strange, merging into indistinct, German diction: when one could hear the words, they sounded closer to Dutch. To begin with, I wondered whether some fault lay as much with the conductor: Strauss has not formed a major part of Sir Colin’s repertoire, though he has brought magic to Ariadne auf Naxos, both at Covent Garden and on DVD from Dresden. The beat was laboured in Frühling, and September was very slow indeed, distended even, its bar lines again far too evident. Yet, in the latter, it sounded very much as though the slowness was that of the soloist (and I love slow tempi when they work: think of Janowitz and Karajan
…). Matthews, however, was merely making a meal out of it, audibly taking breaths within phrases. And yet, there was stillness at the end, in preparation for that horn solo, heart-rendingly delivered by David Pyatt: a true sense of an old man’s farewell. Beim Schlafengehen again brought orchestral revelations, not least from inner parts, violas in particular. Yet it sounded less like ‘going to sleep’ than long since turned comatose. Upon Matthews’s entry, the music slowed, the introduction having been relatively swift; throughout, the vocal line was effortful. Roman Simovic’s violin solo was, as expected, exquisite, with a beautiful touch of portamento. Strings were rich for that final orchestral hurrah, the introduction to Im Abendrot. The rest, you will be able to write for yourselves by now…The day was saved by an excellent account of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. After the laboured Strauss, a perky first movement – never, be it noted, driven – came as quite the antidote. The LSO sounded wonderfully cultivated: everything well articulated, without exaggeration. Perhaps there was something slightly neutral to the first movement performance, but the occasional doubt disappeared in a beautifully shaped, which is to say ‘natural’-sounding, Scene by the Brook, which flowed more quickly than one might have expected. Articulation was again exemplary, especially woodwind phrasing. Davis imparted a splendid sense of building momentum, from which one could happily enjoy the rest of the aural view, grainy bassoons and magically pure flute and clarinet solos included. In a less than excellent performance of this movement, I have been known to tire: no such chance here. The third movement emerged as a true scherzo, alternately light-footed and vigorous, woodwind again superlative. Its trio was rustic without the slightest hint of crudity; this was very much a dance, joyful rather than driven. Transition to the fourth movement was seamless, full of uneasiness, foreboding, whilst the storm clearly presaged Berlioz, the LSO as magnificent as in Sir Colin’s performances of Les troyens, rhythmic attack and colour equally crucial. The finale brought that serene nobility which might be considered Beethoven’s – and Davis’s – stock-in-trade, but which one should never take for granted. Earlier virtues of articulation and colour (woodwind and horns) were very much present, as was true, unforced exultancy.
Friday, 18 March 2011
Arensky Chamber Orchestra/Gould - Rautavaara, Grieg, Vivaldi, and Schnelzer
Cadogan Hall
Rautavaara – Pelimannit (‘The Fiddlers’), op.1
Grieg – From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style, op.40
Vivaldi – Violin Concerto in D major, ‘Il Grosso Mogul,’ RV 208
Albert Schnelzer – Emperor Akbar (British premiere, orchestral version)
Arensky Chamber Orchestra
Clio Gould (violin, director)
Last September, I reported enthusiastically from the Arensky Chamber Orchestra’s launch at the Institute of Directors. I am delighted to say that this concert’s performances proved of an equally high standard. A crack team of young soloists combined under the leadership of Clio Gould to provide an object lesson in stylish, dynamic string playing.
To stand out amongst a host of chamber ensembles, the ACO has resolved to do things differently, not for the mere sake of it, but to attempt to present works in interesting new ways, both through programming and presentation. Interesting connections abounded: Scandinavian string music from Einojuhani Raatavaara, Edvard Grieg, and Swedish composer, Albert Schnelzer, the string orchestral version of the latter’s Emperor Akbar also fitting nicely with one of Vivaldi’s two Mogul excursions, the D major concerto, RV 208.
As we entered the Cadogan Hall, members of the orchestra greeted us from a balcony above the stage with their own arrangement of folk material collected by fiddler Samuel Rinda-Nickola (1763-1818), thus preparing us for Rautavaara’s The Fiddlers, which also makes use of Rinda-Nickola’s material. A student work, indeed his op.1, The Fiddlers (or ‘Pelimannit’) is full of exuberance; at least it was in this typically energetic performance. The informative programme notes informed us that Rautavaara originally wrote a piano piece, which he subsequently arranged for string orchestra. From the idiomatic rendition here, one would never have guessed, though the composer perhaps sounds closer to the likes of Honegger than to his later self (no complaints here). Depth and richness of tone combined with sharp characterisation of individual movements, relishing but never unduly exaggerating the composer’s ‘wrong-note’ harmonies, to provide a memorable account. Another programming idea: perhaps a potential companion piece to Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s riotous Rheinische Kirmestänze?
Grieg’s Holberg Suite followed: another work originally composed for piano and subsequently arranged for string orchestra. It is an unfashionable work; indeed, one might say much the same of Grieg as a composer: a pity, since its evocation of the Baroque suite is charming and never resorts to pastiche. Lightly nostalgic, the ACO’s account paid homage to an imagined eighteenth century, whilst making abundantly clear that this was a nineteenth-century work. Grieg’s harmonies delighted, not least on account of well-judged harmonic rhythm under Gould’s wise direction. String tone itself was expressively rich, though never overwhelmingly so: light and rich are not necessarily antonyms. The Air (‘Andante religioso’) was sung especially beautifully, never descending into the realms of the maudlin. Gould’s solos proved beguiling, but so did those from other section principals, amongst whom Steffan Rees’s finely shaded cello line deserves especial mention.
Gould was the soloist for Vivaldi’s Il grosso mogul concerto. I cannot claim to be a paid-up Vivaldian – Dallapiccolla’s line, popularised by Stravinsky, about writing the same concerto a few hundred times dies hard – but this was a fine reading that never outstayed its welcome. Once again striking was the richness, though not a ‘Romantic’ richness, of tone displayed by the orchestra as a whole, a fine backdrop for Vivaldi’s – and Gould’s – flights of violinistic fantasy. The slow movement, for solo and continuo, showed that there is variety within Vivaldi’s box of tricks, even if I could not help – heretically? – thinking that Bach’s arrangement remains superior to the original. But what a joy it was to hear such warmth from the orchestra: utterly distant from current attention-seeking ‘authenticity’. I was put in mind of the English Chamber Orchestra in its heyday.
Finally came the British premiere of the orchestral version of Albert Schnelzer’s Emperor Akbar, its quartet version written for the Brodsky Quartet. Where the inspiration for Vivaldi’s title remains obscure, Schnelzer pays explicit homage to Salman Rushdie’s portrait of the Mogul Emperor in The Enchantress of Florence. Indeed, we heard readings from Rushdie prior to both the Vivaldi and Schnelzer pieces. Schnelzer, according to his biography ‘has openly declared that communication is a key element in his music.’ I am not sure that there is anything particularly unusual about that, though the implication would seem to be that (relatively) straightforward is better. The dance-inspired rhythms and melodies were once again expertly despatched by the orchestra, though I could not help wishing that something a little more intellectually engaging were on offer. Ferneyhough perhaps: I suspect these players would cope…
The next ACO concert will feature Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, both in its original sextet version, alongside an exhibition of new works from the Royal College of Art, and in the version for string orchestra. Perhaps my belief in the original’s superiority will be challenged; we shall see… For further details on the Arensky Chamber Orchestra, please visit the orchestra’s website (click here).
Rautavaara – Pelimannit (‘The Fiddlers’), op.1
Grieg – From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style, op.40
Vivaldi – Violin Concerto in D major, ‘Il Grosso Mogul,’ RV 208
Albert Schnelzer – Emperor Akbar (British premiere, orchestral version)
Arensky Chamber Orchestra
Clio Gould (violin, director)
Last September, I reported enthusiastically from the Arensky Chamber Orchestra’s launch at the Institute of Directors. I am delighted to say that this concert’s performances proved of an equally high standard. A crack team of young soloists combined under the leadership of Clio Gould to provide an object lesson in stylish, dynamic string playing.
To stand out amongst a host of chamber ensembles, the ACO has resolved to do things differently, not for the mere sake of it, but to attempt to present works in interesting new ways, both through programming and presentation. Interesting connections abounded: Scandinavian string music from Einojuhani Raatavaara, Edvard Grieg, and Swedish composer, Albert Schnelzer, the string orchestral version of the latter’s Emperor Akbar also fitting nicely with one of Vivaldi’s two Mogul excursions, the D major concerto, RV 208.
As we entered the Cadogan Hall, members of the orchestra greeted us from a balcony above the stage with their own arrangement of folk material collected by fiddler Samuel Rinda-Nickola (1763-1818), thus preparing us for Rautavaara’s The Fiddlers, which also makes use of Rinda-Nickola’s material. A student work, indeed his op.1, The Fiddlers (or ‘Pelimannit’) is full of exuberance; at least it was in this typically energetic performance. The informative programme notes informed us that Rautavaara originally wrote a piano piece, which he subsequently arranged for string orchestra. From the idiomatic rendition here, one would never have guessed, though the composer perhaps sounds closer to the likes of Honegger than to his later self (no complaints here). Depth and richness of tone combined with sharp characterisation of individual movements, relishing but never unduly exaggerating the composer’s ‘wrong-note’ harmonies, to provide a memorable account. Another programming idea: perhaps a potential companion piece to Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s riotous Rheinische Kirmestänze?
