This was a concert which veered
between extremes – undeniable greatness in Olga Borodina’s performance
of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death and mediocrity in Rostropovich’s
lurid conducting of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. At times, this great
Amsterdam orchestra seemed perplexed by it all – playing with great
refinement and balance of tone during the Mussorgsky but with blemished
ensemble and scant regard for the detail in the symphony. If it really
was a mess no one seemed to care – the audience rose as one to give
the Blessed Slava a prolonged standing ovation and he, in turn, placed
a rose inside the score, kissed it and raised it to the audience amongst
even more deafening cheers.
Extraordinary scenes, but how
I wish the performance of the symphony had been worth the adulation
it received. The playing was often stunning (as one would expect from
this orchestra) but it was also prone to some acidic sound-bites, some
less than secure intonation from the horns and some meagre-toned violin
playing. It is tempting to argue that this was all down to Rostropovich’s
tempi which flared between extremes. What should normally gather pace
was subjected to wildly inappropriate ritardando, not least during the
finale’s middle section which risked stasis. He kept that grindingly
slow tempi throughout the rest of the movement (with the piercing upper
harmonics on violins more tiresome than they need be); it sounded grim
but it certainly didn’t convey that unsettled sense of tension the movement
needs to give it it’s impact.
If the moderato had opened promisingly
with brooding introspection it was a slow progression towards the savage
development which Rostropovich suddenly whipped up into some kind of
frenzied bacchanal. The Allegretto, surprisingly Mahlerian for this
conductor, opened with phenomenally gritty ‘cellos and basses but it
deteriorated into parody. The Largo certainly didn’t lack intensity,
but what it did lack was a sense of elegy. Taken at a blistering pace
at times this was a portrait in anguish and suffering – but it had nothing
to do with Shostakovich. It blazed like an inferno, but the introspection
was all but left tattered by Rostropovich’s promiscuous direction.
Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances
of Death can suffer in orchestration, though whether you prefer
them sung by a bass or mezzo matters surprisingly little. Olga Borodina
has one of the richest mezzo voices around and she brought heart-rending
pathos and drama to these songs. The voice is secure throughout the
register – and sublimely burnished at the bottom end – but the weight
and precision she attaches to her phrasing is simply staggering. Even
Christoff couldn’t match the incandescence she brought to the final
song, ‘The Field Marshall’, which in its portrayal of battle and slaughter
makes forbidding demands on the voice. Rostropovich’s sensitive conducting,
using a reduced orchestra, scaled the heights of tragedy but allowed
Borodina plenty of room to measure her dynamics so they were always
audible.
It was unquestionably a great
performance in a concert that fell far short of greatness.
Marc Bridle
Return to:
Music on the Web