Bach, Capriccio in B flat (Capriccio on the Departure of his Most Beloved Brother) BWV992; Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 26 in E flat Op. 81a ‘Les Adieux’; Schumann, Geistervariationen WoO. 24; Prokofiev, Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat Op. 83
This recital was entitled ‘Farewell‘ to give it a thematic link – a descriptive noun obvious enough as far as the Beethoven and Bach works are concerned. The Schumann Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations), or Theme and Variations in E-flat major for piano, WoO 24, was written in 1854, and is according to the recital programme the last piano work of Robert Schumann, as the piece was composed shortly before he was admitted into a hospital for the insane. It’s not immediately clear what the ‘farewell’ element is in Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in B♭ major, op. 83 (occasionally, again, according to the programme, called the “Stalingrad”). It’s the second of the three “War Sonatas”, composed in 1942. . Maybe it’s to be seen as a farewell to peace and stability……..
This was not a recital which would have normally justified the expense of a train ticket and a night in a hotel, but my travel to Vienna the following day meant I had to spend a night in London to catch an 0600 Eurostar train. This concert seemed a good way of spending an evening in London, of the options available. Elizabeth Brauss I think I’ve heard once before, playing Mozart with the Halle just after lockdown ended……I remember being impressed……And this was in the event a good concert to go to, with three pieces I hadn’t heard before, which is always a good thing
I was most struck by Ms Brauss’ playing in the Beethoven and Schumann. The Beethoven was confident, dramatic, at times withdrawn and mysterious. I found myself deeply led into Beethoven’s sound world and the pianist had the right muscular strength and clarity of sound I feel the.music needs. The Schumann was quite a find; a beautiful sad piece poetically played with a very fine decline into silence at the end which did seem to prefigure Schumann’s incarceration (though some idiot let forth the most enormous sneeze on the final chord…..). About the Bach I was less sure; it’s a lovely piece but sometimes the playing felt a little awkward in the production of some of the trills and clusters of notes -also not enough was made of the Baroque echo music, varying the repetitions, and I missed the distinctiveness, the varying,. of phrasing which Vikingur Olafsson provides in Bach piano arrangements. The Prokofiev is not a piece it’s easy to like – a lot of the music sounds quite arid, to my ear. But Ms Brauss stormed through it, and the third movement with its jazzy spikey syncopated rhythms is quite fun, while the edgy distracted slow movement also had me listening carefully. At the end of it I still had no idea of the work’s connection to the ‘farewell’ theme of the programme.
Ms Brauss’ encore was a return to the melancholy 19th century – possibly Brahms, possibly Schumann again….This was quite a short concert – barely more than 70 minutes of music, but, committed as I was to getting that Eurostar train the following morning, this didn’t bother me, and meant a needed early night…..
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrey Boreyko conductor; Gidon Kremer violin; Alexander Roslavets bass, narrator, London Philharmonic Choir. Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw, Op.46; Weinberg: Violin Concerto in G minor, Op.67; Shostakovich: Symphony No.13 in B flat minor (Babi Yar) for bass, chorus & orchestra The background, in a sense, to this concert is the book by Jeremy Eichler, Time’s Echo, which looks at the Holocaust and World War Two, and the music related to it, and, in particular, studies in-depth the Schoenberg and Shostakovich pieces in this programme. It’s a book on music, war and memory which has been named History Book of the Year by The Sunday Times and hailed as “the outstanding music book of this and several years” by The Times Literary Supplement. Eichler is also currently the LPO Writer-in-Residence and so he was at hand to discuss the evening’s programme in a pre-concert talk (sadly to get to it I had to miss the evensong at Westminster Abbey I had intended to go to). Eichler’s thesis is that music offers a very special way of encapsulating memory, showing through its unique characteristics how feelings can be conveyed across hundreds of years. He was – allied to this – concerned that we should be asking not only how a piece of music works when we listen to it, but also why we should be listening to it. All of these pieces in the concert, he indicated, were ‘why’ pieces where that question is relevant and the answer based upon the memories they convey. I have never heard any of the pieces before live. I really only started listening to the Shostakovich piece when I knew this concert was coming up – I have never had an LP or CD of the work – though I do have an MP3 version, I’ve never got round to even listening to it before a month ago. I am not quite sure why – maybe just the fact that you need to be reading the text alongside listening to the music and I have only just found the text of the Yevtushenko poems on the internet. And the other pieces I have never heard at all, even in recordings. The Schoenberg piece is only 7 minutes but intensely dramatic, with a sprechstimme Narrator and a men’s chorus, the text being an imagined awakening of concentration camp prisoners who are being sent that day to the gas chambers. It is an atonal piece but of course that expressionist sound suits the subject matter very well, and the work culminates in the men’s chorus singing the Shema Yisrael, the Jewish creed, There is a final overpowering crunching chord to finish the piece (a bit underwhelming in this performance) ; the ‘creed’ was very well sung. Eichler’s book is very interesting on how this was one of the very first pieces of art to imagine the Holocaust after the war, and how it had an enormous impact on the Americans who first heard it as a result- it changed Schoenberg’s reputation in the US. Weinberg really was of course a ‘survivor from Warsaw’, so the linking of the two pieces is very clever. The Weinberg concerto, written in the early 60’s, represents