Grieg’s Holberg Suite followed: another work originally composed for piano and subsequently arranged for string orchestra. It is an unfashionable work; indeed, one might say much the same of Grieg as a composer: a pity, since its evocation of the Baroque suite is charming and never resorts to pastiche. Lightly nostalgic, the ACO’s account paid homage to an imagined eighteenth century, whilst making abundantly clear that this was a nineteenth-century work. Grieg’s harmonies delighted, not least on account of well-judged harmonic rhythm under Gould’s wise direction. String tone itself was expressively rich, though never overwhelmingly so: light and rich are not necessarily antonyms. The Air (‘Andante religioso’) was sung especially beautifully, never descending into the realms of the maudlin. Gould’s solos proved beguiling, but so did those from other section principals, amongst whom Steffan Rees’s finely shaded cello line deserves especial mention.
Gould was the soloist for Vivaldi’s Il grosso mogul concerto. I cannot claim to be a paid-up Vivaldian – Dallapiccolla’s line, popularised by Stravinsky, about writing the same concerto a few hundred times dies hard – but this was a fine reading that never outstayed its welcome. Once again striking was the richness, though not a ‘Romantic’ richness, of tone displayed by the orchestra as a whole, a fine backdrop for Vivaldi’s – and Gould’s – flights of violinistic fantasy. The slow movement, for solo and continuo, showed that there is variety within Vivaldi’s box of tricks, even if I could not help – heretically? – thinking that Bach’s arrangement remains superior to the original. But what a joy it was to hear such warmth from the orchestra: utterly distant from current attention-seeking ‘authenticity’. I was put in mind of the English Chamber Orchestra in its heyday.
Finally came the British premiere of the orchestral version of Albert Schnelzer’s Emperor Akbar, its quartet version written for the Brodsky Quartet. Where the inspiration for Vivaldi’s title remains obscure, Schnelzer pays explicit homage to Salman Rushdie’s portrait of the Mogul Emperor in The Enchantress of Florence. Indeed, we heard readings from Rushdie prior to both the Vivaldi and Schnelzer pieces. Schnelzer, according to his biography ‘has openly declared that communication is a key element in his music.’ I am not sure that there is anything particularly unusual about that, though the implication would seem to be that (relatively) straightforward is better. The dance-inspired rhythms and melodies were once again expertly despatched by the orchestra, though I could not help wishing that something a little more intellectually engaging were on offer. Ferneyhough perhaps: I suspect these players would cope…
The next ACO concert will feature Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, both in its original sextet version, alongside an exhibition of new works from the Royal College of Art, and in the version for string orchestra. Perhaps my belief in the original’s superiority will be challenged; we shall see… For further details on the Arensky Chamber Orchestra, please visit the orchestra’s website (click here).
Monday, 14 March 2011
Biss/LSO/Davis - Beethoven (and Maistorovici), 13 March 2011
Barbican Hall
Vlad Maistorovici – Halo (world premiere)*
Beethoven – Piano Concerto no.3 in C minor, op.37
Beethoven – Symphony no.7 in A major, op.92
Jonathan Biss (piano)
London Symphony Orchestra
Clemens Schuldt (conductor*)
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)
Vlad Maistorovici’s Halo was given its previously unannounced – as is the custom – premiere as part of the LSO’s Panufnik Young Composers Scheme. Doubtless there are very good reasons for the practice: acquiring a full audience for a young composer’s opportunity to be performed by one of the world’s greatest orchestras (whatever one controversy-manufacturing newspaper journalist might say) is certainly a worthy aim. However, I cannot help but wonder whether such new works might also benefit from better contextualisation. There were many influences, or at least connections, one might have discerned from earlier music, but it was not clear to me that the two Beethoven works had anything in common with Halo, nor indeed that the concerto and symphony benefited from such juxtaposition as opposed, say, to being prefaced by a Beethoven overture.
That said, Maistorovici, born in Romania in 1985, and by all accounts a fine violinist as well as a composer, certainly did benefit from the advocacy of the LSO and Clemens Schuldt, who seemed to me to conduct the work as if it were already a classic. (I very much hope to hear more from Schuldt before long.) Halo is in many ways relatively straightforwardly pictorial, opening with a light source (a reference, according to the composer, to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, Mahler’s First, and Kurtág’s Stele) with musical motion quickly tending towards the halo’s glow. To say that it is pictorial does not mean that it is not tightly organised; far from it, for audible symmetries and reflections abound. Nevertheless, an audience versed in superior film music would at least have some point of entry. It seemed to me that Mahler and Messiaen were obvious points of comparison, whether ‘influences’ or otherwise. Particular things to listen out for – or rather, which one could hardly fail to hear – were a high-lying violin line, prominent tuned percussion, and low bass lines across the various instrumental families. Though Maistorovici did not mention Ligeti, I wondered whether the strings’ swarming was inspired by the Hungarian master. Whatever the ultimate fortunes of the piece – and it is a fool’s game to say too much after a single hearing – this composer is clearly one who already understands the craft of orchestration and who does not fear bold gestures. I suspect that we shall hear more from him.
The performance of Beethoven’s C minor concerto was in many ways impressive, and the LSO’s performance again proved outstanding, yet doubts lingered concerning some aspects of Jonathan Biss’s reading. Sir Colin Davis was, I am delighted to report, firing on all cylinders throughout, reminding us that he is a Beethovenian of distinction. His Staatskapelle Dresden set of the symphonies is certainly one of the best available in digital sound; his Dresden collaboration with Claudio Arrau on the piano concertos remains a justly esteemed classic. Davis is also, of course, a Mozartian hors concours; it was interesting therefore to note that his opening tutti audibly took its leave from Mozart’s C minor concerto – which Beethoven revered – but also made it clear that the composer was Beethoven, not his predecessor. The orchestral contribution, then, proved urgent and grand. Biss’s piano performance was beautifully shaded and articulated, yet ultimately perhaps a little on the controlled side. (There was a curious mismatch here between the somewhat awkward Romantic flailings one often witnessed and the school of Murray Perahia Beethoven one tended to hear.) The first-movement cadenza illustrated Biss’s approach rather well: relatively big-boned, always clear, yet lacking the sense of physical grit, of metaphysical struggle, that a musician such as Daniel Barenboim would always bring to the work, even when seeming a little out of practice. Davis’s structural command proved impeccable throughout. The slow movement was, again, beautifully delivered, structurally clear. If the piano cantilena occasionally tended towards Chopin, that is only because it does in the score. Bassoon and flute solos from the LSO principals were simply delightful. I missed again, however, in the piano part the Barenboim-like sense of taking the music by the scruff of its neck. Still, as Apollonian goes, this was impressive. What a pity, then, that the inhabitants of an intensive care ward appeared to have descended upon the Barbican, doing their best to obliterate the music with excessive – even by usual standards – bronchial intervention. The finale was taken attacca. Here, as elsewhere, the tempo sounded just right. Perhaps the rondo theme might have exhibited greater cheek than it did in Biss’s hands, but it was always well delivered. The LSO once again sounded magnificent in its marriage of tonal heft and pin-point accuracy; there were some especially lovely cello passages to be heard. Davis remained supportive in his wisdom, the transformation effected by C major release judged to perfection.
Then came Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The first movement introduction prepared the way not only for the rest of the movement but the symphony as a whole, Klemperer-like in its integrity, doggedly un-Furtwänglerian in the best sense, yet with an equally fine sense of chiaroscuro. Once again, the LSO was on superlative form, its woodwind especially ravishing. Everything combined to render palpable a truly Beethovenian sense of the nobility of the human spirit. (Perhaps this is why we find Beethoven so difficult to perform today.) The growling bass line of that first-movement coda was ominous indeed, yet not for its own sake, but as part of a properly organic whole. Weber – at least according to Schindler – could not have been more wrong: Beethoven was ripe for anywhere but the madhouse. My only frustration concerned the lack of the exposition repeat: I am sure that it can work without, but the grand scale suffered a little, the movement over a little too quickly. However, the gruff opening of the second movement, out of which grew a procession of enormous, indeed overwhelming, cumulative power, was truly a thing of awe. It was as if – and here I thought both of Wagner’s Opera and Drama and Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces, op.6 – music were actually developing, taking form, out of something less choate. Light and shade had their structural place too; there was nothing of the monochrome to Sir Colin’s reading, nor to the LSO’s execution. That subjectivity which lies at the core of the Beethovenian problematic was here to be sure: defiant yet not unyielding.
