SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Mozart, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky: Barry Douglas, cond. and piano, Camerata Ireland, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 24.3.2008 (BJ)


Conducting, that wonderful practitioner of the art Sir Charles Mackerras told me many years ago, is largely a matter of Ausstrahlung (radiation, emanation, or, as Gwendolyn Fairfax might have put it, producing vibrations). To conduct effectively, as Mackerras put it, “you have to be able to strahl aus.” Following in the footsteps of several among his older colleagues, among them Daniel Barenboim and Murray Perahia–not to mention Edwin Fischer in an earlier generation–Barry Douglas has added the podium to the piano bench among his haunts, and it must be said first of all that he strahls most effectively aus.

Though he has now lived in Paris for some years, Douglas is an Irish patriot, and nine years ago he founded Camerata Ireland, a chamber orchestra dedicated to offering a platform to talented young Irish instrumentalists. Together, he and the orchestra have already recorded a cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos, available on the Satirino label, that is notable not merely for its technical quality but for a freshness and zest that make even the “Emperor” Concerto–my least favorite among the five–sound like a better work than it is.

Returning to the United States for an extensive tour, Douglas and his players brought a program combining Mozart with three Russian composers to Seattle, and the results were mostly delightful. I regretted the change from the program originally announced, which was to have included a Haydn symphony; this was apparently due to economic constraints that meant sending the wind players home to make the closing segment of the tour financially viable. But a program containing Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the composer-sanctioned wind-less version of his E-flat-major Concerto, and ending with Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, had plenty going for it.

Aside from that quality of Ausstrahlung, Douglas’s leadership (without a baton, incidentally) demonstrated two complementary and equally essential conductorial skills: giving clear and unmistakable pointers to his players when they are needed, and staying out of the way when they aren’t. The most striking aspect of his conducting, it seemed to me, was its sheer naturalness–it is as if he and his orchestra have achieved an effortless symbiosis. And though the actual weight of string tone might with advantage, in this large hall, have been more substantial, the performances made up with delicacy of articulation and subtlety of dynamics what they could have been said to lack in sheer heft.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik was a case most definitely in point. Too often treated almost casually by performers, Mozart’s charming serenade benefitted on this occasion by a wonderfully perceptive pointing of contrasts between forceful statements and softer responses. I was disappointed only by Douglas’s omission of several of the repeats prescribed in the score. With the concerto, which concluded the first half of the program, Douglas the pianist, while leading his ensemble with authority, came emphatically into his own. This was no Dresden-china view of  the music, but rather–if I may put it so on this family web-site–Mozart with balls. Power and grace were ideally combined in this accomplished interpretation, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Of the three Russian works that made up the rest of the program, I found Prokofiev’s string-orchestra arrangement of the Andante movement from his First String Quartet a somewhat meandering piece, but the Camerata played it with impressive conviction, and the performance of Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, or “Basel Concerto,” was admirably taut in rhythm. A sumptuous reading of the Tchaikovsky Serenade brought the official proceedings to a close, but Douglas showed where his heart is with two encores: Phil Coulter’s arrangement of the Irish folk-song Home away from home, which magically teamed the piano with several accomplished orchestral soloists, and the more familiar “Irish Tune from County Derry” better known as Danny Boy. The standing ovation that greeted all of these performances was well deserved.

Bernard Jacobson

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