a ‘memory’ of the Stalin era and its aftermath in the Soviet Union. There’s no obvious text or programme but the first movement seemed to me to have a feeling akin to a laboratory animal (violin) running around a maze repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to escape. The fourth movement sounded like a call to collective, vaguely martial, action which the violin keeps evading with subdued responses and there’s an ambiguous conclusion. There’s also a beautiful slow movement and an mysterious 2nd movement. Though it doesn’t have the immediacy, intensity and individuality of the Shostakovich work which followed, it is an appealing piece and I can’t really understand why this concerto is not played as often as the Britten, Walton or Korngold violin concertos or indeed Prokofiev’s. Gidon Kremer has championed this work for many years and was a confident, sensitive soloist. He’s getting on a bit now and I thought at times his was a rather quiet voice, but he was never overwhelmed by the orchestra. There was some sort of drama before the last movement – maybe a bridge or some sort of peg on Kremer’s violin had broken – whatever…..It was quickly sorted out.
I was very impressed by the Shostakovich piece – this is a real find for me. It is certainly as fine as the 14th symphony, which I went to one of the first UK performances of in the early 1970’s and have loved ever since. The 13th Symphony is in 5 movements, with 5 Yevtushenko poems set, one for each movement. It is not really, or not only, a ‘Second World War’ work, which is how Eichler labels it. Of course the Babi Yar opening movement is certainly that, but the other poems are variants on memories of living in the Soviet Union in the Stalin era and beyond. The second and fourth movements reflect on aspects of the Great Terror -fear and sardonic humour – but with much contemporary relevance as well to the current Russian regime, startlingly so at times. The third is a tribute to the oppression and exploitation experienced by Russian women through successive political regimes. The fifth – a lovely piece of music with a real earworm of a tune – is, as I heard it, about the positive aspirations and creative potential the Soviet Union did support and encourage, as a sign of hope for the future (in the early 1960’s), despite warnings about careerists who go with the flow and perjure their own deepest beliefs for personal convenience and an easy life. I can’t imagine this work being better sung than by Alexander Roslavets, the bass, who conveyed in his singing of each text the appropriate emotions – anger, pity, sadness, warmth – very effectively. Andrey Boreyko, the conductor, encouraged the orchestra to provide all the bite, the wit and the quiet melancholic sweetness the music and text demanded. There was some excellent flute playing, bassoons and horns had fine moments too, the busy percussion section did everything required of them, and there was some great string playing. The audience was reasonably large but the RFH had closed the upper area – a pity there weren’t more people for what was a really inventive and thoughtful bit of programming, so refreshing after the endless Brahms 2’s and Mahler I’s – definitely one of my annual highlights this year…….
Choir of Westminster Abbey, Academy of Ancient Music; Andrew Nethsingha, conductor; Anna Dennis, soprano; Tristram Cooke, countertenor; Simon Wall, tenor; Jonathan Brown, bass.
Going to this event was a matter of happenstance. I had hoped to be going to the L’Elisir D’Amore production at ENO but had wrongly written down the date of the show as 26/11 in my diary. In fact, it was happening on 27th when I had already booked another interesting concert – and hotel and transport were fixed for those two days. Of the options – this and Tosca at ROHCG, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and a couple of other events – The Messiah seemed to be the most attractive, albeit in a restricted-view seat, particularly as I had had to miss the Halle Messiah I’d booked for last year, and it is ages since I heard it live (I think the last time I heard the whole piece was probably in the Anglican Cathedral in Cairo c.1985, but there was a splendid performance of extracts from a collection of church choirs in Accra, Ghana, all singing from memory and sounding glorious, particularly the basses, about 20 years ago) . The performance obviously was not heard in the most conducive of circumstances due to the last minute scramble – the best ticket I could get was on the left hand side of the nave, blocked by a pillar from seeing about 90% of the performers, and my hearing to some extent occluded by the pillar and of course in any case by the echo-y church acoustics playing havoc with the sound – and all that needs to be understood in comments following. Several things occurred to me listening to the work in full: • Its only near competitor in Handel’s works for the number of ‘hit’ tunes and memorable moments is Julius Caesar – almost every aria, every chorus, is a winner. It is really a glorious work to hear and must be a joy to sing • It’s also quite an odd work, which, despite the title, is nothing like a narrative of Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection. The different selected Biblical passages, apart from some of the Christmas story in Part 1 and bits of Revelations towards the end , are not notably related to each other and read like a series of texts for meditations and reflection on incarnation, suffering, resurrection and judgement rather than a story as such. The meditative nature of the text means that there is something to be said for the grand old Sargent-like ‘big’ Messiah performance style, moving at a stately pace and giving some more pace for musing, if not contemplation. This performance however was coming from a very different perspective – historically informed instruments and sounds, swift tempi, punchy rhythms. The snappy tooth-aching gut strings produced real energy in the choruses and gave some wonderful lightness to the music at points – the strings came through clearly shining in the shepherds scene, for instance, not swamped by voices – but performance as a whole did feel a bit rushed, with little time to think about the meaning of some of the chorus and recitative texts, .