I neither know nor care how the scherzo matched up to Beethoven’s metronome marking; what I can say is that the tempo sounded just right in performance. It was certainly fast but undeniably human. There was none of Karajan’s coldness, for the music pulsated with life, just as the Eroica scherzo would or should. Moreover, this was a real dance, with a spring in its step such as one rarely discovers. (I hope that the Almighty will spare me from having to endure Toscanini in Beethoven ever again.) The trio was considerably slower, in the ‘traditional’ manner, and rightly so. It harked back to Mozartian Harmoniemusik, the LSO woodwind again quite magical, but retained Beethovenian force through strings, brass, and kettledrums. The scherzo was then experienced properly as release, the trio again as respite, and so on. An acid test for me concerning a good performance of this symphony is whether I become bored through the twofold repetition of the trio: no chance of that on this occasion. Davis’s command of line and drama once again marked his performance of the finale, yet victory remained, as it must, hard-won. There are no easy answers in Beethoven – and they are certainly not to be found in the ticking of the metronome, as satirised by the composer himself in the symphony that would follow. Rhythm, including harmonic rhythm, is crucial to the success of this and many another movement by Beethoven: Sir Colin provided a masterclass in how to navigate the tricky twists and turns of Beethoven’s ebullience. The LSO’s string section really dug into their strings, as if their lives depended upon it; we were never far from Fidelio. This was a performance that was exciting in the truest sense, as opposed to the merely excitable accounts for which too often we must settle. The Pastoral awaits, next Sunday.
Vlad Maistorovici – Halo (world premiere)*
Beethoven – Piano Concerto no.3 in C minor, op.37
Beethoven – Symphony no.7 in A major, op.92
Jonathan Biss (piano)
London Symphony Orchestra
Clemens Schuldt (conductor*)
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)
Vlad Maistorovici’s Halo was given its previously unannounced – as is the custom – premiere as part of the LSO’s Panufnik Young Composers Scheme. Doubtless there are very good reasons for the practice: acquiring a full audience for a young composer’s opportunity to be performed by one of the world’s greatest orchestras (whatever one controversy-manufacturing newspaper journalist might say) is certainly a worthy aim. However, I cannot help but wonder whether such new works might also benefit from better contextualisation. There were many influences, or at least connections, one might have discerned from earlier music, but it was not clear to me that the two Beethoven works had anything in common with Halo, nor indeed that the concerto and symphony benefited from such juxtaposition as opposed, say, to being prefaced by a Beethoven overture.
That said, Maistorovici, born in Romania in 1985, and by all accounts a fine violinist as well as a composer, certainly did benefit from the advocacy of the LSO and Clemens Schuldt, who seemed to me to conduct the work as if it were already a classic. (I very much hope to hear more from Schuldt before long.) Halo is in many ways relatively straightforwardly pictorial, opening with a light source (a reference, according to the composer, to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, Mahler’s First, and Kurtág’s Stele) with musical motion quickly tending towards the halo’s glow. To say that it is pictorial does not mean that it is not tightly organised; far from it, for audible symmetries and reflections abound. Nevertheless, an audience versed in superior film music would at least have some point of entry. It seemed to me that Mahler and Messiaen were obvious points of comparison, whether ‘influences’ or otherwise. Particular things to listen out for – or rather, which one could hardly fail to hear – were a high-lying violin line, prominent tuned percussion, and low bass lines across the various instrumental families. Though Maistorovici did not mention Ligeti, I wondered whether the strings’ swarming was inspired by the Hungarian master. Whatever the ultimate fortunes of the piece – and it is a fool’s game to say too much after a single hearing – this composer is clearly one who already understands the craft of orchestration and who does not fear bold gestures. I suspect that we shall hear more from him.
The performance of Beethoven’s C minor concerto was in many ways impressive, and the LSO’s performance again proved outstanding, yet doubts lingered concerning some aspects of Jonathan Biss’s reading. Sir Colin Davis was, I am delighted to report, firing on all cylinders throughout, reminding us that he is a Beethovenian of distinction. His Staatskapelle Dresden set of the symphonies is certainly one of the best available in digital sound; his Dresden collaboration with Claudio Arrau on the piano concertos remains a justly esteemed classic. Davis is also, of course, a Mozartian hors concours; it was interesting therefore to note that his opening tutti audibly took its leave from Mozart’s C minor concerto – which Beethoven revered – but also made it clear that the composer was Beethoven, not his predecessor. The orchestral contribution, then, proved urgent and grand. Biss’s piano performance was beautifully shaded and articulated, yet ultimately perhaps a little on the controlled side. (There was a curious mismatch here between the somewhat awkward Romantic flailings one often witnessed and the school of Murray Perahia Beethoven one tended to hear.) The first-movement cadenza illustrated Biss’s approach rather well: relatively big-boned, always clear, yet lacking the sense of physical grit, of metaphysical struggle, that a musician such as Daniel Barenboim would always bring to the work, even when seeming a little out of practice. Davis’s structural command proved impeccable throughout. The slow movement was, again, beautifully delivered, structurally clear. If the piano cantilena occasionally tended towards Chopin, that is only because it does in the score. Bassoon and flute solos from the LSO principals were simply delightful. I missed again, however, in the piano part the Barenboim-like sense of taking the music by the scruff of its neck. Still, as Apollonian goes, this was impressive. What a pity, then, that the inhabitants of an intensive care ward appeared to have descended upon the Barbican, doing their best to obliterate the music with excessive – even by usual standards – bronchial intervention. The finale was taken attacca. Here, as elsewhere, the tempo sounded just right. Perhaps the rondo theme might have exhibited greater cheek than it did in Biss’s hands, but it was always well delivered. The LSO once again sounded magnificent in its marriage of tonal heft and pin-point accuracy; there were some especially lovely cello passages to be heard. Davis remained supportive in his wisdom, the transformation effected by C major release judged to perfection.
Then came Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The first movement introduction prepared the way not only for the rest of the movement but the symphony as a whole, Klemperer-like in its integrity, doggedly un-Furtwänglerian in the best sense, yet with an equally fine sense of chiaroscuro. Once again, the LSO was on superlative form, its woodwind especially ravishing. Everything combined to render palpable a truly Beethovenian sense of the nobility of the human spirit. (Perhaps this is why we find Beethoven so difficult to perform today.) The growling bass line of that first-movement coda was ominous indeed, yet not for its own sake, but as part of a properly organic whole. Weber – at least according to Schindler – could not have been more wrong: Beethoven was ripe for anywhere but the madhouse. My only frustration concerned the lack of the exposition repeat: I am sure that it can work without, but the grand scale suffered a little, the movement over a little too quickly. However, the gruff opening of the second movement, out of which grew a procession of enormous, indeed overwhelming, cumulative power, was truly a thing of awe. It was as if – and here I thought both of Wagner’s Opera and Drama and Berg’s Three Orchestral Pieces, op.6 – music were actually developing, taking form, out of something less choate. Light and shade had their structural place too; there was nothing of the monochrome to Sir Colin’s reading, nor to the LSO’s execution. That subjectivity which lies at the core of the Beethovenian problematic was here to be sure: defiant yet not unyielding.
I neither know nor care how the scherzo matched up to Beethoven’s metronome marking; what I can say is that the tempo sounded just right in performance. It was certainly fast but undeniably human. There was none of Karajan’s coldness, for the music pulsated with life, just as the Eroica scherzo would or should. Moreover, this was a real dance, with a spring in its step such as one rarely discovers. (I hope that the Almighty will spare me from having to endure Toscanini in Beethoven ever again.) The trio was considerably slower, in the ‘traditional’ manner, and rightly so. It harked back to Mozartian Harmoniemusik, the LSO woodwind again quite magical, but retained Beethovenian force through strings, brass, and kettledrums. The scherzo was then experienced properly as release, the trio again as respite, and so on. An acid test for me concerning a good performance of this symphony is whether I become bored through the twofold repetition of the trio: no chance of that on this occasion. Davis’s command of line and drama once again marked his performance of the finale, yet victory remained, as it must, hard-won. There are no easy answers in Beethoven – and they are certainly not to be found in the ticking of the metronome, as satirised by the composer himself in the symphony that would follow. Rhythm, including harmonic rhythm, is crucial to the success of this and many another movement by Beethoven: Sir Colin provided a masterclass in how to navigate the tricky twists and turns of Beethoven’s ebullience. The LSO’s string section really dug into their strings, as if their lives depended upon it; we were never far from Fidelio. This was a performance that was exciting in the truest sense, as opposed to the merely excitable accounts for which too often we must settle. The Pastoral awaits, next Sunday.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Mozart Unwrapped (4) - King's College Choir/Cleobury, 11 March 2011
Hall One, Kings Place
Missa brevis in B-flat major, KV 275/272b
Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night-Music’
Gradual (Introit): Sancta Maria, mater Dei, KV 273
Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, interspersed with:
Church Sonata in F major, KV 224
Offertorium de B.V. Maria: Alma Dei creatoris, KV 277
Communion: Gregorian chant
Krysia Osostowicz, Giles Francis (violins)
Judith Busbridge (viola)
Bernard Gregor-Smith (violoncello)
Steven Stirling, Sue Dent (French horns)
Peter Buckoke (double bass)
Ben-San Lau, Parker Ramsay (Organ Scholars)
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Stephen Cleobury (conductor)
Mozart continues to be ‘unwrapped’ at Kings Place. I confess that I no more understand the designation than I did before – or than I did for Beethoven and Chopin – but more importantly, this exploration of sacred and other music for Salzburg offered a delightful evening. The Choir of King’s College under Stephen Cleobury made a welcome debut at the festival, joined by the Dante Quartet and other instrumentalists.
