SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Boulez: Livre pour cordes
Messiaen: Poèmes pour Mi
Bruckner: Symphony No 4 in E flat major ‘Romantic’ (1874 version)


The programming of this concert was extremely imaginative, with Boulez as the corresponding reference point in each work: as the composer; as the pupil of Messiaen and admirer of his music; and as the more recent admirer of the music of Bruckner whose work, like that of Messiaen, was influenced by the past but spoke of the future. Boulez’s ‘Livre’ has its origins in an early string quartet and was re-composed rather than re-worked for string orchestra. And even though it lasts just over ten minutes it is a kind of modern locus classicus compendium of orchestral string composition. ‘Livre’ has its textural origins in works like Debussy’s ‘Jeux’, and takes its serial form from Schoenberg and Webern. Rather than having any sense of a narrative development of motifs or melody, ‘livre’ is a ceaseless play of multiple rhythmic elaborations which cascade into increasingly complex clusters of elliptical sound configurations to articulate a semblance of harmonic structure giving the impression of a filigree of multiple mirrors. Tonight Harding had obviously rehearsed the LSO string section well. Most of Boulez’s complex configurations were audible and well balanced. However I had the impression here of a ‘livre’ which sounded a little too smooth and polite. I heard none of the mercurial edginess I experienced in a Chicago SO radio transmision with the composer conducting. Having said that I applaud Harding for programming such a complex and exacting work.

Sally Matthews was attuned to every contrasting nuance and characterisation in Messiaen’s ‘Poèmes pour Mi’: from the calm and subdued joy of the first song ‘Action de Graces’ (the husbands avowal of thanks to God for the loved one in marriage), to the vision of Hell depicted in ‘Epouvante’( the thought of losing the earthly love based on the divine model). All the nine songs, concerned with the sacrament of marriage, were delivered by Matthews with consumate empathy for Messiaen’s idiom of progressive (for 1937) chromatic harmony and melody. This empathy was complemented resoundingly by Harding and the LSO. Messiaen’s sensuous evocations (particularly in the eighth song ‘Le collier’- the ‘necklace’) were most beguilingly articulated in strings and woodwind, perfectly matching Matthew’s sultry vocal phrasing. Here and there I thought Francoise Pollet’s French ( in the Boulez recording) more telling especially in the sixth song ‘Ta voix’. But then, Pollet is French Also in that same recording, the Cleveland Orchestras string section sustain a more shimmering pp.. There was some excellent music making tonight both orchestrally and vocally with a rare sense of dialogue and understanding between conductor, orchestra and soprano.

Harding took something of a risk in programming Bruckner’s first (1874) version of his fourth symphony. The revised version of 1878/80 is overwhelmingly the version most preferred by conductors both those who specialise in Bruckner, and those who do not. In both musical and concert projection this is understandable - in terms of the later revised versions’ superior structural coherence and economy of musical ideas. But having said that, the composer’s first version is fascinating in slightly perverse ways, and as a tantalising insight into the evolution of his composing methods. You can almost hear the composer struggling with musical ideas in terms of content and form; a kind of Brucknerian compositional workshop. Indeed Bruckner structured his first versions with no regard for the players or listeners, working, as it were, from the drawing board, proceeding from the basic information of the familiar organ register technique which stands in total opposition to linear counterpoint,. and also from freely manipulated tonal effects. All the thematic material in the first version is recognisable in the more familiar revised version except in the third movement scherzo (which here hardly resembles anything alluding to a joke)! In fact the first scherzo, deriving as it does from the interval of a fifth, heard in the long and varying exposition of the first movement, creates a more coherent thematic link than in the revised edition. The scherzo and trio of the revised edition in fact has nothing whatsoever in common with the first version. Whereas the revised scherzo is more recognisable as a hunting movement with bucolic horn rhythms in the German Romantic style, the first version registers its structural contour through chromatic textures which create a contrast between compact blocks and the repeated first horn call. The contrast between this and the fifths, fourths and sixths of the oboe theme in the trio is something of a textbook example of inverted intervals and contrasted texture; and as such more musically compelling than the revised version.

Bruckner’s tonal modulation is more complex in the first version incorporating quite remote tonal clusters in relation to the home key of E flat major. The combination of C minor, D minor and F sharp minor in modulation in the first movement is just one example from which Bruckner develops massively extended repetititive ostinatos. These give way to plaintive bi-tonal refrains in the upper Austrian landler mould thus introducing stunning, almost perverse contrasts. The bi-tonal ostinato figures in the long finale give full voice to the grotesque element in Bruckner’s musical make-up…massive tutti organ inflected orchestral climaxes which often derive from the most naïve folk dance rhythms.

Harding handled all this with utter conviction, most importantly conveying a sense of movement and contrast throughout the whole work. There were moments of orchestral roughness especially in the brass section but if anything this added to the grotesque aspect of Bruckner’s first version. Overall the LSO, very well rehearsed, responded excellently to Bruckner’s and Harding’s demands. I look forward to hearing more Bruckner from Harding, starting perhaps with the revised, more often played, version of Bruckne’s flawed but magnificent symphony.

Geoff Diggines


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