All the singers apart from the soprano were members of the Abbey Choir – not a huge number of people. and of course this also meant that there was a preponderance of boys and no women. Using the Abbey Choir did seem to me to make the sound unbalanced at times – though there were only 8 tenors and basses and 4 adult altos, and about 25 boy trebles, the sound was adult-male heavy. Despite their number, the boys didn’t really have the cutting sound that adult female sopranos would have had, and the adult male voices, despite their numbers, tended to predominate in the choruses. Nevertheless, despite the above quibbles, there were many splendid moments. For me the highlights were: • ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’ – impressive soprano singing • Another soprano aria – “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion” • Counter-tenor aria – ‘He was despised and rejected’ • Bass aria – ‘Why do the nations’ • And of course the big choruses, complete with baroque drums and natural trumpets – ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Worthy is the Lamb/Amen’ ….all of course experienced in the wonderful atmosphere of the Abbey.
I really must go to choral evensong at the Abbey tomorrow
Weston Hurt, Rigoletto; Yongzhao Yu, Duke of Mantua; Robyn Allegra Parton, Gilda; William Thomas, Sparafucile; Amy Holyland, Maddalena; David Kempster, Monterone. Richard Farnes,Conductor; Jonathan Miller, Director; Elaine Tyler-Hall, Revival Director; Patrick Robertson and Rosemary Vercoe, Designers; Ian Jackson-French, Revival Lighting Designer; Tommy Shaw, Choreographer
This is a very famous – and now elderly – production dating back to the 1980’s, which for whatever reason I have never seen before. Rigoletto has been one of the real rediscoveries for me in recent years, and I continue to find It a gripping work, saying a lot with relatively little means, and it is emotionally moving (at least when with the right singers), despite the familiarities of the tunes and some stock operatic scenes such as the heroine’s death, which can easily seem risible. I suppose in the intervening 40 years of this production we have become very much more used to directors resetting the context of an opera – I do remember when I saw ‘Rigoletto in 70’s it was most definitely set in a Renaissance court and you didn’t really expect it to be anywhere else (as for that matter it still was in 2022- at Covent Garden) and so the central impact of Miller’s staging has long since lost its sense of being a brilliantly clever idea. Nonetheless there are many aspects that are very well done – the production visually remains very appealing and impressive – the club where the ‘Duke’ of the local Mafia and his ‘court’ hang out looks splendidly and vulgarly opulent, the corner bar with the famous juke box is appropriately sleazy, and the windswept tenement blocks of ?New York look suitably gloomy. In the storm, pieces of scrap paper fly across the stage….. However sometimes on stage, after 40 years of revivals, things are perhaps less effective, and stock gestures take over – Gilda clasping her father’s knees imploring him not to take vengeance on the Duke, for instance; the deception of Rigoletto when the gang comes to abduct Gilda as a joke is oddly and ineffectively managed. Occasionally therefore there are moments where suspension of disbelief is not possible. The staging wasn’t helped by a Duke with – how to say? – less than sublime acting skills, who I suppose gave a reasonable impression of a hard-hearted Mafia boss but was not really able to give any insights into some of the subtleties of the character that text and music can provide. On the other hand the interactions between chorus members were handled well and were very effective.
What was really very good about this performance was the quality of two of the main protagonists, the strength of the supporting roles, the quality of the chorus and the ability of Richard Farnes as conductor to provide a first-rate accompaniment to the action.