At the heart of the programme stood two missae breves. KV 275/272b, in B-flat major, opened the concert. The unassuming nature of the performance put me in mind of the delightful St John’s recordings of Haydn and Mozart under George Guest. (Cleobury was one of the Guest era’s numerous organ scholars.) That said, the sounds of King’s and John’s remain distinct: the former ‘whiter’, more ‘English’, the latter more ‘Continental’ in timbre. King’s, however, had been joined by a notably fruity tenor, especially prominent when intoning ‘Credo in unum Deum’. After the Credo, a little echo reminded me of its big brother in King’s Chapel itself, but the new location of Hall One, Kings Place, could otherwise hardly stand more distinct from the choir’s home. There were, then, no musical – or rather anti-musical – shock tactics; instead, straightforward musical virtues, such as clarity of line and diction, cleanness of counterpoint, and a decent affection for Mozart’s setting, were to the fore. The Sanctus sounded nicely but never pedantically ‘constructed’; structure is always central, indeed crucial, to Mozart performance. Boys’ voices had a particular opportunity to shine, well taken, in the Benedictus. And the lovingly extended ‘Dona nobis pacem’ music sounded every bit as catchy as it should be.
The rest of the first half was devoted to the First Lodron Night-Music. Three members of the Dante quartet and double bass were now joined by the remaining quartet member (viola) and two horns. This equally delightful divertimento received a performance that was sharp yet warm, and eminently cultivated, its first movement inflections effortlessly ‘natural’: characteristics that ought to go without saying in Mozart performance, yet are frequently notable only by their absence. Inner movements proved elegantly turned indeed, yet each possessed its own particular character, whether the ravishing horn beauties of the third or the joy of the inner parts’ interplay during the fourth. The latter’s minor-mode material provided dignified pathos, without exaggeration, whilst the pizzicato lines of the fifth movement were simply delightful. Mozart’s finale proved as cheekily catchy as the ‘Dona’ music from the mass, all the more so on account of the players’ resisting any temptation heedlessly to rush.
For the second half, the Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, was presented semi-liturgically. That is, to say, there was no celebration of the Mass, but accompanying music was provided, from the introductory Gradual to Gregorian Chant – ‘Beata viscera Mariae Virginis, quae porta verunt aetemi Patris Filium. Alleluia' – which led straight into the Agnus Dei. South German Rococo joy was present, yet never overdone, in the opening Sancta Maria, KV 273: in Mozart, less so often proves more. Once again, musical structure was admirably clear. The Kyrie imparted an apt sense of earlier-century Neapolitan sacred music, its delights heightened once again by admirably cultivated string playing. Viennese style of Caldara and still more Fux came effortlessly to the foreground in the Gloria. It was a joy to hear the chamber organ (Ben-San Lau) for one of those glorious Epistle Sonatas that we seemingly never have opportunity to hear. (If only they could be programmed every time in place, say, of a Vivaldi concerto!) The Credo’s foreshadowing of the triumph of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony’s finale – its quintessentially Fuxian contrapuntal tag, C-D-F-E, here of course in F major, so F,G, B flat, A – was all the more welcome for being simply presented rather than hammered home. Alma Dei creatoris, the offertory hymn, was distinguished by a radiantly imploring treble line: how could the Mother of God decline to intercede? The censer – albeit English rather than full-bloodedly Austrian Baroque – was almost rendered visible in the jubilant ‘Osanna’.
I look forward to the second instalment on 12 October, when the Second Lodron Night-Music will join two further missae breves, in G major, KV 140 and D major, KV 194/186h, the latter interspersed with further Gregorian chant, the D major Church Sonata, KV 245, the Offertorium, Venite populi, KV 260 and that ineffably sublime late motet, Ave verum corpus, KV 618. For further details concerning ‘Mozart Unwrapped’, click here.
Missa brevis in B-flat major, KV 275/272b
Divertimento in F major, KV 247, ‘First Lodron Night-Music’
Gradual (Introit): Sancta Maria, mater Dei, KV 273
Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, interspersed with:
Church Sonata in F major, KV 224
Offertorium de B.V. Maria: Alma Dei creatoris, KV 277
Communion: Gregorian chant
Krysia Osostowicz, Giles Francis (violins)
Judith Busbridge (viola)
Bernard Gregor-Smith (violoncello)
Steven Stirling, Sue Dent (French horns)
Peter Buckoke (double bass)
Ben-San Lau, Parker Ramsay (Organ Scholars)
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Stephen Cleobury (conductor)
Mozart continues to be ‘unwrapped’ at Kings Place. I confess that I no more understand the designation than I did before – or than I did for Beethoven and Chopin – but more importantly, this exploration of sacred and other music for Salzburg offered a delightful evening. The Choir of King’s College under Stephen Cleobury made a welcome debut at the festival, joined by the Dante Quartet and other instrumentalists.
At the heart of the programme stood two missae breves. KV 275/272b, in B-flat major, opened the concert. The unassuming nature of the performance put me in mind of the delightful St John’s recordings of Haydn and Mozart under George Guest. (Cleobury was one of the Guest era’s numerous organ scholars.) That said, the sounds of King’s and John’s remain distinct: the former ‘whiter’, more ‘English’, the latter more ‘Continental’ in timbre. King’s, however, had been joined by a notably fruity tenor, especially prominent when intoning ‘Credo in unum Deum’. After the Credo, a little echo reminded me of its big brother in King’s Chapel itself, but the new location of Hall One, Kings Place, could otherwise hardly stand more distinct from the choir’s home. There were, then, no musical – or rather anti-musical – shock tactics; instead, straightforward musical virtues, such as clarity of line and diction, cleanness of counterpoint, and a decent affection for Mozart’s setting, were to the fore. The Sanctus sounded nicely but never pedantically ‘constructed’; structure is always central, indeed crucial, to Mozart performance. Boys’ voices had a particular opportunity to shine, well taken, in the Benedictus. And the lovingly extended ‘Dona nobis pacem’ music sounded every bit as catchy as it should be.
The rest of the first half was devoted to the First Lodron Night-Music. Three members of the Dante quartet and double bass were now joined by the remaining quartet member (viola) and two horns. This equally delightful divertimento received a performance that was sharp yet warm, and eminently cultivated, its first movement inflections effortlessly ‘natural’: characteristics that ought to go without saying in Mozart performance, yet are frequently notable only by their absence. Inner movements proved elegantly turned indeed, yet each possessed its own particular character, whether the ravishing horn beauties of the third or the joy of the inner parts’ interplay during the fourth. The latter’s minor-mode material provided dignified pathos, without exaggeration, whilst the pizzicato lines of the fifth movement were simply delightful. Mozart’s finale proved as cheekily catchy as the ‘Dona’ music from the mass, all the more so on account of the players’ resisting any temptation heedlessly to rush.
For the second half, the Missa brevis in F major, KV 192/186f, was presented semi-liturgically. That is, to say, there was no celebration of the Mass, but accompanying music was provided, from the introductory Gradual to Gregorian Chant – ‘Beata viscera Mariae Virginis, quae porta verunt aetemi Patris Filium. Alleluia' – which led straight into the Agnus Dei. South German Rococo joy was present, yet never overdone, in the opening Sancta Maria, KV 273: in Mozart, less so often proves more. Once again, musical structure was admirably clear. The Kyrie imparted an apt sense of earlier-century Neapolitan sacred music, its delights heightened once again by admirably cultivated string playing. Viennese style of Caldara and still more Fux came effortlessly to the foreground in the Gloria. It was a joy to hear the chamber organ (Ben-San Lau) for one of those glorious Epistle Sonatas that we seemingly never have opportunity to hear. (If only they could be programmed every time in place, say, of a Vivaldi concerto!) The Credo’s foreshadowing of the triumph of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony’s finale – its quintessentially Fuxian contrapuntal tag, C-D-F-E, here of course in F major, so F,G, B flat, A – was all the more welcome for being simply presented rather than hammered home. Alma Dei creatoris, the offertory hymn, was distinguished by a radiantly imploring treble line: how could the Mother of God decline to intercede? The censer – albeit English rather than full-bloodedly Austrian Baroque – was almost rendered visible in the jubilant ‘Osanna’.
