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Seen and Heard Concert
Review
Beethoven, Elgar, Sibelius:
Pieter Wispelwey (cello), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Paavo Berglund,
Royal Festival Hall, 16 February 2005 (TJH)
Few conductors are as intimately linked in the mind with a single
composer as Paavo Berglund is with Jean Sibelius. Berglund has performed
the latter’s symphonies and tone poems with countless orchestras
around the world and recorded the complete symphonic cycle no less
than three times. It came as no surprise then that his performance
of the D-major Second Symphony with the London Philharmonic
on Wednesday was as majestic and skilfully-crafted an interpretation
as you are likely to find. Such hyper-specialisation can come at a
price though, and as marvellous as his Sibelius was, it did not excuse
the colourless, wilfully indifferent performances of Beethoven and
Elgar that preceded it.
Like the composer with whom he is so closely associated, Berglund
serves nothing but “pure, cold water”; but if in the Sibelius
he dispensed a crisp, refreshing elixir, he managed in the first half
only to douse any fire the music might once have had. Berglund is
75 now and the weight of years really showed as he shuffled onto the
platform to begin a flaccid, uninteresting account of Beethoven’s
Leonore Overture No. 3. He made scant gestures throughout,
never lifting his baton above shoulder height, and the LPO’s
playing was consequently unenergized, if respectful. Their tone was
beautiful, with some lovely, vibrato-lite playing from the strings
in particular, but the performance was too tepid and detached to make
any real impact.
Elgar’s Cello Concerto was equally abstracted, any
last dying embers of Romanticism thoroughly extinguished by Berglund’s
stubbornly unlovable conducting. The cellist was the talented Dutchman
Pieter Wispelwey, and it was an important evening for him, marking
as it did the beginning of a five-year partnership with the LPO as
guest soloist. He gave a clear-eyed, unfussy reading of the solo part,
eliciting a refined, transparent sound from his Guadagnini cello in
the first movement and turning the subsequent Allegro molto
into a sprightly Rococo romp. In fact, there was a classical lucidity
to much of the performance – the LPO sounding at times like
a tight little chamber ensemble – and this at least made a welcome
alternative to the heavy, maudlin sentimentality so often favoured
in Elgar. But again Berglund seemed singularly uninterested, letting
the central Adagio pass by distractedly and allowing the
finale to dissolve into a catalogue of vague shrugs. Nowhere did he
attempt to give shape to individual details, opting for blandness
over character at every opportunity. Nor did he pay much attention
to Wispelwey – who, to his credit, was musician enough to not
let his own clear enthusiasm upstage Berglund’s complete lack
thereof, opting instead to conduct the bulk of his musical dialogue
with the orchestra’s leader, Boris Garlitsky.
Of course, no-one comes to hear Berglund conduct Elgar or Beethoven,
and those who didn’t give up and leave during the interval were
treated to a masterly account of Sibelius’ Second that
almost made up for the drab and dreary first half. Berglund seemed
remarkably invigorated when he took to the podium again, and from
the moment the strings started playing their striking opening figure
it was clear this was an entirely different calibre of performance.
Suddenly every detail counted, every phrase was sculpted with the
greatest of care, every note was dripping with character and poise.
Tellingly, the frequency – not to mention the quality –
of Berglund’s gestures was greatly increased, and this extra
level of communication inspired some wonderful playing from the LPO.
Textures were vividly realised, the winds in particular contributing
some authentically Scandinavian sounds, with brass interjecting grandly
and faultlessly. After a nigh-on perfect first movement, Berglund
gave a dramatic and well-paced account of the Andante, which
sounded very much the tone poem it began life as. Though rather on
the quick side, he took the “ma rubato” tempo
indication literally and his conducting here had the sort of well-controlled
rhythmic flexibility that would doubtless have been effective in the
earlier Elgar had Berglund been so inclined.
If one had to fault Berglund at all in this work though, it would
only be in his handling of the third movement, which was just a little
scrappy in places and failed to build up quite the right level of
excitement to really launch the big, anthemic tune which opens the
finale. The strings dug in when that tune reappeared towards the end,
to stirring effect, but Berglund saved the real emotional climax for
the ‘crescendo theme’ that followed: swirling strings
accompanying a foreboding, ever-building set of repetitions that finally
erupted in a great shout of D major. The Brucknerian chorale with
which the symphony ended was even more magnificent, Berglund adopting
a slow, grand tempo that inspired just the right level of awe to earn
him a justifiably enthusiastic response from the audience.
He looked ten years younger as he soaked up that applause and it was
hard to believe this was the same old man who had delivered such eminently
forgettable music just an hour ago. Perhaps there was something in
the water after all.
Tristan Jakob-Hoff
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