SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Beethoven: Maria João Pires (piano) London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner (conductor) Barbican, 7.2.2008 (GD)

Overture: Prometheus
Piano Concerto No 4 in G major, op 58
Symphony No 3 in E flat, op 55, ‘Eroica’.


It was a nice piece of programming to include the ‘Prometheus’ overture as the opening number in an all Beethoven concert which ended with the ‘Eroica’. Not that the overture includes the music from the Ballet (‘Creatures of Prometheus’) which Beethoven later used in the ‘Eroica’s’ finale, but it was still a pertinent point of nominal cross-referencing. Gardiner skilfully managed to link the ‘slow’ and terse introduction to the overture’s main ‘Allegro’, here taken at a real (very fast) allegro assai. The LSO strings and woodwind were clearly taxed but managed some amazingly crisp and agile articulation with horns and trumpets cutting through string texture in ‘period’ style. Although Gardiner deployed a quite large (standard) compliment of strings, he mostly managed to effect this ‘period’/historically-informed style successfully. Throughout the concert, he wisely placed his violins antiphonally, with double basses on the far left of the orchestra in the German style; all to revealing effect. This was the second ‘cycle’ in a series of LSO/ Gardiner concerts which will include all of Beethoven’s symphonies interspersed with concertos and overtures. I would hope that Gardiner will make a separate CD including all, or most, of the Beethoven overtures, which as far as I know are not  recorded as yet.

The same rigour of ensemble was maintained throughout the concerto. But here Gardiner’s clipped phrasing and strict tempi did not always harmonise with the beautifully expressive playing of Pires. I simply didn’t have the feeling that Gardiner had adapted sufficiently to Pires’s interpretation. The G sharp minor/G major shifting modulations in the extended development section of the first movement did not flow in a way that allowed the piano/orchestra interplay to register as it should; though again Gardiner obtained some very clear and well articulated figurations in the celli, often smudged. Pires only seemed to come into her expressive own in the cadenza.

Gardiner took hold of the B minor (recitative-like) ‘orphic’ string figures which open the great second movement by ‘the scruff of the neck’ as music critics used to say - actually echoing the way Toscanini used to conduct this movement, but lacking something of the contrast that Toscanini allowed for the more subdued piano solo answers to the theme. Here again, Pires excelled in her lyrical and resigned contrasts reaching a beautifully contoured cadenza-like concluding resolve to anticipate the final ‘rondo’ vivace. Apart from a curious (if momentary) lapse in orchestral ensemble at the opening of the rondo, Pires phrasing and articulation were superb. In fact the rest of the rondo was only marred by some unnecessarily loud and relentless timpani figurations towards the concerto's end.

Gardiner launched the ‘Eroica’ in strict tempo, actually very close to Beethoven’s metronome marking of crotchet=60; once again with meticulous attention to detail, particularly to horn and woodwind phrasing and maintaining the ‘period’, more acerbic and lean sound very well. Because of this, I was all the more surprised when he introduced quite a large ritenuto just before the great horn clash at the height of the revolutionary - for its time -development section; which Tovey aptly called a ‘collision of shadowy harmonies’. When I arrived home, I played Gardiner’s recording of the work with his own period band the ’Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique’. Here Gardiner played the section virtually in strict tempo, which to my ears works much better and helps the cohesion of the whole movement. This sort of thing is associated with older ‘romantiker’ conductors like Fürtwangler from whom Gardiner is normally detached by light years! The first movement’s blazing coda was nicely judged in terms of balanced dynamics and sounded all the better minus the trumpets which where added later.

I was again impressed by Gardiners attention to detail in the ‘Marcia Funebre’ with the appoggiatura in the bass being particularly well phrased and the emphasis on the ‘marcia’ tread was also convincing. But by the time we came to the great C minor fugal section and climax, I was not especially aware of that great underlying line which a conductor like Klemperer understood so well. There was a general lack of structural cohesion and when the climax came I was peculiarly under-whelmed. Also, as noted earlier in the concerto, the finely marked timpani triplets in gradual crescendo just before the coda sounded too loud and relentless. These were also much better judged in Gardiner’s ‘period’ recording.

The concluding ‘Scherzo’, and the Finale all went quite well, although in both movements there were occasional moments of messy ensemble. The great tutti peroration of the ‘Prometheus’ theme before the finale’s coda, lacked the inevitable sense of nobility and resolve heard in the greatest performances which was partly to do with Gardiner's meticulous pointing of detail at the expense of overall line. Similarly, the blazing ‘presto’ coda sounded a shade detached from the rest of the movement with no feeling of a final blast of energy held in reserve. As I have made clear already, I find Gardiner’s recording of the ‘Eroica’ far more convincing. But there he was working with a specialized ‘period’ orchestra over a longer time span. Overall however, this was a fine and mostly interesting performance, but not managing quite the degree of ‘greatness’ which the ‘Eroica’ is ultimately all about.

Geoff Diggines