I look forward to the second instalment on 12 October, when the Second Lodron Night-Music will join two further missae breves, in G major, KV 140 and D major, KV 194/186h, the latter interspersed with further Gregorian chant, the D major Church Sonata, KV 245, the Offertorium, Venite populi, KV 260 and that ineffably sublime late motet, Ave verum corpus, KV 618. For further details concerning ‘Mozart Unwrapped’, click here.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Pisaroni/Rieger - Schubert, Rossini, and Liszt, 6 March 2011
Wigmore Hall
Schubert – Il modo di prender moglie, D902/3
L’incanto degli occhi, D902/1
Il traditor deluso D902/2
Rossini – La promessa
L’esule
L’orgia
Liszt – Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, S.272 (second version)
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, S.289
O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst, S.298
Die Vätergruft
Tre sonetti de Petrarca, S.270 (first version)
Luca Pisaroni (baritone)
Wolfram Rieger (piano)
(Image: Marco Borggreve)
I was surprised to discover that this was Luca Pisaroni’s Wigmore Hall debut. On the basis of this splendidly planned recital, he should return very soon indeed. I admired him enormously as Salzburg’s 2007 Figaro and he has recently been garnering plaudits in the same role in Vienna’s somewhat more ‘traditional’ production. It is therefore a delight to report that Pisaroni is just as much at home in the recital room, and every bit as comfortable with German as Italian song.
Schubert opened the recital, but in the guise of his three Metastasio songs, D 902, dedicated to the Italian bass, Luigi Lablache. (They were also published with a German translation.) Pisaroni made something very particular out of them, turning their mixed German-Italian nature into a point of interest rather than a mere compromise. The opening Il modo di render moglie, in which the narrator asks why he might not choose a wife for money, had something of the opera too it: Mozart in the third stanza, moving to Rossini at climax, but Pisaroni was always careful to present these songs as songs; they never overstepped the boundary into aspirant opera, despite the tumult one could only really describe as ‘operatic’ in the recitative of Il traditor deluso and the subsequent portrayal of Metastasian furies. The central L’incanto degli occhi sounded closer to German Romanticism, and were blessed by a beautiful richness of tone especially apparent upon the deeper bass notes. It was a pity that pianist Wolfram Rieger could sometimes, especially in the outer pair, prove a little plodding, but that did not detract from Pisaroni’s artistry.
Schubert, as we hear in his Sixth Symphony, was far from immune to the Rossini craze that swept Vienna, even though he would always remain much closer to Beethoven. It was time to hear from Rossini himself: again, not in aria, but in song, and Pisaroni was every bit as successful in ensuring that the three Rossini songs were heard just as that. One could certainly hear that he would make a fine Rossini singer in the theatre, not least from his beautifully sustained line, but that was not the point on the present occasion. Indeed, we heard, especially in La promessa (Metastasio again), a more Romantic and songlike Rossini than would generally be the case, without stepping too far from the classical poise of the text. Rieger imparted a nice, if slightly Germanic, spring to the piano part for L’orgia, but it was Pisaroni who stole the show, his naughtily confiding ‘Gulliva ravviva / Rinnova ogni cor’ an especial joy, on account of a subtlety one does not necessarily expect to hear applied to Rossini.
Then, a true mark of intelligent programming, we moved to Liszt: German, but not quite, closer to Italian music than, say, Wagner or Brahms. Pisaroni’s diction and sense of style had been predictably yet still creditably fine in the Italian songs; they were no less so when it came to Heine, Freiligrath, and Uhland. Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, announces the first song (‘In the Rhine, the beautiful river’), and that is very much what we heard, but beauty heightened the rapt response to Heine’s verse rather than drawing attention from the words. Rieger seemed more at home in Liszt than during the Italian songs, though it took him a couple of songs or so to get going here. The second Heine setting, Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, was more impassioned than the first, yet stood some way from abandon. One was doubly thankful, then, for the Romantically ardent baritone whose songs, were they poisoned (vergiftet), could not but tempt one to taste of his poison. O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! would become the celebrated Liebesträume no.3. In Pisaroni’s rendition, its Italianate vocal line blended perfectly with German verse and harmonic direction: Lisztian alchemy indeed. Die Vätergruft emerged in ghostly fashion: an old man, clad in armour, entered an ancient chapel, and, floored by a song of exhortation, fell to his final rest. Midway between Schubert and Wagner (perhaps even Mahler’s Das klagende Lied), it retained the twin Italian and German virtues of the previous Liszt songs. I can honestly say that, had I not known the nationality of the singer, I should never have guessed from his German that he was not a native speaker. Matched with rare beauty of tone and unerring control of line, this made for something special indeed.
Finally came the Petrarch Sonnets. Those very virtues of tone and line, married once again to fine diction, permitted the beauty of Petrarch’s verse to emerge afresh. Expectation upon no.104’s ‘E temo e spero, ed ardo e son un ghiaccio’ (‘I fear, yet hope; I burn, yet am turned to ice’) turned dramatically yet naturally to soaring in the heavens for ‘E volo sopra ‘l cielo’. No.47 was perhaps a little less impressive, opening in comparatively casual fashion; there were, moreover, a few moments when intonation wavered, though when it did not, which was most of the time, there was much to savour. Such was the clarity of diction that one readily detected typographical errors in the printed text, such as ‘primo’ for ‘promo’. And when Pisaroni concluded Sonnet no.123 with the words ‘Tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aere e l’vento’ (‘Such sweetness had filled the air and winds’), one could only concur. If one is to hear a lower voice rather than a tenor in these songs, I cannot think of anyone I should rather hear. Rieger too had seemed incited by the poetry and produced some magically Lisztian beauty, not least in the final postlude. As an encore, we were treated to Es muss ein wunderbares sein, S.314, Pisaroni’s treatment as rapt as the Heine setting with which the Liszt selection had opened. One Thomas Hampson, seated with his partner immediately behind me, apparently unbeknown to his son-in-law on stage, was impressed too...
Schubert – Il modo di prender moglie, D902/3
L’incanto degli occhi, D902/1
Il traditor deluso D902/2
Rossini – La promessa
L’esule
L’orgia
Liszt – Im Rhein, im schönen Strome, S.272 (second version)
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder, S.289
O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst, S.298
Die Vätergruft
Tre sonetti de Petrarca, S.270 (first version)
Luca Pisaroni (baritone)
Wolfram Rieger (piano)
(Image: Marco Borggreve)
I was surprised to discover that this was Luca Pisaroni’s Wigmore Hall debut. On the basis of this splendidly planned recital, he should return very soon indeed. I admired him enormously as Salzburg’s 2007 Figaro and he has recently been garnering plaudits in the same role in Vienna’s somewhat more ‘traditional’ production. It is therefore a delight to report that Pisaroni is just as much at home in the recital room, and every bit as comfortable with German as Italian song.Schubert opened the recital, but in the guise of his three Metastasio songs, D 902, dedicated to the Italian bass, Luigi Lablache. (They were also published with a German translation.) Pisaroni made something very particular out of them, turning their mixed German-Italian nature into a point of interest rather than a mere compromise. The opening Il modo di render moglie, in which the narrator asks why he might not choose a wife for money, had something of the opera too it: Mozart in the third stanza, moving to Rossini at climax, but Pisaroni was always careful to present these songs as songs; they never overstepped the boundary into aspirant opera, despite the tumult one could only really describe as ‘operatic’ in the recitative of Il traditor deluso and the subsequent portrayal of Metastasian furies. The central L’incanto degli occhi sounded closer to German Romanticism, and were blessed by a beautiful richness of tone especially apparent upon the deeper bass notes. It was a pity that pianist Wolfram Rieger could sometimes, especially in the outer pair, prove a little plodding, but that did not detract from Pisaroni’s artistry.
Schubert, as we hear in his Sixth Symphony, was far from immune to the Rossini craze that swept Vienna, even though he would always remain much closer to Beethoven. It was time to hear from Rossini himself: again, not in aria, but in song, and Pisaroni was every bit as successful in ensuring that the three Rossini songs were heard just as that. One could certainly hear that he would make a fine Rossini singer in the theatre, not least from his beautifully sustained line, but that was not the point on the present occasion. Indeed, we heard, especially in La promessa (Metastasio again), a more Romantic and songlike Rossini than would generally be the case, without stepping too far from the classical poise of the text. Rieger imparted a nice, if slightly Germanic, spring to the piano part for L’orgia, but it was Pisaroni who stole the show, his naughtily confiding ‘Gulliva ravviva / Rinnova ogni cor’ an especial joy, on account of a subtlety one does not necessarily expect to hear applied to Rossini.
