Elgar Cockaigne (In London Town), Ravel Piano Concerto in G, Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 2 ‘A London Symphony’). BBC Philharmonic- John Wilson, conductor, Steven Osborne, piano
This programme was a very interesting one in terms of the connections between the pieces – the VW and Ravel use ‘popular’ music in a complex symphonic texture, VW was a pupil of Ravel, and both the VW and the Elgar pieces are not quite what they seem, even though they are both supposed to have a ‘London’ focus – ‘Cockaigne’ is also the land of fantasy, while the VW symphony is more than redolent of later masterpieces such as the 4th symphony and Job; finally the VW and Elgar are relatively ‘early’ works.
Something happened at this concert which was a new one on me……Last week the viola soloist had a broken string, occasioning a stop in the first movement of Harold in Italy, but this week we had the harpist in the orchestra having a nose bleed, which stopped the performance of the Ravel Piano Concerto 5 minutes in – the harpist has a lot to do in the Ravel so this was a serious problem. While the harpist sorted himself out, and John Wilson went off stage, Steven Osborne took over and was brilliant! He gave a series of impromptu performances – something jazzy, some Chopin and something by Debussy with the audience being asked for suggestions. This was much appreciated by the audience. Wisely, the conductor and soloist agreed to restart the concerto from the beginning
The Sheffield City Hall remains an awful place to listen to an orchestra in, particularly when there are big late Romantic sounds. As a result, I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of John Wilson’s Elgar. The sound gets flattened by the hall, which is good for listening to inner textures, but not for Elgar’s great washes of sound and lush string melodies. The performance as a result sounded a little clinical and insufficiently excited, but it did enable me to hear parts of the music I’d never really heard before – whether this was Wilson’s skills with the orchestra or the hall I’m not sure. There were a few smudged sounds, particularly from the brass who weren’t together in one of their early and important loud entries in the piece. The Ravel however was a delight – Steven Osborne seemed a much more nuanced soloist than Benjamin Grosvenor, who played this about 6 months ago in Manchester, and the BBC Philharmonics playing too seemed more memorable than the Halle’s. I have grown to like this piece a lot, both the jazzy first movement and the beautiful slow one. The harpist did his bit very well without further nose bleeds and there was also some excellent flute playing, I thought
Coming to the Vaughan Williams, it was interesting to hear it so soon after the Elgar. The latter I think to be a very great composer but his musical soundworld is pretty identifiable as being sourced from Richard Strauss, Brahms and Wagner. VW by contrast sounds much more ‘original’, a voice that isn’t obviously connected in his earlier works to that grand Austro-German tradition. Interestingly, Stephen Johnson in his programme notes for the concert made the connection in relation to this symphony with Mahler, which is intriguing – I’d never thought of VW and Mahler as having any connection, but I guess the way popular music is used by both, particularly in the 1st movement of VW2, is something they both have in common.
I heard the VW2 a number of times in the 70s, always conducted by Adrian Boult. I’ve never heard it live since then and probably not much listened to recordings of it intently in the intervening years. I used to wince at what I thought were some of the vulgarities. Listening to it almost afresh, my over-riding feelings are that it is staggeringly original, and that the symphony has very little to do with London – apart from Big Ben! The basic tension is between the pastoral and the sounds of threat, busyness, tension and tragedy – familiar from the 4th and 6th symphonies and Job. The Big Ben sounds at the beginning and then end seems to be a tolling bell giving hope at sunrise and restoring a sense of balance between the two in the evening. This tension is particularly there in the 2nd and 4th movements. It is easy to hear those as representing some sort of pre -WW1 forebodings, but I think they are about something deeper and more elemental than that. I loved hearing this piece and, as far as it would let me, the hall seemed to allow a fine performance. But it was not an ideal venue to experience it in. So……..I was moved enough by this performance, and by hearing this great work again, that I decided to go to the same team performing it on Saturday at Bridgewater Hall – repeating VW2 and coupling it with VW7 – with much better sound! My only sadness is that the original 1913 piece was over an hour long. In his various revisions VW lopped off about 20 mins, and it was the 1933 version we heard in this performance. It would be nice to hear the uncut version some day……..
John's musical journey 