I was completely bowled over by the quality of Robyn Allegra-Parton’s Gilda. She has a voice that can handle the coloratura aspects of the role with ease, has a beautiful edge to it that provides a lovely direct and penetrating sound (is the word squillo?) and she is able to produce some remarkably subtle quiet singing, as well as pinging out the top notes and having the capacity for intense control in duets and quartets. I have never heard of her before and she is most definitely someone to watch – she has real star quality vocally (she is credible on stage though I wouldn’t say her acting and stage presence are as remarkable as her voice – still less so her diction). Weston Hurt as Rigoletto was also very impressive; he has a well-grounded voice, a wide range, and a towering, big, stage presence. The latter doesn’t necessarily fit well with this role – at times he almost seemed too grand, too tragic a figure (and perhaps lacking the edgy elements of the role that come from his being an unpleasant fixer who is hated and feared by many, responsible ultimately for the death of Monterone) but Mr Hurt sang the role beautifully and I thought that overall, his performance was moving – and his diction was extremely good. Yongzhao Yu as the Duke got into his stride later on and he had some good moments in the final scenes, but generally he looked awkward on stage, his Italianate gulps were overdone and irritating and at times his voice seemed slightly too small for this theatre (at least as heard at the back of the stalls). Although of course many Italian speakers would feel the same about English singers performing in Italian, his English was also a distraction at times. David Kempster as Monterone, William Thomas as Sparafucile and Amy Holyland as Maddalena were all very good, each with terrific stage presence and fine voices. The chorus sounded excellent – incisive, together and disciplined, with a big sound that came across well. Richard Farnes’ and the orchestra’s account of the Prelude to the first act showed us the subtlety of his approach – a wide dynamic range, precision and some very-together playing throughout, bringing energy and pace to the story.
Farnes deservedly got a big cheer at the end. Wouldn’t it be good if he wanted to do more work with ENO in its new Manchester manifestation?
James Laing, Oberon; Daisy Brown, Tytania; Camilla Harris, Helena; Siân Griffiths, Hermia; Joel Williams, Lysander; James Newby, Demetrius; Henry Waddington, Bottom; Daniel Abelson, Puck; Nicholas Watts, Flute; Colin Judson, Snout; Dean Robinson, Quince; Andri Björn Róbertsson,Theseus; Molly Barker, Hippolyta. Garry Walker, Conductor; Matthew Eberhardt, Revival Director;Johan Engels, Set Designer; Ashley Martin-Davis, Costume Designer; Bruno Poet, Lighting Designer
The ON production has had some very good reviews, from Artsdesk and others. This was the third production I’ve seen of this work.
The Glyndebourne production, visually glorious, also had in its visual presentation shades of darkness in between the trees and the sunlight and therefore more of a sense of some of the less pleasant and more unsettling aspects of the work – the changeling boy, the cruelty and malice of Theseus and the savagery of Puck. The setting of the Opera North is meant to be the mid-late 60s – if you like, psychedelic – and this is certainly reflected in the clothes the four lovers wear and to some extent that of the ‘mechanicals’ as well, but it is not present in the basic set design which is as in the photos below – various floaty bubbles above the stage, and all around the sides and back silvery Perspex drapes, each with bunched edges at regular intervals, both hanging and floor-standing. Strips of plastic also move up and down to create different perspectives. The lighting is constantly the same silvery blue throughout with a few rows of not very bright coloured lights for scenes like Theseus’ palace. Occasionally with the aid of lighting effects there are shadows cast upon the screen, very effectively showing the silhouettes of e.g. the fairies. But interestingly while lighting created a very effective otherness in the forest – a place of new self-knowledge and rebirth – it offered no sense of the darkness of this work, something also emphasised by making the changeling child into a puppet and having a Theseus who, though he had his moments, was a bit of a pussy cat really. The fairies – boys and girls – were costumed in identical white T-shirts, shorts and socks, black wings and blonde wigs, and looked cute as opposed to anything else. Only Puck was truly unsettling – constantly on the move, shaking and nodding his head, crawling across the stage, shouting, and sneering. The Glyndebourne production was more fully rounded in showing all dimensions of this work. Where the ON production excelled was in the handling of the 4 lovers and Bottom & co. The lovers were well differentiated and individualised – much more so than at Glyndebourne. The ‘mechanicals’ were genuinely amusing – a matter of good timing, some effective gags (the costumes for the play were very good and funny, for instance – eg the Wall). Their antics were much appreciated by the audience and overall this aspect was better done than at Glyndebourne
In terms of performers. the standout was Daisy Brown as Titania, who had a strong stage presence and a lovely voice – she floated a most gorgeous high note in her awakening solo. The four lovers were all strong singers, the most carefully differentiated of the group being the Hermia of Sian Griffiths. James Laing as Oberon was perhaps a little small of voice in this theatre and that added to a slight lack of impact in his performance, though that is to judge it at a very high level. The fairies were sometimes a bit hesitant of movement, though fine musically – I wondered if they recruit a different batch of singer fairies for each venue? Gary Walker kept everything moving and encouraged bright characterful playing from the orchestra. Given that there was only one basic set I was somewhat mystified by the apparent need for two intervals – the Glyndebourne production with more complicated set changes managed with one (though admittedly an hour long).