Finally came the Petrarch Sonnets. Those very virtues of tone and line, married once again to fine diction, permitted the beauty of Petrarch’s verse to emerge afresh. Expectation upon no.104’s ‘E temo e spero, ed ardo e son un ghiaccio’ (‘I fear, yet hope; I burn, yet am turned to ice’) turned dramatically yet naturally to soaring in the heavens for ‘E volo sopra ‘l cielo’. No.47 was perhaps a little less impressive, opening in comparatively casual fashion; there were, moreover, a few moments when intonation wavered, though when it did not, which was most of the time, there was much to savour. Such was the clarity of diction that one readily detected typographical errors in the printed text, such as ‘primo’ for ‘promo’. And when Pisaroni concluded Sonnet no.123 with the words ‘Tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aere e l’vento’ (‘Such sweetness had filled the air and winds’), one could only concur. If one is to hear a lower voice rather than a tenor in these songs, I cannot think of anyone I should rather hear. Rieger too had seemed incited by the poetry and produced some magically Lisztian beauty, not least in the final postlude. As an encore, we were treated to Es muss ein wunderbares sein, S.314, Pisaroni’s treatment as rapt as the Heine setting with which the Liszt selection had opened. One Thomas Hampson, seated with his partner immediately behind me, apparently unbeknown to his son-in-law on stage, was impressed too...
Friday, 4 March 2011
Bruno Mantovani, Akhmatova
Bruno Mantovani's second opera, Akhmatova, will be premiered at the Opéra national de Paris on 28 March. I shall be there for its second performance, on 31st. Fresh from the reported success of his ballet, Siddharta, which received its first performances at the same house last season - perhaps there is hope after all for Fantasy Opera and even Fantasy Ballet! - Mantovani, his librettist, Christophe Ghristi, and his conductor, Pascal Rophé, speak here of their collaboration to date. The online journal, we are promised, will be updated as time goes on...
For those wanting a taste of Mantovani's music, here is a performance of his L'Incandescence de la bruine, for saxophone and piano:
Forthcoming commissions include a piece for the Ensemble Modern, to be conducted by Pierre Boulez, another for the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly, and a violin concerto for Renaud Capuçon. For the composer's website, click here.
I should hate to jinx the work, but I think we may rest assured that it will turn out rather better than Anna Nicole...
For those wanting a taste of Mantovani's music, here is a performance of his L'Incandescence de la bruine, for saxophone and piano:
Forthcoming commissions include a piece for the Ensemble Modern, to be conducted by Pierre Boulez, another for the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly, and a violin concerto for Renaud Capuçon. For the composer's website, click here.
I should hate to jinx the work, but I think we may rest assured that it will turn out rather better than Anna Nicole...
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Songs, Cycles, and Scenas, 1 March 2011
Purcell Room
Cornelius Cardew – Solo with Accompaniment
Howard Skempton – Gloss (world premiere)
Jonathan Harvey – Ah! Sun-flower
Colin Matthews – Out in the dark
John Woolrich – Stendhal’s Observation
Philip Cashian – The Songs few hear (world premiere)
Rolf Hind – Fire in the Head (world premiere)
George Nicholson – selection from Bagatelles (6,3,4,2), for oboe and percussion (London premiere)
Alun Hoddinott – A Contemplation upon Flowers (Myfanwy Piper) (London premiere)
Claire Booth (soprano)
Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano)
Janey Miller (oboe)
Joby Burgess (percussion)
I wanted to like this concert; I had expected to like this concert. Reader, you are doubtless expecting a ‘but’, and verily, there are several. To start with, the programme really did not hang together. I had assumed that there would be at least one work in which all of the players came together. What instead we had was alternating groups of pieces for oboe and percussion on the one hand, and soprano and piano on the other, with a small part for percussion added by the performers for the final piece (no oboe). Nor did there seem to be any connection between the music played by the two groups: that for oboe and percussion was ‘experimental’, and frankly of dubious quality, however well performed, whilst that for soprano and piano was – surprisingly, given the adventurous tastes of Claire Booth in general – pleasant enough but for the most part somewhat conservative.
I was intrigued by the prospect of hearing Cornelius Cardew’s Solo with Accompaniment. A box, I suppose, has been ticked; I cannot imagine wanting to hear its banalities again. Clearly the concept is the important thing, but an extremely simple solo – played, I assume as requested, with most unpleasing tone by Janey Miller – around which a busier percussion accompaniment weaves itself to no particular end, is not much of a tribute to Stockhausen, as John Tilbury claimed in his memorial lecture on Cardew. As for Howard Skempton’s Gloss, receiving its first performance, minimalistic simplicity would, as usual, appear to be the concept. If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like. To my ears, it sounded like a cross between a GCSE project and the beginning of a score for a Channel 4 period drama. Joby Burgess’s performances throughout, however, seemed exemplary; he certainly did everything he could to try to convince one of the music’s worth. Fire in the Head, by Rolf Hind, also received its first performance. I have only previously heard Hind as an extremely fine pianist – most recently in Lachenmann’s Ausklang – and it would seem that I am far more attuned to his work in that guise. Based, we were told, upon Buddhist ideas, notably that one must live ‘for the moment’ and that the Buddha would at some point dance with the Devil, it was certainly eventful. Burgess and Miller gave it their all, including shouts of what I assume were Buddhist or mock-Buddhist chant. Pouring water from a plastic jug into a bowl was one of Burgess’s manifold tasks. Again, it seemed a bit like a school – perhaps an art school – project, but doubtless I was missing the point. George Nicholson’s Bagatelles went on for a while and ended, though they seemed more substantially composed; I think I had become rather fed up by that point, so ought to hear them again. At least they permitted us to hear the oboe d’amore in addition to English horn.
Of the songs, John Woolrich’s Stendhal’s Observation emerged at the time as a typically finely wrought example of the composer’s art, though I admit that I cannot clearly recall how or why even in what seemed to me the strongest piece on the programme. (That, I am sure, however, and without irony, is my loss.) Jonathan Harvey’s Ah! Sun-flower set words by Blake clearly, without leaving any lasting impression, whilst Colin Matthews’s Out in the dark seemed merely neo-Romantic, but at least short. Philip Cashian’s The Songs few hear from time to time seemed to evoke Britten in its vocabulary; it was idiomatically written for voice and piano, and the musicians concerned would seem to have given a good account. I am not sure that it was done any great favours by the context of its programming. Claire Booth’s clarity and quality of voice were exemplary throughout, likewise Andrew Matthews-Owen’s skilled navigation of the varied – sometimes, not so varied – piano parts. Matthews-Owen perhaps particularly came into his own in the piano reduction of Alun Hoddinott’s A Contemplation upon Flowers. Again, Britten came to mind more than once, but Hoddinott’s language here equally often sounded knowingly post-Impressionist, or at least French-influenced. There are worse influences than Britten and Debussy, of course, and the almost Romantic climaxes, surely and expressively conveyed by both musicians, betokened at least a synthesis that was Hoddinott’s own. Burgess added atmospheric tolling bells in the first and third of the cycle’s three songs.
Cornelius Cardew – Solo with Accompaniment
Howard Skempton – Gloss (world premiere)
Jonathan Harvey – Ah! Sun-flower
Colin Matthews – Out in the dark
John Woolrich – Stendhal’s Observation
Philip Cashian – The Songs few hear (world premiere)
Rolf Hind – Fire in the Head (world premiere)
George Nicholson – selection from Bagatelles (6,3,4,2), for oboe and percussion (London premiere)
Alun Hoddinott – A Contemplation upon Flowers (Myfanwy Piper) (London premiere)
Claire Booth (soprano)
Andrew Matthews-Owen (piano)
Janey Miller (oboe)
Joby Burgess (percussion)
I wanted to like this concert; I had expected to like this concert. Reader, you are doubtless expecting a ‘but’, and verily, there are several. To start with, the programme really did not hang together. I had assumed that there would be at least one work in which all of the players came together. What instead we had was alternating groups of pieces for oboe and percussion on the one hand, and soprano and piano on the other, with a small part for percussion added by the performers for the final piece (no oboe). Nor did there seem to be any connection between the music played by the two groups: that for oboe and percussion was ‘experimental’, and frankly of dubious quality, however well performed, whilst that for soprano and piano was – surprisingly, given the adventurous tastes of Claire Booth in general – pleasant enough but for the most part somewhat conservative.
I was intrigued by the prospect of hearing Cornelius Cardew’s Solo with Accompaniment. A box, I suppose, has been ticked; I cannot imagine wanting to hear its banalities again. Clearly the concept is the important thing, but an extremely simple solo – played, I assume as requested, with most unpleasing tone by Janey Miller – around which a busier percussion accompaniment weaves itself to no particular end, is not much of a tribute to Stockhausen, as John Tilbury claimed in his memorial lecture on Cardew. As for Howard Skempton’s Gloss, receiving its first performance, minimalistic simplicity would, as usual, appear to be the concept. If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like. To my ears, it sounded like a cross between a GCSE project and the beginning of a score for a Channel 4 period drama. Joby Burgess’s performances throughout, however, seemed exemplary; he certainly did everything he could to try to convince one of the music’s worth. Fire in the Head, by Rolf Hind, also received its first performance. I have only previously heard Hind as an extremely fine pianist – most recently in Lachenmann’s Ausklang – and it would seem that I am far more attuned to his work in that guise. Based, we were told, upon Buddhist ideas, notably that one must live ‘for the moment’ and that the Buddha would at some point dance with the Devil, it was certainly eventful. Burgess and Miller gave it their all, including shouts of what I assume were Buddhist or mock-Buddhist chant. Pouring water from a plastic jug into a bowl was one of Burgess’s manifold tasks. Again, it seemed a bit like a school – perhaps an art school – project, but doubtless I was missing the point. George Nicholson’s Bagatelles went on for a while and ended, though they seemed more substantially composed; I think I had become rather fed up by that point, so ought to hear them again. At least they permitted us to hear the oboe d’amore in addition to English horn.
