SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Beethoven and Shostakovich: Janine Jansen (violin), London Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda, Barbican Hall, London, 15.5.2008 (BBr)

Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, op.61 (1806)

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No.11 in G minor, The Year 1905, op.103 (1957)

Not for the first time did I find myself wondering about the lack of overtures in concerts; I really don’t find it satisfying to launch straight into the concerto. A touch of Coriolan or Egmont would have set the scene perfectly for the Concerto and the Symphony, but it was not to be.

This performance of the Beethoven Concerto really succeeded because Noseda chose tempi which perfectly suited the music – the first movement was a real Allegro; it was fast! The second movement was not too slow and the finale was fast. You cannot ask for much more than that. Noseda also refused to slacken the tempo when the music became lyrical – one tempo per movement was good enough for Beethoven and Noseda and Jansen agreed that the composer was right. They achieved much within this stricture.

The opening movement simply flew by, beautiful and simple, lovely woodwind phrasing, the music open and communicative without extra expression ladled on by the soloist. The slow movement was poised and thoughtful, with some gorgeous string playing, the finale danced from beginning to end.

It was a performance without affectation – it was Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, not Jansen’s Beethoven. Our Beethoven. Jansen played with a beauty of tone but I felt her to be somewhat reticent from time to time, notably at the start of phrases, but when she got into the music she really played well and made a lovely, if somewhat small, sound. Her generous offering of Bach as an encore was most welcome and she seemed more at home unaccompanied.

I have known Shostakovich’s 11^th Symphony for some forty years, ever since I bought the LPs of Stokowski’s recording, with the Houston Symphony (rom a man in a pub in Bradford!)  and I have always wondered why it needed to be so long. After tonight I know why – the music needs time to breathe.

Written to commemorate the abortive 1905 revolution, which was 52 years before composition, not 40 years as the programme book told us, the four movements play without a break and the work is unified by the use of revolutionary songs. There are two types of music in this Symphony – active and in repose, which share material and interact. The music of repose is heard fully in the first and third movements – slow string chords, hushed harmonies, with ominous calls from muted trumpets in the first and a fully developed use of the song You fell as a sacrifice in the third; a threnody for the fallen. The even numbered movements are active, the second seeming to contain a vivid depiction of cavalrymen shooting at the, unarmed, demonstrators on the Odessa steps and the battleship Potemkin firing on the part of the city which contained the headquarters of the Imperial Military Authorities. The finale is a grotesque military march which includes reminiscences of earlier material culminating in another elegy, a full statement of the song Bare your heads! On this mournful day the shadow of a long night passed over the earth and the work ends with a defiant coda quoting O Tsar, our little father, the final bars full of ambiguity as the bells intone major and minor thirds over a unison G from the full orchestra.

What a performance Noseda led! He allowed the slow music the time it needed to breathe, nothing was rushed here, the tempo was always steady, the textures clear and luminous, at the end Christine Pedrill’s playing of Bare your heads was truly heart rending. The fast music is, more often than not, percussion driven and I cannot praise Rachel Gledhill enough for her performance on the side drum, leading the attack with a forthright and positive tone and approach. Noseda gave the orchestra its head when necessary and they made a jubilant noise, raucous and uncouth when necessary, obviously enjoying themselves under his leadership.

A magnificent performance of a work which, for too long, has seemed to be weakly constructed but which I now know to be a much stronger work than it’s ever been given credit for. Full marks to Noseda and the LSO for this hair raising and insightful performance.

Bob Briggs

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