The audience was quite a reasonable one – more so than for some of the other ON shows I have seen in the Lowry. But nothing in the audience size suggested there was a massive number of people out there waiting to go to ENO shows in Manchester. The ENO Friends are having a session on 3 December when they are talking about who their partners will be and how things will work with their new life in Manchester – it will be fascinating to hear their plans…….
Mozart 12 Variations ‘Ah Vous Dirai-Je, Maman’ K265; Schoenberg Drei Klavierstücke Op.11; Haydn Piano Sonata In D Hob.Xvi:42; Brahms Drei Intermezzi Op.117; Beethoven Piano Sonata No.23 Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’
This was a interestingly planned recital aimed at demonstrating links between the 1st and 2nd Viennese Schools via Brahms. It also took in several examples of themes and variations – Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn, possibly even Schoenberg. There were a few pleasant surprises for me. The early Mozart piece, based on the tune we know in the UK as ‘Twinkle, twinkle, Little Star’, pottered along pleasantly enough for most of its length, but then suddenly broadened out into a moving, memorable melody which took you straight into the world of much later Mozart. The second of the three Schoenberg pieces was extraordinarily expressive, and something I really want to hear again – one of his first atonal pieces, it nevertheless sounds like Brahms at times (without the tunes!). Similarly, the second and third of the Brahms Op 117 Intermezzi sound extraordinarily modern in this context, with strange, wayward harmonies and odd trajectories, akin to the Schoenberg. The Beethoven and Haydn both seem quirky too, neither of them conforming to standard sonata form expectations.
The very resonant acoustic of St Marie’s Cathedral, a late replacement for the Upper Chapel, made the Beethoven a bit clangourous and muddy in its fast passages, but was ideal for the Schoenberg, Brahms and Haydn. Tim Horton was the excellent pianist, maybe fluffing a few notes in the Beethoven, but nevertheless, as always, a pleasure to hear.
Grazyna Bacewicz Symphony No 2; Ferrucio Busoni Piano Concerto. BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo conductor; Kirill Gerstein piano; BBC Symphony Chorus (lower voices)
This was a great treat – two works I have never heard live before and one which was completely new to me! The Busoni concerto I have listened to a few times (I have the old Ogdon recording from the 60’s) but I have missed all recent opportunities to hear it in the concert hall – I was going to hear Igor Levit at the RFH in April 2020 (which got cancelled for the obvious reasons) and I missed the performance at the Proms this year with Benjamin Grosvenor.
Grażyna Bacewicz (1909 –1969) was a Polish composer and violinist of Lithuanian origin “contributing in 1951 to the country’s revived musical life, as a concert violinist, conservatory professor, competition jury member and also a composer”, to quote the programme. The second symphony dates from 1951, and is in 4 movements lasting about 20minutes or so. The piece did sound as though it was coming from an original voice. Yes, parts of the faster music were vaguely reminiscent of the finale of Shostakovich’s 6th Symphony, and maybe there were elements of Walton and Stravinsky. But on the whole it was distinctive but, though it was all quite engaging and often exciting, what it amounted to I am not quite sure – it didn’t make much of an impact on me, I am afraid. The BBC SO played it brilliantly.
The Busoni is quite another matter – whatever you think of it, it’s a big beast with a very considerable reputation for technical difficulty and obscurity, which allows its infrequent performances to feel to be something special. The Barbican hall was pretty full but the balcony was closed off. I couldn’t help feeling that there could have been more coordination between the London orchestras on scheduling its performances – it seems not the very best planning to have the LPO performing the work at the Proms in August and the BBCSO doing the same two and half months later (a bit like at least three of the major professional UK orchestras all kicking off their Autumn season this year with Mahler 1) and this might have led to a bigger audience last night (however it is the 100th anniversary of Busoni’s death so maybe it was unavoidable……..)