Of the songs, John Woolrich’s Stendhal’s Observation emerged at the time as a typically finely wrought example of the composer’s art, though I admit that I cannot clearly recall how or why even in what seemed to me the strongest piece on the programme. (That, I am sure, however, and without irony, is my loss.) Jonathan Harvey’s Ah! Sun-flower set words by Blake clearly, without leaving any lasting impression, whilst Colin Matthews’s Out in the dark seemed merely neo-Romantic, but at least short. Philip Cashian’s The Songs few hear from time to time seemed to evoke Britten in its vocabulary; it was idiomatically written for voice and piano, and the musicians concerned would seem to have given a good account. I am not sure that it was done any great favours by the context of its programming. Claire Booth’s clarity and quality of voice were exemplary throughout, likewise Andrew Matthews-Owen’s skilled navigation of the varied – sometimes, not so varied – piano parts. Matthews-Owen perhaps particularly came into his own in the piano reduction of Alun Hoddinott’s A Contemplation upon Flowers. Again, Britten came to mind more than once, but Hoddinott’s language here equally often sounded knowingly post-Impressionist, or at least French-influenced. There are worse influences than Britten and Debussy, of course, and the almost Romantic climaxes, surely and expressively conveyed by both musicians, betokened at least a synthesis that was Hoddinott’s own. Burgess added atmospheric tolling bells in the first and third of the cycle’s three songs.
Transition_Projects/OUT HEAR: Ligeti, Musica ricercata, 28 February 2011
Hall Two, Kings Place
Danny Driver (piano)
Andrew Stephen (actor)
Netia Jones (direction/video design)
Nat Urazmetova (video assistant)
Capriccio 1 and 2 (1947)
Invention (1948)
Musica ricercata (1951-3)
This was a wonderful concert! As if the promise of a complete performance of Ligeti’s Musica ricercata were not enough, we had, as has often been the case with Transition_Projects events at Kings Place, a bonus, this time in the place of some even earlier Ligeti piano pieces. One entered Hall Two to see a man, played by the excellent Andrew Stephen, seated near motionless at a typewriter and his projection on the screen behind. Crackling radio-like noises evoked a post-war environment, suggestive of the world in which Ligeti came of age, and more specifically of his father, in the words of Netia Jones’s helpful note, ‘a highly intellectual and cultivated man constantly surrounded by science and research books, who would spend days clattering away on a typewriter’. Such matters remained an abiding interest for Györgi Ligeti; this concert provided a relatively rare opportunity to experience his musical life at the beginning: not as a documentary, but as a fascinating and enjoyable imaginary encounter. Ricercata as research, then, as well as musical form…
The previously advertised Ryan Wigglesworth had at some point been replaced with Danny Driver, who proved a sure guide in our fifty-minute tour. The notes were not merely played, but connected: always a crucial thing, but of particular relevance given the additive plan of Musica ricercata, on which more in a moment. First, however, we heard the bonus pieces: not mere bonuses, of course, but characterful in their own right and enlightening background to the main course. First, a title screen was typed – and screened. Dictionary and technical definitions of words such as ‘contrapuntal’ and so forth appeared on screen thereafter, Ligeti’s autodidacticism brought to the fore. We also saw Driver’s hands at one point. Bartók’s influence was keenly felt, especially in the second Capriccio: sometimes at least a dangerous thing in post-war Hungary, as Ligeti would already have known.
Musica ricercata is a set of eleven pieces, unperformed until 1969, in which each piece has one more pitch class than its predecessor. Thus, the first is restricted to A, with D introduced at the end; the second, E sharp, F sharp, and G, and so on. Bartók is still an audible presence, but Ligeti’s own ricercata is the guiding principle. In Jones’s words, ‘his voracious intellect … [led] to research in many different directions, from his favourite books, What is Mathematics? (Richard Courant & Herbert Robbins) and A la recherche du temps perdu (Marcel Proust) to early compositional techniques and methods. An open-ended research that could last a lifetime … [and] a foretaste of the exhilarating invention that was to come.’
Jones’s projections and Stephen’s stage action genuinely added to the sense of research and invention. The man’s pacing, increasing to running, seemed to liberate our aural imaginations during the first piece, not to restrict them; there was no suggestion that this was what the music was ‘about’, but it worked. Process music this may be, in some sense, but there are different processes at work, so visual processes must vary too. Moreover, it is certainly not merely process music; it is full of character and wit, once more aided and abetted by the visuals. Not that one should forget the musical performance that lay at the evening’s heart: Driver’s clearly insistent alternation between E flat and E natural during the jaunty third piece had its own, ‘musical’ tale to tell. Before the fourth piece began, we even heard an organ-grinder, again through radio crackling, setting up nicely the waltz music to come, even providing an intriguing setting for Ligeti’s exploration of piano harmonics. The ninth piece is explicitly dedicated to Bartók’s memory; however, its low-sounding bells proved equally evocative of two other composers, Schoenberg’s reminiscence of Mahler’s funeral in the last of the op.19 Six Little Piano Pieces. Accompanying this – again, wisely not attempting to translate it into pictures – was a striking image of a man holding a pocket-sized version of himself in his hands, and squashing it. Surrealism would soon be a valued addition to Ligeti’s universe; perhaps it was already. Another aural connection evoked through Driver’s performance was the kinship – intentional? I do not know – between the tenth piece and the finale of Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata. (Interestingly, Alexander Goehr dedicated his contemporaneous, 1952, Piano Sonata, op.2, to Prokofiev’s memory.) Finally came the Omaggio a Girolamo Frescobaldi, in which necessarily full chromaticism came delightfully into play with contrapuntal designs and research: musica ricercata in the fullest sense, not just the work, but its performance and presentation too.
Danny Driver (piano)
Andrew Stephen (actor)
Netia Jones (direction/video design)
Nat Urazmetova (video assistant)
Capriccio 1 and 2 (1947)
Invention (1948)
Musica ricercata (1951-3)
This was a wonderful concert! As if the promise of a complete performance of Ligeti’s Musica ricercata were not enough, we had, as has often been the case with Transition_Projects events at Kings Place, a bonus, this time in the place of some even earlier Ligeti piano pieces. One entered Hall Two to see a man, played by the excellent Andrew Stephen, seated near motionless at a typewriter and his projection on the screen behind. Crackling radio-like noises evoked a post-war environment, suggestive of the world in which Ligeti came of age, and more specifically of his father, in the words of Netia Jones’s helpful note, ‘a highly intellectual and cultivated man constantly surrounded by science and research books, who would spend days clattering away on a typewriter’. Such matters remained an abiding interest for Györgi Ligeti; this concert provided a relatively rare opportunity to experience his musical life at the beginning: not as a documentary, but as a fascinating and enjoyable imaginary encounter. Ricercata as research, then, as well as musical form…
The previously advertised Ryan Wigglesworth had at some point been replaced with Danny Driver, who proved a sure guide in our fifty-minute tour. The notes were not merely played, but connected: always a crucial thing, but of particular relevance given the additive plan of Musica ricercata, on which more in a moment. First, however, we heard the bonus pieces: not mere bonuses, of course, but characterful in their own right and enlightening background to the main course. First, a title screen was typed – and screened. Dictionary and technical definitions of words such as ‘contrapuntal’ and so forth appeared on screen thereafter, Ligeti’s autodidacticism brought to the fore. We also saw Driver’s hands at one point. Bartók’s influence was keenly felt, especially in the second Capriccio: sometimes at least a dangerous thing in post-war Hungary, as Ligeti would already have known.
Musica ricercata is a set of eleven pieces, unperformed until 1969, in which each piece has one more pitch class than its predecessor. Thus, the first is restricted to A, with D introduced at the end; the second, E sharp, F sharp, and G, and so on. Bartók is still an audible presence, but Ligeti’s own ricercata is the guiding principle. In Jones’s words, ‘his voracious intellect … [led] to research in many different directions, from his favourite books, What is Mathematics? (Richard Courant & Herbert Robbins) and A la recherche du temps perdu (Marcel Proust) to early compositional techniques and methods. An open-ended research that could last a lifetime … [and] a foretaste of the exhilarating invention that was to come.’
