Seen and Heard Concert
Review
Mozart, Wagner, Stravinsky, Strauss: Anna Larsson (contralto), London Philharmonic
Orchestra, Mark Elder (conductor), Queen Elizabeth Hall, 18.01.2006
(JPr)
I have to admit that I have never been
Mark Elder’s greatest fan and despite most of the kind words
in this review he remains, for me, too emotionally detached
from the music he conducts. His persona as he talked to the
audience so eloquently before the concert makes him appear
fairly unassuming, quiet and reserved and this is what comes
over in concerts however exceptionally (as in this evening)
the programme was conceived, played or sung.
With Mark Elder what is without doubt is
his musical intelligence and his involvement in arranging
the items performed created a very intelligent programme.
In his pre-performance talk to a scattering of people in the
Queen Elizabeth Hall (he deserved many more) he said everything
was there to lead up to the concluding item, Strauss’s Metamorphosen,
which could only be at the end of the evening. It also took
into account the more intimate venue. His comments on the
music will form the basis of this review because they are
of great interest (I hope?).
The opening Mozart symphony (No 34 in C)
was there not because it was his 250th birthday but due to it being ‘transparent and effervescent (with) the
world of Italian Opera not far away. Mozart composed it in
1780, it was the last he wrote in Salzburg and it
starts in the elemental world of C major, then explores
other keys before returning.’ He explained how he was trying
to see the effect of having the woodwind sitting in front
of the conductor, as well as using natural brass instruments
because of their ‘edgy, incisive sound’.
Elder considered there would then be ‘an
enormous jump’ from the Mozart to the Wesendonck Lieder
and Wagner’s music of ‘deep yearning, sadness and passion
sung by a genuinely low-voiced singer’ - why are they so reluctant
to use the word ‘contralto’ these days? He was intrigued by
the effect of hearing these songs sung by someone with a voice
a ‘third lower’ than we usually hear female singers sing them.
They were performed in the 1976 orchestration by Hans Werner
Henze.
Mathilde Wesendonck was married to Otto,
a wealthy silk merchant, whose wife and munificence was exploited
by Wagner. She was the inspiration behind Wagner composing
Tristan und Isolde and he set her fairly routine poetry
‘in an inspired way’ according to Elder. Wagner only orchestrated
the last one (Träume) and left the rest to Felix Mottl.
Elder recalled his continuing friendship with Henze and he
considers his version gives each song ‘a different, more delicate,
scale (that is) exquisite and detailed’. Henze, he said, has
always tried ‘different ways with music, often taking one
chord and splitting it between different instruments (there
is) a sense of chamber music because he gives himself a broader
palette.’
After the interval there was Stravinsky’s
Concerto in E flat for Chamber Orchestra. It is named ‘Dumbarton
Oaks’ and was his answer to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos,
written in 1938 as a 30th wedding anniversary gift for Robert Woods
Bliss living on an estate of that name outside Washington,
DC. Elder considered this an example of life definitely not
imitating art because what he referred to as music with lots
of ‘sparkle’ due to notes that are ‘short and pithy’ was written
by Stravinsky in Switzerland at one of his worst times. He
was living near the sanatorium where his daughter was dying
of tuberculosis. Mark Elder considers that in this piece ‘each
player has a separate responsibility like in the Wesendonck
Lieder as the instruments converse, share, argue in a
sort of game.’ He considers the composer’s ‘manipulation of
rhythm’ as ‘masterful’ resulting in ‘an immediately recognisable
sound world’.
Finally it was to be Metamorphosen,
Strauss’ elegy to the Allied bombing of Munich and Dresden,
both cities where he had had so much success. According to
Elder Strauss’s inspiration had been Goethe who as a literary
creator developed the concept of ‘metamorphosis’ because he
‘incubated many ideas in his imagination at any one time and
Strauss took it as a long-term developmental idea’. For Elder
this has resulted in music that is ‘one arc of sound, from
a still beginning starting with sobbing cries it builds up
into anguish and anger, ending without reconciliation as we
hear intentional quotations from Beethoven’s Eroica.’
Elder considered this music was like a ‘door opening in his
soul to find music he had not otherwise composed. Having a
grip on the narrative he had not otherwise achieved. His music
cries for us all and it is one of his most profound and poignant
legacies. Strauss who was from a bygone age showing his concern
for a Germany he and his contemporaries had known that was
now gone.’ (I, myself, may add that there may well have been
a certain expression of guilt too in the music.)
I have considered Mark Elder’s reflections
at length as they are a fascinating justification for spending
an evening listening to classical music but yet again how
many in the audience (apart from those at his talk) would
have any grasp of the intellectual thoughts behind the musical
items they were hearing? Certainly the cut-and-paste printed
programme never considered any of this. When will this get
home to the publication managers of the various orchestras
and concert halls? A friend with me at this concert said something
very profound as we were leaving, something along the lines
of ‘that music plays in the world all the time but only takes
real form when it is performed’ and I wish more of the modern
day concert audiences were attuned that way. Perhaps introductions
like Mark Elder’s should be part of the concert proper and
not just added-on so everyone really understands what
they are hearing?
And finally how was the music I hear you
ask? Well despite Mark Elder’s sang-froid I guess the
evening had something personal and compelling for everyone.
For me it was the immensely tall and striking figure of Anna
Larsson focusing on each of the Lieder to give them each a
profound individuality by utilizing every facet of her extraordinary
contralto voice and technique. Elsewhere, groups of London
Philharmonic Orchestra players gave wonderfully assured, technically
impeccable performances giving rhythmic life to the Mozart
and Stravinsky, heartache to the Wagner and deep resignation
to the Strauss. Perhaps the woodwind in the Mozart still had
some of their solo lines lost in the mélange from the brass
without their valves. Also was I alone in hearing just a little
more turmoil in Dumbarton Oaks than Mark Elder expected
us to find?
At the end we had the 23 solo string players
Strauss requested with the coup de concert being that
they were all (apart from the cellists) standing and given
free range to make physical their response to the varying
moods the composer embroidered into Metamorphosen.
No one exemplified this more than the London Philharmonic’s
virtuoso leader, Boris Garlitsky, whose animated intensity
probably had more impact on his colleagues - and accounted
for more of the emotional impact of the ‘In Memoriam’ final
bars - than Mark Elder’s conducting had ever done.
© Jim Pritchard