The Busoni concerto is in 5 movements – odd ones are slowish and serious, even ones quick and scherzo-like. The programme notes quote someone as saying it is more like a symphony with piano obbligato than a concerto, and this does make sense – the piano goes off often on its own track to comment and ruminate before being called back to order by the orchestra. Famously the 5th movement is a setting of words by Oehlenschläger from his play, Aladdin. Oehlenschläger, a few years younger than Wordsworth and Coleridge, was apparently Denmark’s pioneer Romantic poet and Aladdin was one of his youthful achievements, the ending of Aladdin praising the ‘power eternal’, the life force that runs through all things, both joyful and painful. The concerto does again have a very individual voice – maybe there are echoes of Mahler at times (in fact he was a champion of Busoni’s works) but there is no hint of the Brahmsian or Wagnerian influences you would expect from music of this period (1904) – maybe Liszt lurks somewhere at the back of this work (Busoni of course was a superstar pianist of his day). The work hardly hangs together in a narrative sense – there is no real connection between the different movements, though I suppose the longer 3rd movement is in its reflective way a precursor to the 5th – certainly there are no motivic connections I could make out. But it is a riotous completely bonkers piece of music that I found was enthralling to hear live – the constant mad piano writing with thundering chords and whirring arpeggios , the orchestra in the second and fourth movements (the Tarantella 4th ends up sounding like a scampering Rossini crescendo) and actually – particularly in the third – there are some relatively memorable melodies to keep one’s interest going. I don’t think I once lost concentration, which I certainly did in the Bacewicz for a while – even though the Busoni piece must be almost four times as long. Gerstein played it magnificently, as far as I could tell and looked as though he was enjoying himself hugely. He and Oramo had agreed on some challenging speeds and the orchestra did very well indeed in producing a sparkling light touch to their playing, rhythmically precise. Just occasionally there were a few splodgy entries and one or two bits of dodgy intonation from the trumpets but nothing serious and understandable given that few of the players will have performed the work before. Altogether I was very impressed by the orchestra in the clinical and unforgiving acoustics of the Barbican – it is years and years since I heard them there. The men’s chorus did all they needed to very well (although the Barbican did not allow them to be invisible as per Busoni’s requirements in the score).
I felt exhilarated at the end of this performance and as though I had really been through an experience – provisionally it might be one of my year’s top ten. The audience cheered and stood in enthusiasm…. Now on to Doktor Faustus…..
Kahchun Wong conductor, Bruckner Symphony No.9 – four movement version with fourth movement revised by Dr John A Phillips
This was an exciting occasion for me. I had grumbled in February that Nathalie Stutzman’s performance of the usual 3 movement Bruckner 9 with the LSO was not using one of the completed versions of the finale. And now I have had an opportunity to listen to one live, edited by the Australian Dr John A. Phillips, which received its first performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Robin Ticciati in December 2022 and which was now being played by the Halle and their new principal conductor (they are also recording it – one to buy!). Dr Philips was also in Manchester for recording and performance and was part of a panel discussion beforehand with David Butcher, the Halle’s CEO.
The word ‘completion’ needs careful use – personally I prefer the words ‘performing version’ for different scholars’ work on the finale. The ‘performing version’ being played was the one originally developed by a quartet of scholars – Dr Phillips, Cohrs, Samale and Mazzuca – and recorded in its then latest form by Rattle and the BPO in 2012 (which I have got to know quite well.) Dr Phillips in the years since then has made some further revisions, the principal ones being that he has cut about 4 bars from the 2012 version of the finale and has also removed the moment just before the final peroration when themes of the previous three movements are played grindingly simultaneously. I thought I heard one or two moments where some other changes had been made but this could just be the conductor’s view of the balance to be struck between different groups of instruments. Dr Phillips in the talk emphasised the links between the finale and the other movements that are evident from early sketches, particularly the trumpet theme at the beginning of the adagio which becomes a wonderful alleluia-like end to the finale played by the high trumpets at full throttle – thus you cannot just play the first three movements as a ‘safe’ bet. Dr Phillips was also quite clear that he saw the 9th symphony as having a programme – the first movement being the Christian life lived in the presence of God, the second a vision of hell, the third a farewell to life, and the 4th the soul’s journey through Purgatory to an eventual salvation. I found this very helpful in listening to the music.
I am in danger of being subjective in my reaction to this performance because I so want Kahchun Wong to be a worthy successor to Mark Elder for the Halle but I have to say I cannot remember a finer performance I’ve heard live of the first three movements and I think the version of the finale is a marvellously fitting conclusion. This concert was a much finer reading than Stutzman’s earlier in the year, and to my mind, apart from using the finale (which to me sounds so right now, so inevitable, that I will simply be impatient with those performances which keep to three movements – as I do those performances of only the Adagio of Mahler 10), the main reason for this was the sense of ‘numinosity’ (to use Phillips’ word) that this performance most definitely had. Wong’s was a much more ‘traditional’ reading in many ways of the 9th than say Petrenko’s at the Proms of the 5th, but this came with many positives – the slow pacing of the first movement, the quality of the pauses, and the immensity of the climaxes for instance, all adding to that sense of the sublime, the ineffable. I also felt that the internal logic of the different movements – certainly the first three – somehow appeared clearer than I have ever experienced before – this is about what I’ve called in the past ‘a sense of narrative’, so that the music doesn’t sound episodic (very easy to do with Bruckner). The structure of the first movement – exposition but then a doubling up of development and recapitulation for the remainder of the movement before the coda – seemed clearer, more logical than I’ve ever remembered hearing. The swings of mood in the third movement between exaltation and despair were fully realised. I have never heard such a powerful account of the climax to that movement, in all its dissonance and angst, and a more beautiful ending to the Adagio. The finale makes more and more sense to me – the first theme, a slippery wayward tune, formed of tritones, the mark of the devil. There is a sad trudging tune for the second theme, related in spirit if not in notes to the third theme of the first movement, and then the magnificent chorale, prefigured in some of the third movement’s material. All this is worked on and woven together in a more coherent way than some other Bruckner finales eg No 7.The finale moved with Wong at much the same speed as Rattle’s performance but I felt Wong was just a little more effective in holding back the final discord before the triumphant ending, and better in the way the wonderful chorale theme was phrased so there was more of a flowing arc at its introduction. The final high trumpets thundering out the 4 notes from the Adagio in praise to God were thrilling – I was utterly overwhelmed.