Jones’s projections and Stephen’s stage action genuinely added to the sense of research and invention. The man’s pacing, increasing to running, seemed to liberate our aural imaginations during the first piece, not to restrict them; there was no suggestion that this was what the music was ‘about’, but it worked. Process music this may be, in some sense, but there are different processes at work, so visual processes must vary too. Moreover, it is certainly not merely process music; it is full of character and wit, once more aided and abetted by the visuals. Not that one should forget the musical performance that lay at the evening’s heart: Driver’s clearly insistent alternation between E flat and E natural during the jaunty third piece had its own, ‘musical’ tale to tell. Before the fourth piece began, we even heard an organ-grinder, again through radio crackling, setting up nicely the waltz music to come, even providing an intriguing setting for Ligeti’s exploration of piano harmonics. The ninth piece is explicitly dedicated to Bartók’s memory; however, its low-sounding bells proved equally evocative of two other composers, Schoenberg’s reminiscence of Mahler’s funeral in the last of the op.19 Six Little Piano Pieces. Accompanying this – again, wisely not attempting to translate it into pictures – was a striking image of a man holding a pocket-sized version of himself in his hands, and squashing it. Surrealism would soon be a valued addition to Ligeti’s universe; perhaps it was already. Another aural connection evoked through Driver’s performance was the kinship – intentional? I do not know – between the tenth piece and the finale of Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata. (Interestingly, Alexander Goehr dedicated his contemporaneous, 1952, Piano Sonata, op.2, to Prokofiev’s memory.) Finally came the Omaggio a Girolamo Frescobaldi, in which necessarily full chromaticism came delightfully into play with contrapuntal designs and research: musica ricercata in the fullest sense, not just the work, but its performance and presentation too.
Pollini Project (3): Schubert, 26 February 2011
Royal Festival Hall
Sonata in C minor, D 958
Sonata in A major, D 959
Sonata in B-flat major, D 960
Maurizio Pollini (piano)
Many apologies for the length of time it has taken to write this up. Immediately after the recital – though I do not think we should consider it to be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc – my computer contracted a virus, so I have been unable to write for a few days. My memory will doubtless be somewhat fallible by this stage, since I made no notes, so the review will be relatively brief and more generalised than has often been the case. I was determined, however, to write something, so as to maintain the journal aspect of this extraordinary series.
I hope that readers will not tire of my paeans to Maurizio Pollini’s musicianship. I can only assure them that there is no a priori reason for me to be singing them; it is simply a matter of Pollini impressing even beyond highest expectations. Moreover, the challenges he has set himself are great, even by his standards: first Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier, then the final three Beethoven sonatas, now the final three Schubert sonatas. If anything, to perform all three of the Schubert group is a taller order still than to perform the Beethoven equivalent, certainly in terms of endurance, though Pollini wisely permitted himself an interval on the present occasion.
This, as one might have predicted, was no comfortable, Biedermeier Schubert: how could it be, with three sonatas all completed in September 1828, less than two months before his death? Yet nor was there anything mawkish, or even morbid, about Pollini’s performances. Indeed, I wondered to begin with whether the urgency of the C minor sonata’s opening Allegro was a little de trop; the fault, however lay with the listener, not the pianist, as he drew his audience in to a searingly dramatic, defiant dramatic re-telling: drama, however, through iron-clad understanding and communication of the structure, rather than attention-seeking rhetoric. (May the Almighty call my days to an end before I must endure Lang Lang in late Schubert!) Likewise the tempo for the first movement of the A major sonata: I might have thought it on the fast side in abstracto, yet in context, it was unerringly right: worlds away from Richter, but often, as Schoenberg remarked, it is the middle road that does not lead to Rome. One could throughout sense the proximity to Beethoven, but also, crucially, the difference. Schubert’s tonal strategies, those glorious, heart-stopping modulations, the sometime subversions of Beethoven’s dominant pull through three-key expositions: all these were tellingly sculpted, as if, I thought, from Carrara marble – and musically dramatised. There was, moreover, not a single instance in which Pollini failed to maintain the long line: throughout this extraordinary three-sonata journey, that long –distance hearing (Fernhören) on which Furtwängler often remarked, was inescapably present. Schubert may present us with ‘heavenly lengths’, but heavenly and justified they are.
And so, it was perhaps no surprise that Pollini, even in this particular programme, did not shirk the exposition repeat in the final sonata. Whilst I could not help but admire Alfred Brendel’s persistent refusal to bow to fundamentalist pressure in that respect, Pollini’s profoundly unsettling, Schoenbergian traversal of the first-time bar convinced one of its necessity. Nowhere, of course, is the expressive blurring of major-minor boundaries more painfully present than here; the time for Mozartian smiling through tears is almost, yet not quite, beyond us. This historical, dramatic necessity was as powerfully conveyed as I can imagine, indeed more so, likewise the threat of disintegration from triplets and hemiolas. And the trills, those left-hand trills: all the more frightening for being so perfectly placed into their context. A better world was vouchsafed, yet ultimately denied, by the well-night unbearable slow movement: one knew that this was not so much unreal, as too real for us. It would be a poor performance indeed that did not breathe the air of another planet when it came to that extraordinary modulation to C major, but this was Alpine air as rare, as Webern-like as I can recall. Pollini also judged to near perfection that difficult limpness of the scherzo: it is extraordinarily awkward to play, or rather to play as the music demands it to be played. Then the left-hand stabs – never have I heard them so terrifying – of the finale, its silences, its attempts to pick itself up again: this, one felt, was the end, not only of the recital, but of something more.
Sonata in C minor, D 958
Sonata in A major, D 959
Sonata in B-flat major, D 960
Maurizio Pollini (piano)
Many apologies for the length of time it has taken to write this up. Immediately after the recital – though I do not think we should consider it to be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc – my computer contracted a virus, so I have been unable to write for a few days. My memory will doubtless be somewhat fallible by this stage, since I made no notes, so the review will be relatively brief and more generalised than has often been the case. I was determined, however, to write something, so as to maintain the journal aspect of this extraordinary series.
I hope that readers will not tire of my paeans to Maurizio Pollini’s musicianship. I can only assure them that there is no a priori reason for me to be singing them; it is simply a matter of Pollini impressing even beyond highest expectations. Moreover, the challenges he has set himself are great, even by his standards: first Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier, then the final three Beethoven sonatas, now the final three Schubert sonatas. If anything, to perform all three of the Schubert group is a taller order still than to perform the Beethoven equivalent, certainly in terms of endurance, though Pollini wisely permitted himself an interval on the present occasion.
This, as one might have predicted, was no comfortable, Biedermeier Schubert: how could it be, with three sonatas all completed in September 1828, less than two months before his death? Yet nor was there anything mawkish, or even morbid, about Pollini’s performances. Indeed, I wondered to begin with whether the urgency of the C minor sonata’s opening Allegro was a little de trop; the fault, however lay with the listener, not the pianist, as he drew his audience in to a searingly dramatic, defiant dramatic re-telling: drama, however, through iron-clad understanding and communication of the structure, rather than attention-seeking rhetoric. (May the Almighty call my days to an end before I must endure Lang Lang in late Schubert!) Likewise the tempo for the first movement of the A major sonata: I might have thought it on the fast side in abstracto, yet in context, it was unerringly right: worlds away from Richter, but often, as Schoenberg remarked, it is the middle road that does not lead to Rome. One could throughout sense the proximity to Beethoven, but also, crucially, the difference. Schubert’s tonal strategies, those glorious, heart-stopping modulations, the sometime subversions of Beethoven’s dominant pull through three-key expositions: all these were tellingly sculpted, as if, I thought, from Carrara marble – and musically dramatised. There was, moreover, not a single instance in which Pollini failed to maintain the long line: throughout this extraordinary three-sonata journey, that long –distance hearing (Fernhören) on which Furtwängler often remarked, was inescapably present. Schubert may present us with ‘heavenly lengths’, but heavenly and justified they are.
And so, it was perhaps no surprise that Pollini, even in this particular programme, did not shirk the exposition repeat in the final sonata. Whilst I could not help but admire Alfred Brendel’s persistent refusal to bow to fundamentalist pressure in that respect, Pollini’s profoundly unsettling, Schoenbergian traversal of the first-time bar convinced one of its necessity. Nowhere, of course, is the expressive blurring of major-minor boundaries more painfully present than here; the time for Mozartian smiling through tears is almost, yet not quite, beyond us. This historical, dramatic necessity was as powerfully conveyed as I can imagine, indeed more so, likewise the threat of disintegration from triplets and hemiolas. And the trills, those left-hand trills: all the more frightening for being so perfectly placed into their context. A better world was vouchsafed, yet ultimately denied, by the well-night unbearable slow movement: one knew that this was not so much unreal, as too real for us. It would be a poor performance indeed that did not breathe the air of another planet when it came to that extraordinary modulation to C major, but this was Alpine air as rare, as Webern-like as I can recall. Pollini also judged to near perfection that difficult limpness of the scherzo: it is extraordinarily awkward to play, or rather to play as the music demands it to be played. Then the left-hand stabs – never have I heard them so terrifying – of the finale, its silences, its attempts to pick itself up again: this, one felt, was the end, not only of the recital, but of something more.
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