Daniel Harding - A Portrait,  Rihm, Mahler: London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding (conductor) Barbican Hall, London 9.05.2007 (JPr)

 

Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the London music scene is the many free pre-concert performances and other introductory events put on by our major orchestras. The London Symphony Orchestra precedes several of their concerts with complementary repertoire performed by senior musicians from the local Guildhall School of Music. On this occasion young singers accompanied by François Salignat at the piano, sang selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Rückert Lieder. No biographies were offered and of the four who performed, the best were Lukas Kargl, a baritone with an eloquent voice, secure throughout the range as he sang a number of Wunderhorn songs, and Sara Gonzales Saavedra, who despite a little vocal hesitancy sang the Rückert with a warm tone and delicate use of a seemingly powerful mezzo voice.

The composer Wolfgang Rihm was born in Karlsruhe in 1952. He studied composition with Eugen Werner Velte at the Musikhochschüle Karlsruhe from 1968-72 and attended Darmstadt in 1970. He then studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne in 1972-73 and with Klaus Huber in Freiburg/Breisgau from 1973-76. He also studied musicology with Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht and received encouragement from Wolfgang Fortner and Humphrey Searle. He taught at the Musikhochschüle Karlsruhe from 1973-78 and there again as professor for composition since 1985. He is a prolific composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal, and piano works that have been performed throughout the world. And I do not use the term prolific lightly … just Google and find out if you do not know much about the number of works he has produced!

Whisper who dares … but is it quantity over quality? Perhaps yes, on this my one-off (so far) experience. This 1995 composition was inspired, apparently, by the Venetian ‘polychoral’ style for whose St Mark’s cathedral for which it was intended. It appears to be something of an homage to the twentieth-century Venice born composer Luigi Nono, with a central and insistent focus around a single note, in this case F sharp. The sounds of In-Schrift  were for me a fleeting impression of music and at times the tubular bells, drums and deep brass with minimal input from cellos or double basses, despite a few moments of respite, merely produced a cacophony that dragged on and on for 20 minutes. Perhaps I am missing something, but it reminded me of Act IV of A Midsummer Night’s Dream where the play to be performed is described as ‘tedious brief’ and ‘tragical mirth’ or the daubings of Cheeta the world’s oldest chimpanzee whose paintings sell - but are they art? The commitment of the players to performing this new ‘music’ is to be commended and the London Symphony Orchestra were their usual impressive selves throughout the evening.

For Daniel Harding this was the latest in a series of concerts celebrating his appointment as the LSO’s principal guest conductor. He is also music director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and one would think, like his oft-quoted ‘mentor’ Sir Simon Rattle, he has an affinity for Mahler. Unlike Rattle who once served up a Mahler Fifth lasting just over an hour, for me Harding’s was a rather overblown affair of well over seventy minutes.

Backed up by trumpet solos that were never short of magnificent, Harding established a measured tread right from the start. The orchestra was incessantly loud, having a dark tone that was dramatic and full of fear. In the ‘Stürmisch bewegt’ (also described as ‘with the greatest vehemence’) movement the music did not seem to have anywhere to go as the tension had already been cranked up. This made the movement's final section leading to the climactic outburst (marked ‘plaintive’) strangely forced and muted. I suspect that for reasons not unrelated to tempo that for most listening this performance had the sweep and grandeur expected for Mahler. I thought it was all rather unrelenting, and this continued through the Scherzo with its supposed impressionistic waltz music that here showcased the polished sound of the LSO’s wonderful brass section. It then continued somewhat into the Adagietto and on to the Finale. After the Adagietto I must have misread my watch and for one horrifying moment thought it read 14 minutes, taking this ‘love song without words’ for Alma into Haitink territory … I guess it was over 9 minutes and even then seemed too long and still too much of a elegiac lament.

I think the opening to the symphony needs to be faster and the Adagietto should be that flowing love song inspired by ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’. The Finale, a hybrid of rondo, sonata, fugue, and chorale, must be left with something to vanquish and that is the doubts, contradictions, uncertainties of life and love. In Harding’s portentous account there was nothing left to reconcile and I left the concert hall feeling a little emptier that when I sat down.

At the end ‘where was the love?’ was my final reflection on a performance that was enthusiastically received by the Barbican audience. I am sure over the coming years Harding will conduct a Mahler Fifth that will resound more with me and I think if he intellectualises a bit less and trusts rather more in an historical examination of what Mahler intended I am sure this will be sooner rather than later.

Jim Pritchard