The Halle sounded glorious throughout. Wong had the double basses lined up at the back to give a deep platformed backing to the orchestra, and the trumpets, trombones and horns/Wagner tubas produced a warm rich sound at high volume, nothing sounding brash (it was a pity though that Mr Wong had moved the first and second violins to be together. They had been split for the Mahler 1 a month earlier). The trumpets were the first to be given a solo bow – quite rightly. Other fine performers included the first flute and the horn section. The string sound was warm and rich. Apart from a slight misalignment right at the start between timps and horns, the Halle sounded impressively together, throughout what must have been 90 minutes of music.
A great evening, and undoubtedly one of my top ten performances of the year…………I really am now going to give live Bruckner performances a rest for a few years, but this was a wonderful way to end his 200th birthday celebration year!
Abbildung des Bruckner, Anton [1824-1896], Künstlerpostkartea
The gentleman in blue above right on the Bridgewater Hall rostrum is Dr John Phillips, enjoying the limelight…..
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E flat (1823); Scherzo from Four Pieces Op.81; String Quartet in E minor Op.44 No.2 plus to follow Mendelssohn Roundtable, with Consone Quartet & Laura Tunbridge
The blurb of the Consone Quartet’s web site says that they are the ‘first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, (and they) are fast making a name for themselves ……Formed at the Royal College of Music in London, the Consone Quartet launched their professional career in 2015”. It’s the first time I’ve heard them – or indeed heard of them when I bought a ticket for this concert
When the first of the pieces to be performed started started – a gentle reflective piece, perhaps with hints of Haydn and Mozart – I forgot in the first five minutes that this was a historically informed quartet and performance and thought the group lacked attack and volume – but this of course is the effect of gut strings and old bows, which prioritise tone colour over loudness; I also felt that there were times when the players didn’t seem quite together – this too was an aspect of period style whereby players might say take different approaches to a crescendo/accelerando – the principle being they have to hit the next bar line on time but can take different ways of getting there. The players in the interesting talk afterwards referenced orchestral players performing Nimrod under Elgar doing something similar on the famous recording. One thing I didn’t hear them doing – but they said they were doing it in the hour or so of performance, as they noted in the talk – was swooping from one note to the next as an expressive tool.
The 14-year-old Mendelssohn’s quartet to be frank is not that interesting and the stand-alone Scherzo from his last year feels as though it needed to be placed within a larger context.
Much the most satisfying piece in the concert was the Op 44 no 2 quartet, which is a much richer piece – full of that very specific early Romantic sound common to Schumann, Weber and Mendelssohn. The Quartet was composed by Mendelssohn in 1837 and premièred the same year on 29 October 1837 at Leipzig with great success, and published as a full score in 1840. The piece is part of the Op. 44 set of 3 string quartets that Mendelssohn dedicated to the Crown Prince of Sweden. I have a recording of the Op 44 nos 1 and 3 but not this one, which I must rectify. Wagner said that ‘water flows from Mendelssohn like water from a public fountain’. That is definitely too harsh but maybe I could sign up to an amended statement which transferred the source of the water to a warm, soothing bath – and who doesn’t like those from time to time………The first movement in particular is memorable and very enjoyable.
After the concert there was a talk about Mendelssohn’s chamber music, with the quartet joined by the academic Laura Tunbridge, an Oxford-based expert on 19th and 20th-century music, Robert Schumann, and opera.
Director, Tobias Kratzer; Designer, Rainer Sellmaier; Lighting designer, Michael Bauer; Video designer, Manuel Braun. Conductor, Alexander Soddy. Cast – Leonore, Jennifer Davis; Florestan, Eric Cutler; Rocco, Peter Rose; Marzelline, Christina Gansch; Jaquino, Michael Gibson; Don Pizarro, Jochen Schmeckenbecher; Don Fernando, Phillip Rhodes
I saw this production on BBC TV during lockdown – it had been recorded, with the wonderful Lise Davidsen, just before theatres shut in March 2020, and without Davidsen’s co-star, Jonas Kaufmann. I was therefore broadly aware of what Kratzer was doing in this production – an ultra-realistic first half and a ‘contemporary’ second act. I also saw a semi-staged version by Opera North in June 2021, with the excellent Toby Spence and Rachel Nicholls. Before that I would probably have to go back to the 70’s and remember memorable performances by, in particular, Jon Vickers with Josef Krips and Colin Davis, Helga Dernesch and ?just possibly Birgit Nilsson, though I have zero memories of her if so, and Goodall conducting James King and Marita Napier. The production in the 70s at ROHCG was the same as that conducted and directed by Klemperer in 1961!
