Julia Adolphe Makeshift Castle (European premiere); R. Strauss Death and Transfiguration; Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 in B flat major. Boston Symphony Orchestra – Andris Nelsons, conductor
Three months after seeing him conduct Mahler 8 in Leipzig, it was good to see Andris Nelsons looking healthier at this Prom than he did back then. He had lost weight, walked relatively quickly to the podium, and conducted energetically (although he did seem to bring his own podium with him). This is good news concerning an extremely talented young-ish (as the breed goes) conductor. The hall was pretty – though not completely – full (the following BSO concert the next day is sold out). I had a family next to me in the Arena consisting of 4 small children under 10 and three adults – very brave to take such small children to a long concert. I take my hat off to the grown-ups for keeping the children relatively silent – the oldest of them was bopping along in the faster rhythmically energetic bits of the Prokofiev – or asleep throughout the concert despite occasional rustling of sweet papers – I think promises of ice-cream at the interval helped in the first half………….
I am not sure I’ve heard the Boston Symphony live before – their appearances at the Proms have all been when I was away overseas or on holiday. As you would expect, they sound very fine indeed – almost a cliché of how American orchestras are ‘meant’ to sound – full-bodied bright sound, immaculate ensemble, bright brass, stunning woodwind, and a string sound that is warm without having the lustrousness of the big German orchestras. And it’s large – 10 double-basses, I counted.
The first, Julia Adolphe, piece I wasn’t’ hugely taken with, though I enjoyed the second movement. It combined reflections on past and present, meditating on the first time she saw her father cry and her first memory of a beautiful sunset. The first movement didn’t really convey to me any sort of childhood memory in musical language and thematic material, sounding ‘merely’ threatening. The ending was lovely, though. The work overall was approachable, listenable to and I’d happily hear it again (though didn’t get the relevance of the title).
I remembered again Stephen Johnson’s before-concert talk in Leipzig when he described (not a story I’d heard before) Mahler and Strauss having a bet that each of them would write a piece about death and the after-life. Mahler produced Totensfeier (eventually becoming the first movement of the 2nd Symphony) and Strauss wrote Death and Transfiguration (aged 25). I first got to know this piece in an old Furtwangler HMV recording and oddly it is the first time I’ve heard it live. I’ve always loved it, though over the years I’ve seen how comparatively superficial it is compared to Mahler’s part of the wager, how relatively almost cynical in its adoption/manipulation of particular harmonies and the certainty of its outcome. But it is brilliantly put together and I always love listening to it. The performance was stunning – a most beautiful oboe solo in the opening, a lovely violin solo, powerful brass and dark cellos and double-basses, and soaring upper strings at the end. The orchestral power unleashed at the climaxes of the protagonist’s struggles and the end of the piece (taken more slowly than some I’ve heard) was quite something……..
The best performance I’ve ever heard live of Prokofiev 5 was by Gergiev and the LSO in 2011. I have to say this one was at the same level of achievement – a wonderful performance. As I listened to the music. I found myself thinking – how DID Prokofiev get away with this? How did he convince the Soviet nomenklatura that this was a celebration of Russia’s turning round of the German invasion, the likely victory and the ‘greatness of the human spirit’? That may be part of Prokofiev’s aim, but there seems to be a constant undermining of this positive spirit – the dance music in the scherzo and finale which sounds ironic, like dances being led by mechanically-moving marionettes, and the distance, the sadness of the third movement, together with the terrifying madness of the cartoonish ending, like one of those Bugs Bunny films where they all go over the top of the cliff, run along the air for a bit and then plunge into the abyss; all these elements feel to me to be undermining the ‘nobility’.
I thought Nelsons shaped the first movement brilliantly, with a very careful grading of climaxes, quite moderately paced (but then it certainly isn’t marked as allegro). The second movement was also less than frantic, at a pace which to me allowed more pointing, more of the mordancy to come through, more of the terrors lurking behind the jolliness, though some critics I think felt it was too soft, not pointed enough! The slow movement has that Romeo and Juliet sound at its beginning, but without human beings dancing, the overwhelming effect is of something distanced, behind a gauze, Miss Haversham-like – I find the waltz theme coming in after a couple of minutes one of the most haunting themes I know. The finale was brilliantly done, with the percussion excelling themselves!
John's musical journey 