I think anyone who has done any reading up about this work will know that Fidelio is a problematic opera to stage – the contrast between the singspiel elements in Act 1 and the heroics of Act 2, and the rather ludicrous romantic attachment Marzelline has for ‘Fidelio’ are only two of the difficult issues to deal with. Kratzer has a better go at some of the problems than other productions I have seen – but of course that’s not saying very much. One central extra issue of this production though is the difference between the approaches to the first and second acts. There are some connections – the screen facing the audience when they arrive has the revolutionary slogans of ‘Liberte, fraternite, equalite’ , and with a camera showing the audience arriving. Clearly we are intended as an audience to reflect on what these slogans mean for us, and that connects to the second act. In both acts Marzelline is given a much more upfront role than usual – see below. And in both acts Kratzer adds some spoken dialogue not in the original. The way Leonora/Pizarro/Rocco/Marzelline look/dress is the same in both acts (though Don Fernando is in modern dress). But there are also huge differences between the two acts. In the first Kratzer updates the setting of the opera to Beethoven’s time and it is evident, with French flags, that a revolution has become a dictatorship. As indicated, the first act is handled in a highly realistic way, complete with Pizarro arriving on a horse, and sturdy prison walls, plus a slightly postmodern looking tree. However there are a number of directorial glosses and interventions – Jacquino is rather creepy and over-assertive, Marzelline discovers fairly early on that ‘Fidelio’ is female and becomes thereafter a willing accomplice to Leonora in various ways. I think this works – the collective impact is to reduce the embarrassment factor and makes a very artificial plot strike home. Overall I could hear in the interval lots of approving noises from elderly couples, clearly not clued up as to what comes next – the act 1 set looked very little different from that old Klemperer production 63 years ago….. The second act has a very artificial plasticky rock on which Florestan is chained, within a large white-walled room with a vaguely 18th century looking door. Modern day citizens are sitting around the rock looking at the spectacle of Florestan – the point presumably being that it is much easier to be a compliant make-no-fuss citizen in a modern dictatorship than to take action and be true to your moral sense of what is right. In the first scene of Act 2 there is a large video screen showing close ups of some of the audience – someone is eating chocolate and then looks embarrassed when Florestan is offered a crust of bread by Leonora. A woman drinking a bottle of water feels moved to begin to offer Florestan some but is then stopped from doing so by her companion. In the struggle between Pizarro and Leonora it is actually Marzelline who provides the denouement by entering in the middle of the raging trio and shooting Pizarro in the shoulder. At this point and with the entry of Don Fernando the crowd takes control, disarms soldiers (still in their Napoleonic gear) and assume power over their own lives. Inevitably, and in a rather cliched way the lights shine on the audience at the end – what are our feelings about ‘liberte, frtaernite, equlite’ and the risks of dictatorship of the right or left?. I felt there was something the director was trying to tell us about staging Fidelio that, in the contrast of the two acts, didn’t quite become clear enough. However both acts in their different ways I thought worked well enough, and didn’t deserve the grumbling of the same elderly couples at the end as I walked out of the building.
Musically the performance was very good. I was very impressed by all but the last 5 minutes of Alexander Soddy’s conducting – fast, yes, but propulsive, energetic, well-balanced and exciting. The final chorus though was a bit too quick and lost precision at a couple of moments – however it was certainly exciting! The orchestra was on top form – the horns handling ‘Abscheulicher’ with ease, beautiful oboe playing and some impressive timpanj work. The chorus sounded very impressive- fully up for the manic ending. I was very impressed by Jennifer Davis’ acting – absolutely committed, and engaged (in fact Davis’ performance is one of the most convincing male impersonations I have seen in this opera).. She has the voice to carry over the big ensembles and hit the high notes squarely but I have heard others give more beauty of tone and variation to some of the more lyrical passages. Any Florestan I hear suffers from the fact that whenever he sings I hear and see Jon Vickers before I focus on him, but Eric Cutler was good enough – a well managed solid voice. The other person who stood out for her singing was Christina Gansch as Marzelline – her voice is supple, strong and she managed some beautiful singing in the more lyrical passages. Everyone else was effective – there were no weak links.
Altogether, though others obviously disagreed, I found this a very satisfying, moving and exciting performance and production which gave this lumbering work an effective update
John's musical journey 